A Citizen's Guide to Indiana

Masson's Blog

Dems run against Daniels, DST & the Toll Road

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Amy Hillenberg has an article in the Reporter Times entitled “House Democrat Strategy Targets Daniels”. (Hmm, the same story ran in the South Bend Tribune and elsewhere under Mike Smith’s name.) The story takes a look at Rep. Dave Crooks campaign strategy. His first ad features woman complaining about Gov. Daniels and how he was able to pass Daylight Saving Time and privatize Indiana’s Toll Road:

“Mitch Daniels is going around changing our clocks, and he let foreign companies take over our highways,” a woman says in the ad. It looks past the election, saying that’s when “we got rid of a bunch of boys who were just rubber stamps for ol’ Mitch.”

The “boys” refers to Republicans who control the House, 52-48. All but a handful helped Daniels win passage of statewide daylight-saving time. And it took 51 of the 52 to pass a bill letting Daniels lease the Indiana Toll Road to a private, foreign venture. No House Democrat voted for it.

Hoosiers oppose Daylight Saving Time 49% to 44% and oppose the Toll Road privatization 55% to 39%. These issues have affected at least one voter, according to the story:

[Daniels] has certainly turned off Dale Shake of Washington, Ind., who said he was a lifelong Republican who voted for Daniels in 2004. He said he received a poll call that asked him to rate the governor’s performance between one and five.

“I came back and said, ‘Do you have anything below that one?”’ said Shake, 65. He said he was upset about the northern Indiana toll road lease – even though he lives in Daviess County in southwest Indiana – and the time switch.

He said he had known and liked Crooks’ Republican opponent, Ron Arnold, for years. But because of Daniels, he’s going to vote for Crooks.

IN-09: Free Eats lawsuit seeking permission to robocall Hoosiers

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As readers will no doubt be aware, Swiftboat mastermind Bob Perry funded the “Economic Freedom Fund.” In an effort to aid Mike Sodrel’s campaign in Indiana’s 9th District, that organization went out and hired a company by the name of FreeEats.com Inc. to have its computers make robocalls playing pre-recorded messages attacking Sodrel’s challenger, Baron Hill.

Trouble is, this violates Indiana law. IC 24-5-14 prohibits use of an “automatic dialing-announcing device” unless the recorded message to be played is immediately preceded by a live operator who obtains the phone customer’s consent before the message is delivered. This, of course, defeats the purpose of robocalls – they want to be able to push a button and have their computers bombard as many Hoosiers as possible with their recordings, not have to pay an actual live person to make the calls, and certainly they don’t want to give the target an opportunity to say “no.”

Enter Attorney General Steve Carter. To his credit, Carter has been extremely active in trying to protect Hoosiers from intrusions via their telephones. He understands that few things get citizens angrier than having their phone ring, particularly at inconvenient times, only to have it be a telemarketer or, in this case even worse, a *$#@ computer droning on about how bad Baron Hill is or how great Mike Sodrel is. So, seeking to enforce the state ban on robocalls, on September 18, 2006, the AG’s office filed a civil enforcement action against Perry’s “Electronic Freedom Fund” and John Does 1-10 in the Circuit Court of Brown County under Cause Number 07C01-0609-MI-425.

Recognizing that, sooner or later, it would fill one of those “John Doe” slots, Free Eats.com d/b/a ccAdvertising filed a Complaint (pdf) in the Southern District of Indiana seeking a declaration that the state law prohibiting robocalls is pre-empted by federal law (specifically 47 USC 227) and/or unconstitutional and also seeking an injunction against the Attorney General attempting to enforce the act. The Attorney General filed its motion seeking to dismiss the federal action on the grounds of an ongoing state action involving the same matter in which Free Eats is free to seek the same relief.

I haven’t read the opinion since my Westlaw subscription doesn’t extend that far, but it looks like the 8th Circuit considered and rejected the preemption argument. The preemption argument basically says that the federal government has acted in this area and, by doing so, is exercising exclusive control over the subject matter and has prevented the states from acting on their own. Under the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution, the federal law would govern. In Van Bergen v. State of Minnesota, 59 F3d 1541 (8th Cir. 1995), the court found that a Minnesota statute regulating use of telephone automatic dialing-announcing devices was not preempted by the federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) because 1) the Act did not expressly preempt statute; 2) the
Act carried no implication that Congress intended to preempt state law; 3) a Congressional finding suggested that Act was intended not to supplant state law but to provide interstitial law preventing evasion of state law by calling across state lines, and 4) the statute was not in actual conflict with the Act.

Legalities aside, this whole robo-calling  approach, particularly one receiving as much publicity as this one, is likely to hurt the candidates they’re designed to support — in this case Mike Sodrel. As a voter, would you be more or less likely to vote for a candidate using computers to call you during dinner or whatever just to play you a pre-recorded message; then running to a federal judge seeking to strike down state laws designed to protect you from such intrusion?

IN-09: More on pro-Sodrel robo-calls

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TPM Muckraker continues to investigate the company hired by Swiftboater Bob Perry that has barraged citizen’s phones with anti-Hill robo-calls in the 9th District race.

The company, called ccAdvertising and also doing business under the name FreeEats.com (and apparently thousands of other names) is also in the habit of hijacking other company’s identities on caller-IDs.

Mike Sodrel, the beneficiary of these anti-Hill robocalls better get on top of this. You sleep with dogs, you get fleas.

First Republicans

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Advance Indiana brings us news of First Republicans, a group apparently devoted to returning the Republican party to its roots. (Or at least as far back as Eisenhower and Goldwater — I’m not sure they’d be in favor of Lincoln’s expansion of the federal government’s powers or Teddy Roosevelt’s trust busting crusades.) They are proponents of fiscal conservatism and social tolerance, and they certainly have my ear. That sounds like the Republican party in which I was raised, and I would certainly be pleased if the principles espoused by this group were once again embraced by the Republicans. My suspicion is that, federally anyway, the Republicans will have to spend a season or two in the wilderness before folks like these will be able to wrest control from the social conservatives who currently dominate the politics at that level.

And, they have a blog.

State Democrats propose minimum wage increase

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Rep. Vern Tincher announced plans of the state Democratic party to introduce legislation to raise the minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25 over two years. Since the federal government hasn’t amended the federal law, Indiana Democrats intend to do it at the state level.

According to Rep. Troy “I’ll Never Vote For It” Woodruff:

A minimum wage is not going to help a family of four that are struggling to get by. We can give them a little more money in their pocket, but the reality is most businesses are already paying around $7.00 an hour.

. . .

“To be quite honest, it just wouldn`t have an impact on the economy one way or the other. I`m more concerned about finding real jobs that pay real living wages, not minumum wages.”

Tincher somewhat agrees, but says inflation alone warrants an increase.

“I think we need a reasonable minimum wage. $5.15 an hour generates just over $10,000 a year for a worker and no one can survive on $10,000 a year.”

But anyone making minimum wage will have to survive. At least until the Statehouse can re-consider.

On a professional level, I think the wage increase would help my collections business a bit – – at least so long as the feds don’t increase their minimum wage requirements. I do a lot of collections and, as such, have a lot of clients with judgments against people who don’t make very much money. The garnishment statute says that you can’t garnish wages that are below 30 times the federal minimum wage per week. So, at $5.15, that means anything below $154.50. So, legislation that helps get those folks above $154.50 per week without raising the floor of garnishable wages is likely to help pay those judgment debts a bit faster.

On a personal level, I think the $154.50 per week floor is ridiculously low. If you’re making $200 per week, you are subject to garnisment of $46.50 per week ($232.50 per month) and expected to live on the rest. Good luck with that.

Still, I’d be interested to know how many workers are making less than $7 per hour.

Rep. Orentlicher on improving access to health care

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The August 10, 2006 Minutes of the Select Joint Commission on Medicaid Oversight describes an interesting presentation by Rep. Orentlicher on expanding access to health care for uninsured and underinsured individuals. He described the Tennessee approach and the Oregon approach, both of which had initial success but both states had returned to their initial rate of uninsured citizens by 2005. (Could be the systems didn’t work very well or it could be that they were just sufficient to stem the tide of uninsureds between inception and the present.) Rep. Orentlicher described the Veterans Health Administration as a model for reengineering health care delivery. The budget’s plan remained flat between 1995 and 2000 while patients increased by 40%. (Seems like the Oregon and Tennessee plans had problems between 2000 and 2005 — I wonder what the VA data looks like for that period.)

The VA approach has resulted in a shift from hospital based care to out patient care; an 11% decrease in staffing; a significant reduction in forms; and savings in the pharmacy management program. Rep. Orentlicher suggests a pilot program based on the VA model for Medicaid recipients in Marion County to receive services at Wishard Hospital along with a buy-in program for small businesses. As part of the presentation, Lee Livin, CFO of Wishard Hospital gave testimony. He stated that at Wishard, only 10% of their patients are commercially insured, and approximately 36% are uninsured by any source. He suggested that a viable insurance product can be marketed to small businesses at a minimum average monthly premium of $150 to $175 per individual. (So, for a family of 4, this means at least a $600/month premium — $7,200 per year. The federal poverty guidelines put 2006 poverty level for a family of 4 at $20,000 per year income. A family at 200% of the poverty level would be spending 18% of their pre-tax income on health insurance premiums.)

Rep. Tim Brown commended Rep. Orentlicher on his efforts but also pointed out that VA healthcare and Medicaid weren’t exactly comparable because of the differing populations that they serve.

KO: The free pass has been withdrawn, Mr. Bush

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Keith Olbermann has taken extreme exception to the recent attempts by the Bush administration and its proxies, particularly Walt Disney and the “hyenas at Fox” to place blame for 9/11 on President Clinton. To listen to the narrative being concocted, one would think that we fast forwarded directly from the Monical Lewinsky impeachment to 9/12/01. In particular the 8 months of the Bush administration prior to 9/11 are completely ignored. Richard Clarke’s efforts to bring bin Laden and the risks of terrorism to the President’s attention are completely ignored. Condoleeza Rice’s fixation on missile defense are completely ignored. John Ashcroft’s actions seeking to reduce the counterterrorism budget prior to 9/11 are completely ignored. Instead, now, shortly before the 2006 elections, we get a concerted effort to pin the blame for 9/11 on the Clinton administration. Blaming no one is perhaps understandable — the events of 9/11 were so tragic, and clearly bin Laden and al Qaeda deserve our wrath, that our time, energy, and resources are better served trying to eliminate them. But, now 5 years later, with time, energy, and resources already having been diverted to a needless war with and occupation of Iraq, and finally an effort to blame Bill Clinton for 9/11, Olbermann’s ire is entirely appropriate:
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Through the looking glass: The race to replace Garton

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Stop me if you’ve heard this one: a Flogger, a Libertarian, and a Conservative Democrat were running for office . . .

O.k., so we’re all still waiting for the punchline. But, Mary Beth Schneider has a story for the Indianapolis Star giving us the set up for the increasingly peculiar race to fill Bob Garton’s Senate seat. As you may recall, Greg “the Flogger” Walker unseated long-time Senate President pro tem, Bob Garton, largely with the assistance of hardcore pro-life groups upset that Garton didn’t make a priority of legislation designed to make it difficult or impossible for doctors to perform abortion procedures for their patients. Consequently, time ran out during the short session, and the legislation never received an up or down vote.

Enter “the Flogger.” Greg Walker pulled off the upset against Garton with the support of the pro-life groups, capitalizing in large part on Garton’s wishy-washy stance on health care for legislators. But, it turns out, that Walker had written a letter to the editor in 2003 suggesting public flogging as an appropriate punishment. He later defended his support of public flogging as a biblically based punishment.

Running against Walker is a prominent Democratic attorney from Columbus by the name of Terry Coriden. Among other things, Coriden paid $150 to attend a fundraiser for Gov. Mitch Daniels in Columbus which Republican candidate Greg Walker did not attend. Coriden wanted to send a message that he intends to work with the Governor if given the chance. Coriden also opposes abortion, except in cases of rape, incest, or to save the mother’s life. (Walker would not support legislation that contained exceptions for rape or incest.)

Add to the mix, a Libertarian candidate by the name of Ken Gividen who attained a fair amount of name recognition in his unsuccessful campaign for Governor in 2004. As I recall (and Mr. Gividen may very well be along shortly to correct me if I’m wrong), he has a very libertarian philosophy with respect to economic issues but not so much with respect to social issues. For example, he was opposed to a student newspaper publishing an article on the dangers of oral sex. Mr. Gividen is more likely to draw voters from the ranks of Republicans than from Democrats in the district.

Gividen, who ran for state Senate in 2002, receiving 3,350 votes to nearly 22,000 for Garton, argued that his small-government, lower-taxes views make him “more Republican than the Republican candidate” and a good fit for GOP voters — if, that is, Republicans can be persuaded to vote for a different party.

“I’m not so much running against Greg as I’m running against that Republican button on the voting machine,” Gividen said.
If elected, he said, he’d caucus with the Republicans and would even consider becoming one, if he got “the blessing of Libertarians.”