A couple of new Hoosier-centric blogs on the blogroll: Fort Wayne Observed and Bilerico.

Lesley Stedman has a good column in the Louisville Courier Journal which captures nicely Governor Daniels ever shifting position on time zones.

Many county officials resented having to make the decision.

And they don’t believe it had to be so difficult.

When Daniels was running for governor, he not only endorsed daylight-saving time — an issue Hoosiers have been fighting about for decades — he also said he wanted to move as much of Indiana as possible into one time zone. He said both actions would reduce confusion.

And during the campaign, Daniels said repeatedly that he preferred the entire state move to the Central time zone, except for Clark, Floyd and Harrison counties near Louisville and two other counties near Cincinnati.

After the election and before the legislative session began, though, Daniels already had narrowed his focus to daylight-saving time. He said the time-zone issue probably would be a question for another session.

But — as Daniels and daylight-time proponents soon learned — there’s no separating the question of daylight-saving time from the issue of time zones in Indiana.

Contrast Governor Daniels position then with his position now:

the governor said it would have been wrong for him to have asked the department to establish one time zone or the other for Indiana, and said it never entered his mind to do so.

. . .

Daniels recalled saying during his gubernatorial campaign last year that he favored having as much of the state as possible on one time and that he could “see an argument for Central time” but didn’t prescribe it for anybody.

Of course, now he says that the jigsaw puzzle approach of having each county choose for itself, “makes common sense.”

Also of note, check out this article from the April edition of Governing which explores why the time debate in Indiana is so fierce. (Thanks to Mr. O’Malley for the catch)

Evansville Republicans have selected Vaneta Becker to replace Senator Server. Server was appointed to the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission and so Rep. Becker will complete the remaining three years of his term. I’ve been told by folks who know the area, that Rep. Becker’s seat is solid Republican, so having an essentially open seat in 2006 shouldn’t affect the composition of the closely divided House of Representatives.

The Legislative Services Agency has provided the General Assembly’s Code Revision Commission with a proposed outline for Recodification of Title 21 (PDF).

Title 20 of the Indiana Code concerning education was recodified during the last session of the General Assembly. In upcoming sessions, the legislature will likely tackle Title 21 which is education finance.

The Memo attached to the outline describes the proposed recodification as follows:

In the first year Grade K-12 education finance law would be moved primarily from Title 21 to Title 20. In the second year, the higher education law in IC 20-12 would be recodified in Title 21 with the remainder of higher education law.

. . .

The proposal changes the changes the sequence in which ideas are arranged. Current law is arranged in a local funding/state funding/local funding/ state funding/local funding/pensions sequence. The proposal would present the law in the following sequence: accounting systems/state tuition support formula/property taxes/borrowing. Pension law would be consolidated in Title 5. Provisions in Title 20 governing categorical grants outside the formula, start-up funding for charter schools, transfer tuition, student aid for textbooks, and permissible school fees would not be moved. Following the lead taken in HEA 1288, non-education levies for community use of facilities are moved to Title 36.

For those who may not be aware of the project, recodification has been an effort by the General Assembly to organize and simplify the Indiana Code, getting rid of superfluous language and putting the content in an intuitive format. This is a tough, tedious, and mostly thankless job. Great care has to be taken to restate the law without changing its substance. The bills that implement the recodification are large and unpleasant to wade through. It is critical that the legislators involved never feel like a substantive change is included either intentionally or by mistake — unless, of course, that change is very clearly announced.

Take a look at Title 3 (Elections) or Title 27 (Insurance) just off the top of my head to see how ugly the unrevised parts of the Code can be. Or, if you want to see a real lack of quality control in the legislative process, just take a look at the United States Code. Prior recodifications have been made to Titles 9 (Motor Vehicles), 10 (Public Safety), 12 (Human Services), 13 (Environment), 14 (Natural and Cultural Resources), 16 (Health), 31 (Family Law and Juvenile Law), 32 (Property), 33 (Courts and Court Officers), and 34 (Civil Law and Procedure).

In my opinion, this is one of the best projects the General Assembly undertakes. It is almost as important that the law be clear as it is for the law to be correct. (Apologies to Justice Brandeis, “Stare decisis is usually the wise policy, because in most matters it is more important that the applicable rule of law be settled than that it be settled right.” Burnet v. Coronado Oil (1932)).

The Indy Star has an article entitled Daniels’ plan could privatize 2 interstates, though I’m not sure the headline accurately reflects what is in the article.

As I read it, Gov. Daniels is proposing hiking up the fees on the Toll Road (I-80/90) and making the new stretch of I-69 a toll road when it is built. In addition, Daniels said the state would pursue the option of leasing out tolling and concessions rights along both the Toll Road and the yet-to-be-built stretch of I-69, as well as on two planned bridges over the Ohio River near Louisville. In exchange, private companies would operate and maintain those roads.

I loathe toll roads. I think that, next to public safety, building and maintaining infrastructure is the government’s most important job. But, if there is no other way to get a highway, I think it’s tolerable (barely) to make that highway a toll road. So, making the new stretches of I-69 toll don’t bother me overly much — if there is no other way. But, increasing the tolls on the northern stretch to pay for a highway for southwestern Indiana strikes me as unacceptable. Personally, I think gas taxes are a perfectly reasonable way to fund road construction and maintenance. Even more, I think general taxation is an even better way to pay for road construction and maintenance. Every last Hoosier benefits from a good road system. Better roads means more commerce means more jobs even for folks who don’t drive.

Update: Of some interest to me, but probably not to those in other parts of the state, I see that the Hoosier Heartland Corridor made the list of priority transportation construction projects. The Hoosier Heartland Corridor currently connects Fort Wayne to Logansport. The corridor will be extended by improving State Road 25 from Logansport through Delphi to I-65 in Lafayette. Eventually, the plan is to construct a good highway from Fort Wayne to Toledo and on up to the Great Lakes. (Just an aside, but I’ve always been surprised there isn’t a better route from Fort Wayne to Toledo. I’m not from around there, so I’m probably missing a shortcut, but it seems like you have to go a fair distance pretty much due north to the I-80/90 Toll Road which swoops back down southeast, before heading due east to Toledo. I’ve taken US 6 to cut the corner. You go through some nice towns, but it’s not fast.)

The Journal & Courier also provides a link to the 10 year project list (PDF)

According to an article in the South Bend Tribune, Daniels’ offered some thoughts I find implausible.

The governor said his guess is that counties requesting a switch to Central time will simply get a letter from the federal Department of Transportation approving the request.

But the governor said it would have been wrong for him to have asked the department to establish one time zone or the other for Indiana, and said it never entered his mind to do so.

. . .

Daniels recalled saying during his gubernatorial campaign last year that he favored having as much of the state as possible on one time and that he could “see an argument for Central time” but didn’t prescribe it for anybody.

“The issue was to go from three time zones to two,” said Daniels, who noted that Central time prevails in the northwest and southwest corners of the state, and Eastern time is observed in the Louisville and Cincinnati areas.

“And then we have this zone of our own, and now we’ll just have two (time zones).”

Daniels said he is aware of arguments that Indiana is geographically located in the Central time zone, “but both the law and the reality is that, for most communities, it’s more a matter of living patterns, working patterns and not longitude.”

The law, Daniels said, asks “where does a given community’s commerce happen, where do people work, where do people most often travel to.”

. . .

Daniels said he might have alleviated the problem by expressing a time zone preference, but believed that would have been presumptuous.

Well, God knows, Governor Daniels’ watchword has always been “humility.” The last thing our shy, wilting Governor would want to do is be presumptuous. But, more than that, I never heard anything like this coming out of his mouth when DST was pending. If he would have said, “let’s pass Daylight Saving Time, and we’ll pass the buck to the counties to figure out which time zone they’ll be in,” there would have been a historic march on the State House by pitchfork and torch-wielding County Commissioners.

A side issue is that I think the Governor is wrong about the law. He says he thinks it’s more living patterns and working patterns as opposed to longitude. I don’t think this is necessarily the Governor’s fault. The Dept. of Transportation’s expressed preferences seem to indicate this.

The United States Department of Transportation has been given jurisdiction over the nation’s time zones by virtue of 15 U.S.C. 261. That statute states in pertinent part:

For the purpose of establishing the standard time of the United States, the territory of the United States shall be divided into nine zones in the manner provided in this section. . . . [T]he standard time of the . . . second zone (Eastern Time) on the seventy-fifth degree; that of the third zone (Central Time) on the ninetieth degree; . . . of longitude east from Greenwich. The limits of each zone shall be defined by an order of the Secretary of Transportation, having regard for the convenience of commerce and the existing junction points and division points of common carriers engaged in interstate or foreign commerce, and any such order may be modified from time to time.

The current time zone line in Indiana between eastern and central is established by 49 CFR 71.5(b). I’m not convinced that there are formal constraints on the power of the Secretary of Transportation to draw time zones as he or she deems appropriate. There appears to be a policy requiring a state or county official to request a time zone change and to answer as to certain criteria falling under the umbrella of “convenience of commerce,” but these appear to be internal policies as opposed to binding law. The three criteria suggested by 15 USC 261 are 1) the geographic distance from Greenwich; 2) the convenience of commerce; and 3) junction and division points of common carriers. While the Secretary of Transportation may not disregard these factors, they are not exclusive or dispositive. For example, in OST Docket Number 8, Notice 91-17 with respect to Starke County, Indiana’s petition to switch time zones, the Secretary appeared to give a great deal of weight to public comments that did not directly address the convenience of commerce criteria specified by the internal policy.

In any event, if the Governor is correct, (which I tend to doubt) then this is how the map will look:

Frank Gray for the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette has an article entitled Voter’s ID efforts go south at BMV which should serve as a cautionary tale for anyone who thinks that requiring a photo ID to vote isn’t going to disenfranchise anyone.

The tale is of 78 year old Theresa Clemente whose maiden name was Grady. First she took to the BMV her Social Security card, voter registration card, property tax bill, utility bill and credit card. Not good enough. Then she brought her birth certificate. Not good enough. Then she brought a certified copy of her birth certificate. Not good enough, her maiden name had changed. Then she brought her marriage certificate. Not good enough, she needed a certified copy of her marriage certificate.

Maybe next time if she brings a certified copy of her birth certificate she’ll actually get an ID. Then, maybe, just maybe, she’ll be able to vote.

Martin DeAgostino, writing for the South Bend Tribune, has an article entitledSouthBendTribune.com: Judge finds little merit to counties’ lawsuit

The lawsuit in question is a suit by Marion, Clark, and St. Joseph counties alleging that the State, and not the counties, is responsible for paying for the cost of juvenile detention. Currently, juveniles are sent to state run juvenile detention centers (I guess I don’t know if there is more than one). The State then bills the county that sent the juvenile for the cost of detaining the juvenile. These costs can be pretty significant.

Last session, the General Assembly passed a law requiring the money to be repaid or the State would withhold property tax replacement payments due to the counties. (These were the the payments due to minimize some of the more severe consequences of the State’s restructuring of the state’s property taxes.) For Marion County, the withholding would cost $8.5 million for the remainder of 2005 and $16.7 million next year.

The county theory is based on Article 2, Section 9 of the Indiana Constitution which states, “Section 2. The General Assembly shall provide institutions for the correction and reformation of juvenile offenders.” It is also based on the argument that the judges who order the juvenile detentions are state officials. So, you have a state official ordering a juvenile into an institution that the Constitution commands the State to provide. And yet the State still bills the County. Seems to me the counties have a legitimate gripe here.

The trial court judge, Shelby Superior Judge Russell Sanders said “none of the plaintiffs’ claims has a reasonable likelihood of success on the merits as a matter of law.” Sanders found fault with those and other claims, primarily because the counties did not raise the issues in a timely manner. Counties have paid the bills for decades without challenge, he said, thus undermining their claims of improper billing. The article doesn’t say one way or the other, but I wonder if the judge addressed the fact that the General Assembly’s new withholding law changes the equation quite a bit and may justify a suit now that wasn’t brought in previous decades.

The counties’ attorney said he had yet to decide their next step. One possibility would be an appeal of the ruling denying the preliminary injunction. I’d say that’s the best bet. First, I don’t think a trial court is in a position to resolve this matter one way or the other. Much as I respect trial court judges, on this sort of issue, I’d say that stage of the game is a preliminary hurdle. Nobody is going to be satisfied with the trial court’s decision, and ultimately the facts aren’t in dispute. It’s a question of law that needs to be resolved and the appellate courts will consider those issues de novo. So, fast-tracking it to the Supreme Court as quickly as possible would seem to make the most sense.

I suppose I’m letting my local government bias show a little bit here. But the tendency of the politicians in Indianapolis to push as much unpleasantness as possible onto county governments gets tiresome.