A Citizen's Guide to Indiana

Masson's Blog

The Flipping Point: An environmental skeptic believes in global warming

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For those of you who think the existence of the phenomenon of global warming is debatable, Scientific American has an article by Michael Shermer entitled: “The Flipping Point: How the evidence for anthropogenic global warming has converged to cause this environmental skeptic to make a cognitive flip.” (Quite a mouthful.)

Apparently the approach used by the environmental activists had turned him off to their message in the past. His mind was changed by, among other things, a speech by Al Gore which included before-and-after photographs of disappearing glaciers as well as Jared Diamond’s excellent book, Collapse.

He closes with:

According to Flannery, even if we reduce our carbon dioxide emissions by 70 percent by 2050, average global temperatures will increase between two and nine degrees by 2100. This rise could lead to the melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet, which the March 24 issue of Science reports is already shrinking at a rate of 224 ±41 cubic kilometers a year, double the rate measured in 1996 (Los Angeles uses one cubic kilometer of water a year). If it and the West Antarctic Ice Sheet melt, sea levels will rise five to 10 meters, displacing half a billion inhabitants.

Because of the complexity of the problem, environmental skepticism was once tenable. No longer. It is time to flip from skepticism to activism.

IN-09: The Debate over debates

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Lesley Stedman Weidenbener has an article on the “debate over debates” in Indiana’s 9th District. Democrat Baron Hill is chiding Republican Mike Sodrel over his current reluctance to debate. Meanwhile, Libertarian Eric Schansberg is chiding Hill over his reluctance to debate him. It’s an interesting dynamic.

Says Weidenbener of Schansberg:

[I]t’s likely that neither Sodrel nor Hill will need additional publicity. The race will undoubtedly receive tremendous attention in the local and national media, and both candidates will have deep pockets to pay for whatever advertising they want.

Schansberg, though, will likely be looking for a little attention.

Sodrel’s chief of staff, Cam Savage, said the Republican wants to attend “multiple debates.” And it’s likely Hill and Schansberg will want the same.

The real question will likely be whether any debates that develop will include Schansberg.

After all, his chance of winning the race is slim to none, but his chance of affecting it is quite large.

In 2004, Sodrel had only about 1,400 more votes than Hill. So even if Schansberg takes just 2 percent or 3 percent or 4 percent of the vote, he could determine the outcome of the race.

Also, Schansberg is a professor, economist, prolific writer and articulate speaker. So it’s possible that he could hurt both of his opponents in a debate or at least stir up some issues that neither really wants to address.

I’ll be interested in Schansberg’s reaction when, presumably, the major candidates decline to include him in the debate. Will he argue that it’s in the best interest of society that all candidates be included in debates? Or will he take what I would regard to be a more libertarian approach of cheerfully agreeing that if it’s not in Hill and Sodrel’s personal best interest to debate him that they ought not agree or be compelled to agree to it?

Knox County Commissioners vote to petition for Eastern Time

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According to WTWO the Knox County commissioners voted 3 – 0 to re-petition the U.S. Dept. of Transportation – this time to be moved to the Eastern Time Zone. I’m not sure what is up with the creative spelling in this report, but I did not alter the text in the following paragraphs:

Knox County`s Board President said it was a 50-50 issue with residents, so was it a mistake to ask the DOT to move to Central Time in the first place?:

“Today, it`s a mistake. At the time, it was the right decision. And the reason it was the right decision is cuz we asked the public, we had the chamber of commerce, we had the radio, we asked the public to attend our meetings just for that reason, and we just couldn`t get people interested. And so when the numbers started coming in, there weren`t very many, it wasn`t a good sampling, and we knew it wasn`t a good sampling, but at that time, it was definately for Central,” said James Bobe, President of the Knox County Commissioners.

Courier Press: Give it time

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An editorial in the Evansville Courier Press weighs in on the Knox County deliberations as to whether to re-petition the USDOT for a switch back to Eastern Time. They suggest that Knox County give Central Time a chance before filing a new petition. I like that the Courier Press gave us a refresher course on how the counties were dragged into this mess:

That no-win situation – dark in the evening or dark in the morning – is indicative of the time mess that Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels stepped into, and then exacerbated, last year when he took office. As a candidate, he pushed for statewide daylight-saving time and for all of the state to be in one zone; he said he preferred Central.

He got his daylight-saving time, but backed off on the time zone issue, leaving multiple counties to fend for themselves with the federal Department of Transportation. It is an unpopular move that Daniels will still be hearing about two years from now, if he runs for re-election.

ILB has Toll Road briefs

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The Indiana Law Blog has posted the parties’ briefs in the Toll Road lawsuit currently before Judge Scopelitis.

The Plaintiffs’ brief (challenging HB 1008-2006 and toll road privatization) is here.

The Defendant’s brief (defending HB 1008-2006 and toll road privatization) is here.

I’ve only glanced at the plaintiffs’ brief and have not read the defendant’s brief at all, but I had been under the impression that at the heart of the Plaintiffs’ challenge was the Constitutional question of whether toll road lease/sale proceeds could be applied to something other than public debt. And maybe it is. I could have gotten the wrong impression from my quick read of the brief or the main issues may not be emphasized at this stage of the proceedings simply because the main question right now is whether this is a public lawsuit for which a bond should be posted.

But, it seemed like the brief spent a lot more time discussing whether this was prohibited special legislation or not. Article 4, section 22 – 23 of the Indiana Constitution provides:

Section 22. The General Assembly shall not pass local or special laws:

    Providing for the punishment of crimes and misdemeanors;
    Regulating the practice in courts of justice;
    Providing for changing the venue in civil and criminal cases;
    Granting divorces;
    Changing the names of persons;
    Providing for laying out, opening, and working on, highways, and for the election or appointment of supervisors;
    Vacating roads, town plats, streets, alleys, and public squares;
    Summoning and empaneling grand and petit juries, and providing for their compensation;
    Regulating county and township business;
    Regulating the election of county and township officers and their compensation;
    Providing for the assessment and collection of taxes for State, county, township, or road purposes;
    Providing for the support of common schools, or the preservation of school funds;
    Relating to fees or salaries, except that the laws may be so made as to grade the compensation of officers in proportion to the population and the necessary services required;
    Relating to interest on money;
    Providing for opening and conducting elections of State, county, or township officers, and designating the places of voting;
    Providing for the sale of real estate belonging to minors or other persons laboring under legal disabilities, by executors, administrators, guardians, or trustees.

Section 23. In all the cases enumerated in the preceding section, and in all other cases where a general law can be made applicable, all laws shall be general, and of uniform operation throughout the State.

When I got to Legislative Services back in 1996, the new drafters were cautioned that the courts had recently made disapproving noises about the General Assembly’s routine passage of special legislation under a legal fiction but had not yet decided to put a stop to it. The legal fiction is that the General Assembly is not passing special legislation (legislation that applies only to one part of th estate) but is rather passing legislation that applies to any part of the state that happens to fall within a particular population parameter. It sounds reasonable — big cities have different needs than small towns, for example. However, in practice, the parameters are carefully selected so that they apply to a particular city or town or county or whatever. For example, where HB 1008-2006 states “in a township having a population of more than seventy-five thousand (75,000) and less than ninety-three thousan five hundred (93,500),” that means “Perry Township in Marion County, Indiana.” Those sections of the Code are updated when the new census numbers come out.

In 2003, the Supreme Court struck down an annexation statute that applied only to St. Joseph County on the grounds that it was special legislation South Bend v. Kimsey, 781 N.E.2d 683 (Ind. 2003) susceptible of being general legislation. To justify using special legislation, the Supreme Court held that the justifications for the legislation must be inherent in the population range used and/or unique to the specified locality.

The two primary uses of special legislation in HB 1008-2006 were to prevent implementing a toll road through Perry Township and to allocate specific areas where the pork from the privatization was to go. I haven’t read the Defendant’s brief yet, but it should be interesting to see how they argue that general legislation wasn’t possible or how the pork needed to swing the necessary votes miraculously lines up with the specific needs of the particular localities.

Police call

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I can’t find it in the online version, but I found amusing this little note in the “police investigations” section of the Monticello Herald Journal:

1:15 p.m. – Deputy Lee Ann Reinholt responded to the area of CR 725 E and US 24 in reference to a welfare check due to a passer-by calling out several buzzards being on top of a house. Occupants of the house were located and accounted for.

Briefs filed in Toll Road lawsuit

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Tom Coyne has an AP article entitled “Arguments filed in Toll Road fight.” It more or less summarizes issues that had already been raised.

The plaintiffs argue that Articles 10 & 11 of Indiana’s Constitution were designed to prevent this sort of public/private partnership involved in this case.

The defendants want Judge Scopelitis to impose a $3.8 billion bond. To receive that sort of order, the defendants would have had to convince the Judge that the Indiana Finance Authority, which isn’t, strictly speaking, a government entity, is covered by the public lawsuit statute, that the plaintiffs are unlikely to prevail on the merits, and that the defendants would suffer more from bond not being required than the plaintiffs would suffer from the bond having been required.

On the last point, the State is claiming it would lose $3.8 billion if the lawsuit is allowed to proceed and it’s deal with the foreign consortium falls through. The plaintiffs, however, contend that if the state keeps the Toll Road and applies the same toll increases it would allow the private operators, it could collect more than $11 billion over the next 75 years.

The lawsuit argues that the Indiana Constitution says any proceeds from the Toll Road privatization must be used to pay down state debt.

I’d love to dissect this a little more, but my baby daughter is busily trying to kill herself, and I’d better make sure she survives long enough to enjoy a future of paying high tolls to travel the roads of Indiana — perhaps even the roads of the United States. According to this article, the U.S. House Transportation Committee is looking to hold a lovefest with Governor Daniels in the guise of a committee hearing inviting him to speak about how he “addressed the infrastructure funding shortfall in [Indiana] through a creative new mechanism” and to look into whether such deals are the future of infrastructure financing.

FWJG criticizes cuts in diabetes funding

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Hot on the heels of the study finding that Hoosiers are getting fatter (and smoking more), the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette has an editorial criticizing cuts in funding for diabetes research.

The American Diabetes Association estimates that nearly 21 million Americans have diabetes, 6.2 million of whom don’t know it. More and more people are diagnosed with diabetes at younger ages – including many children. Diabetes is the only major disease with a death rate that has risen 22 percent since 1990.

Yet the federal government has decided this is a good time to cut the diabetes research budgets at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health. Given the massive strain that diabetes already places on American’s rickety health care system, it’s hard to imagine how anybody could think that cutting research budgets is going to save the federal government money.

The proposed cuts aren’t large, but because the federal government currently allocates only about a quarter of what it spends on cancer research to study diabetes, health care advocates say the cuts will be more keenly felt in research programs around the country.

. . .

Often described as a “lifestyle disease,” Type 2 diabetes is nearly always a consequence of obesity, lousy diets and physical inactivity that causes the body to stop producing the insulin that regulates blood sugar levels.

I believe this is what they call being penny-wise and pound-foolish. It will save us a bit of money right now, but given what the government ends up spending on treating citizens with diabetes, it will probably cost us more money in the long run.

Political price to pay for social security privatization plan

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The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is running ads in Indiana’s 8th and 9th Congressional District chastizing Reps. Sodrel and Hostettler for supporting the social security privatization plan that kicked off President Bush’s doomed second term.

The plan would have diverted funds paid in by younger citizens, currently being used to pay for benefits to current recipients, to private accounts. No plan was in place to fill resulting hole in social security funding, so we would have had to borrowed even more money.

The ad says:

“President Bush wants to borrow $2 trillion dollars – driving up our debt even further to privatize Social Security,” the announcer says. No one knows exactly how much the transition would have cost, but Vice President Cheney said it would be trillions.

The article went on to say:

Sarah Feinberg, a spokeswoman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee that paid for the ad, said even though privatization is not up for a vote this year, “when given the political opportunity, we believe the president and the Republican majority will try to pass privatization again.”

Rep. Hostettler responded with a statement that said, “With no agenda from their leadership and a candidate with no original ideas of his own, the liberals are resorting to scaring senior citizens once again.”

I think the Ellsworth campaign captures an important point with their response:

Jay Howser, spokesman for Democrat Brad Ellsworth, Hostettler’s opponent in the November election, said both campaigns have ideas on Social Security. Ellsworth wants to protect a program that has been working for 60 years, and Hostettler wants to change it by moving money into private accounts.

“It’s a clear difference between the two,” he said.

Doing something for the sake of doing something is a bad habit among politicians. Social security has been one of the government’s more successful programs, and I think leaving well enough alone is a good strategy. Certainly, to the extent it does have problems, they are minor compared to the other problems with the federal government. First and foremost, the federal government needs to stop raiding social security to pay for general fund expenditures and it needs to pay back the money it has borrowed from Social Security.