A Citizen's Guide to Indiana

Masson's Blog

SJR 7: Bosma’s clarifying resolution

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I just posted a comment at Advance Indiana in response to that blog’s apt criticism of House Minority Leader, Brian Bosma’s proposal to “clarify” the intent of SJR 7. Bosma essentially wants to offer a “statement of legislative intent” to tell the courts what the legislature “really” meant when it passed SJR 7, particularly the second sentence which prohibits a court from construing a law as conveying an incident of marriage to an unmarried couple (even if, presumably, the law conveys an incident of marriage to an unmarried couple.)

First, unlike Congress, Indiana doesn’t do legislative histories. I’ve never seen the Indiana courts go to a resolution of the General Assembly to divine intent. Maybe that’s happened somewhere, I don’t know. But, I do know that the courts won’t go fishing around for legislative intent if the language in the legislation is clear. If the law says “up,” the court won’t pay any attention to a resolution that says the General Assembly really meant “down.”

Seems to me that proposing a clarifying resolution is basically admitting that the General Assembly did not do its job in the first place. It didn’t clearly articulate the law it was seeking to impose. I’m fairly certain this is a feature, not a bug, for certain politicians — if they stated their intent clearly, the electorate would run screaming.

The drafting manual used by Legislative Services when drafting legislation for the Indiana General Assembly says, with respect to “purpose provisions”:

“(2) Purpose Provisions [see also BILL PREAMBLE, Page 25]

A well-drafted act requires no statement of what it seeks to accomplish or the reasons prompting its enactment. Do not include language stating the purpose of an act or reciting the facts upon which an act is predicated unless the included language would be useful in upholding the act against constitutional attack or is necessary to give meaning to a provision for liberal construction.”

There will be no “constitutional attack” here — after all this will *be* the Constitution. If clarity in drafting is a priority in creating ordinary legislation, seems to me it should be doubly so with respect to Constitutional draftsmanship.

A couple of thoughts

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I haven’t really had a chance to read the news this morning, opting instead to play with my kids (we took a walk around the neighborhood – Cole on his bike and Harper in the backpack). But, I had a couple of thoughts as I scanned some of the blogs this morning.

First, Thomas over at Blue Indiana has a post that mentions the fact that Gov. Daniels has never had to work anything out with Democrats during his term. It occurs to me that the next couple of weeks will really be the best indicator of how effective he is as a Governor of Indiana. The first two years weren’t really a test because his party controlled everything. Next year probably won’t be a good indicator because both parties will be more obstinate than usual with a big election coming up. Right now is crunch time for the Governor’s legislative proposals. He controls his own office. The Senate is packed with Republicans. And the House has only a slim majority of Democrats. Seemingly, it would not be too much to ask for him to manage enough bipartisan negotiating skill to get his proposals past a relatively low hurdle. Bayh and O’Bannon did a reasonably good job with the much tougher task of getting past Sen. Garton and a Senate dominated by the opposition. So, we’ll see how Gov. Daniels fares under these more favorable conditions.

Left in Aboite has a post about an effort called Blog Against Theocracy. This effort makes me a little uneasy for reasons that I cannot yet fully articulate. I have been pretty clear in my opposition to Dominionist political efforts and influence. But this effort feels broader somehow. Maybe I’m wrong, but the tone of Blog against Theocracy doesn’t seem to make nice distinctions between people of faith who hold certain moral and world views but are content to live and let live while doing their best to improve the world and those people who don’t do much to improve the world but, instead, spend their energy seeking to make government a vector for their views. I’m o.k. with the former, very opposed to the latter. Just to be clear, however, that’s just the initial “vibe” I get from Blog against Theocracy, not the result of any kind of thorough examination.

If

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Today, I ran across “If” by Rudyard Kipling and liked it. So, here it is:

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream – and not make dreams your master,
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings – nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son!

Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)

Is it time or past time?

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I have a Google News search set up to look for “Indiana ‘Daylight Saving'”. I was amused by the first two headlines in that section today:

It’s time to solve Indiana’s problem with time
Evansville Courier & Press


It’s past time to stop fretting about DST
South Bend Tribune

The South Bend Tribune entry is a letter to the editor from a citizen who thinks that there are so many other more important things to worry about so “Why can’t the people of South Bend and surrounding areas let it go and put energy into real problems that have a negative effect on our world?” One might have asked the same question of the DST proponents who labored for decades to get rid of year round standard time.

The Evansville Courier Press column by John Gottcent suggests that the question of what time it is in Indiana was “greatly simplified” through last year’s implementation of Daylight Saving Time. He laments the fact that a time conscious driver, going from Evansville to Chicago, would have to change his or her watch at least twice. He also likens the flip-flopping time zone counties to “spoiled children” who first want one thing, and then another. The solution? Everybody on Central Time, just like Mitch Daniels proposed when he was running for Governor.

John Cole is thankful for Schumer, Kennedy, Leahy et al

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As I’ve mentioned before and probably will again, one conservative blogger I’ve been following for a long while is John Cole over at Balloon Juice. Truth is, my antipathy toward George Bush and religious zealotry notwithstanding, I’m not really all that liberal. So, back before it became obvious to just about everyone what a Bad Idea the Bush administration has become, I liked to read John Cole because, while he was a conservative, he seemed like a reasonable sort. Thing is, his reasoning has long since turned him against the Republican Party. The wheels started coming off when Bush made a special trip to sign the Schiavo legislation. And, since then, he’s been busily littering the Road to Damascus with scales from his eyes.

Today, he’s going so far as to express happiness that guys like Chuck Schumer, Ted Kennedy, and Pat Leahy are in power.

What has to happen is thoroughly repudiating [the Bush administration and their supporters] and their works. A notoriously fickle electorate has to keep them at bay. An obviously venal opposition has to rebuild the cage of laws around itself rather than running joyously rampant. I don’t like our chances, honestly.
. . .
It isn’t just a bad apple, as the whole barrel has gone bad. NASA, the FDA, Justice, FEMA, or, this week, the Department of the Interior and the GSA. Hell, do I even need to list them all? I am terrified to think what we will learn has been done with the IRS, and God only knows what is going on at Homeland Security. It is almost as if after years of accusing the Clinton administration of being the most crooked administration ever, they decided to experiment and see if they could be worse than their claims. Their success has been unparalleled in modern political history.

So let’s all hear it for Waxman, Leahy, Schumer, Kennedy, and all the other partisan attack dogs on the side of the Democrats. I don’t for one minute share their political beliefs, and I still think Schumer would run over a handicapped kid to get in front of a microphone, but I sure as hell am glad they are in office. The hacks and the partisans and the phonies and the frauds are in charge, they are deeply entrenched, and it is going to take a bunker buster to root ‘em out.

HB 1241 – Physician Assistants

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(H/t to Mr. Stinson for the heads up) House Bill 1241 – Physician assistants. Passed out of committee and is headed to the Senate floor.

Authorizes a physician to delegate to a physician assistant duties that are within the supervising physician’s scope of practice, including prescribing and dispensing certain drugs and medical devices. Requires that a supervising physician must be either: (1) physically present at the location where services are performed by the physician assistant; or (2) immediately available for consultation and in the county or a contiguous county of the location where the services are being rendered or at a hospital or health facility. Requires the supervisory agreement between the physician and the physician assistant to include certain information and be approved by the medical licensing board. Establishes requirements for a physician assistant to prescribe certain drugs. Requires the patient to be seen by the physician in certain circumstances. Changes references from certification to licensure of physician assistants. Makes certain other changes concerning the physician assistant committee and licensure of physician assistants.

If Dr. T is around, I’d be interested in his take on this legislation.

Stop the Presses: The Rich get richer, the poor get poorer

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The New York Times has an article entitled Income Gap Is Widening, Data Shows.

Income inequality grew significantly in 2005, with the top 1 percent of Americans those with incomes that year of more than $348,000 receiving their largest share of national income since 1928, analysis of newly released tax data shows.

The top 10 percent, roughly those earning more than $100,000, also reached a level of income share not seen since before the Depression.

While total reported income in the United States increased almost 9 percent in 2005, the most recent year for which such data is available, average incomes for those in the bottom 90 percent dipped slightly compared with the year before, dropping $172, or 0.6 percent.

The gains went largely to the top 1 percent, whose incomes rose to an average of more than $1.1 million each, an increase of more than $139,000, or about 14 percent.

The new data also shows that the top 300,000 Americans collectively enjoyed almost as much income as the bottom 150 million Americans. Per person, the top group received 440 times as much as the average person in the bottom half earned, nearly doubling the gap from 1980.

“Largest share of national income since 1928.” Hmm, seems like something economically significant was just around the corner in 1928.

Kung Fu Monkey on 300

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Kung Fu Monkey has some interesting thoughts on Frank Miller’s 300. I haven’t seen the movie, but it seems like something I’d probably enjoy. I’ve always really liked the story of Thermopylae, and recall enjoying Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. Kung Fu Monkey liked the movie too, but notes that it has some very anti-American features, most notably the Spartans’ mocking of the amateur soldier.

At one point in 300, the Spartan narrator even tosses an offhand compliment to the Greeks. “Amateurs. They did their job … More brawlers than soldiers.” (I’m quoting from memory here). That bit of dialogue would fit perfectly in the mouth of the standard Dismissive Authority Figure in about a thousand American movies, who will Soon Be Proven Wrong.