The Fort Wayne News Sentinel editorial board makes this proclamation:
No other General Assembly in Indiana history has failed to pass a new budget, even when a special session was required. Legislators are under tremendous pressure to not become the first ones to fail.
This does not appear to be accurate. Eric Bradner of the Evansville Courier Press informs us that, during the Civil War, Governor Morton – a strong, pro-union type – wasn’t happy with the Democratic resistance to some of his less constitutional actions and had his Republican supporters in the General Assembly flee the area to prevent a quorum. As a result, no budget was passed and Gov. Morton essentially put the budget on the credit card or had supporters with deep pockets fund the state’s activities.
In addition, Professor DeBoer advises that “the legislature adjourned without passing a budget in 1873, and again in 1887. Apparently they muddled through using a combination of balances and borrowing, and a State Supreme Court ruling in 1889 (Hovey v. Foster) approved the use of debt.”
Seems like quite a flub on the part of the News-Sentinel. Fortunately, with education budgets looking to get cut in a number of places around the state, our kids will never learn enough history to spot the errors.
That’s funny, but my favorite part is your headline
I ripped it off, naturally.
My distain for America’s Third-Worst State Legislature™ (Motto: “Fourth, If You Count California As A State And Not An Asylum”) is exceeded by what I feel for people–and especially the jaded professional political observers in the Press–who imagine that the democratic process is, or should be, amenable to their notion of propriety or good sense. We have a Special Session because the Bantam Menace was about to get a budget he didn’t want, and one he didn’t want to have to veto, from the regular session, so he shot it down once the clock had wound down. You’d like to think that paid observers and interpreters of the process would understand that if they understood anything. Nothing wrong with the Governor exercising his power, but there’s a lot wrong with not owning up to it. Last night some local Indy channel or other splashed their graphic of “How much this is costing us”. Up yours, Jack! Where was that graphic when these bozos were debating spray-on tans, or while committee members rake in the per diem to shoot down another attempt to double-ban gay marriage? I remember a long and mostly worthless search trying to find out how much money Bosma had shunted to his pals in the “fight” to make the opening of each session into a tent revival. You wanna oppose waste, start with the biggest, most wasteful piles.
The budget is the most, maybe the only important thing these guys do. Complaining that it’s not done to your sense of propriety is worse than facile; why not go the distance and advocate making him Pope Mitch I?
Fantastic close!
http://indianaequality.typepad.com/
And the House seems distracted today, now that they have passed a budget and appointed conferees to do the real work behind closed doors, they feel the need to do some rightwing fundraising. Check the link. UGH.
Don’t let actual research and facts get in the way of a sensational story.
The Fort Wayne Sentinel motto—Apparently
Do they charge 75 cents for their rag like the South Bend Tribune has the nerve to ?
Bantam Menace, LOL!