A Citizen's Guide to Indiana

Masson's Blog

HB 1320 – Health entity construction projects

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House Bill 1320 Requires public hearings before certain hospital and ambulatory outpatient surgical center construction projects may begin. Passed 65-30. I have no idea what the significance of this bill is. Whenever I see “ambulatory outpatient” and don’t understand the bill, I immediately think it has something to do with abortion. But, I can’t see where this is abortion related. In any event, there were 30 votes against this thing. So, either it’s seen as unnecessary government meddling (not entirely likely, given the nitpicky bills that have already passed unopposed) or something else is going on.

HB 1590 – “blighted areas”

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House Bill 1590 “Replaces references to “blighted area” in various redevelopments laws with “area needing redevelopment” or “redevelopment project area”.” I don’t know if this serves any useful function or is just being done to spare the feelings of residents of blighted areas. Anyway, it passed the House 92-1.

HB 1113 – Another court fee

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House Bill 1113 – Another court fee. Raises the small claims filing fee another $5 and, charges $10 for each additional defendant added to the case. Can’t say I like that. I file between 600-800 small claims cases per year. Keeping track of the fees will be burdensome for me. I’m guessing many of the courts will have a bit of trouble as well. The bill appears to be silent on the question of whether I can collect all of the costs from one defendant if that’s the poor schlub I find with a bank account or a job. My guess is that I can. Anyway, the bill passed the House 67-27.

2/8/05 Indy Star Articles on Indiana Politics

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Just noting a few Indy Star articles:

  • Same-sex marriage ban progresses “An Indiana Senate committee voted on party-lines today to support a constitutional amendment that bans same-sex marriage.” One gem is where a supporter of the ban describes homosexuality as “human learned perversion.”
  • Meth bill expected to draw support – discusses various bills designed to address the problem of meth production and distribution, mainly through control of access to cold medicines. I don’t know if that is the right approach, but I certainly agree that meth is a huge problem, apparently different in scope than problems presented by other controlled substances.
  • Mitch Daniels not living in Governor’s Mansion – basically, Daniels doesn’t like the Governor’s mansions, and says it needs repairs — though the former chairman of the Governor’s Residence Commission (there’s a commission for that?) says the mansion is livable. He’s currently living in a $800,000 home in Geist and bought a plot of land in a gated community outside of Indianapolis where homes sell for between $1.2 million and $1.8 million. He’s many things, but a man of the people he isn’t.

    • Indy Star on HB 1703

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    The Indy Star has an article entitled Plan would let governor pick county’s judges. According to the article, HB 1703 would require Marion county judges to be appointed by the Governor. I’m shocked. More power for the Governor? That’s so unusual for the Daniels administration.

    Horrible idea. I think the judges should be elected. But, if you’re going to take the decision out of Marion County’s voters directly, at worst the appointments should be made by the mayor and/or the city-county council. Why should an official elected by state-wide voters be appointing judges for the citizens of Marion County? This bill passed out of the House Judiciary Committee on a party line vote.

    The Republicans say they want to “get the politics out of the judiciary.” I sympathize, I think permanent federal judgeships have something to recommend themselves. But limited term judgeships for a county appointed by a state official doesn’t do this. Leave the system alone. But, if they must tinker with judgeships, at least let Marion County officials do the appointing. There is no non-partisan rationale for handing it up to the Governor.

    R.I.P. Larry

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    The Lafayette J&C is reporting that Lafayette Attorney, Larry O’Connell has died. We lost a good person in Larry O’Connell. I had the opportunity to work with him on several occasions. He was always very upbeat and a pleasure to talk to — even if I didn’t agree with his legal opinions. (That had more to do with him trying to a good job representing his clients who came to him with tough, hard to defend cases than any real disagreement, I suspect.) He was only 57 and had been fighting with health problems for at least the past couple of years. It looked like he was on the mend up until several months ago. Then he took a turn for the worse I guess and never quite recovered. God speed, Larry.

    2/7/05 Bill Activity

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  • House Bill 1052 Lottery audit. Requires the State Board of Accounts to conduct an annual audit of the lottery. Rep. Woodruff’s amendment requiring an audit of the lottery’s business in 2003 & 2004 passed 76-16.
  • HB 1078 Coal issues. Revises the reclamation fees per ton of coal produced for surface and underground coal mining operations. Directs the center for coal technology research to investigate matters concerning coal bed methane. Provides that clean coal and energy projects include projects that use coal bed methane. Passed 87-0. For those who are interested, here is a FAQ on coal bed methane.
  • HB 1183 Operation of watercraft. Provides that no speed limit applies to a boat in a boat race, a water ski event, or any other organized boating activity over a fixed and marked course for which the department of natural resources has issued a permit. Passed 94-0. My guess is that there is a specific story behind this one. One thing that surprised me about the legislature is how often legislation was introduced to solve a problem that happened to one constituent on one occasion.
  • HB 1230 Indemnity agreements in motor carrier contracts. Provides that certain indemnity agreements in a motor carrier transportation contract are against public policy and are void and unenforceable. (Specifically provisions that indemnify and/or hold the promisee harmless for negligent or intentional acts or omissions of the promisee.) Passed 94-0.
  • HB 1288 Title 20 (elementary and secondary education) recodification. Passed second reading without amendment. I hadn’t realized they were recodifying Title 20 this year. The Code Revision Commission and the Office of Code Revision really deserve our gratitude for their recodification work. It’s tedious and largely thankless. But, when you compare Indiana’s statutes to other states or *shudder* the United States Code, there is just no comparison. Indiana has some of the cleanest, best organized statutes around. Particularly where we’ve recodified. (Disclosure: I used to work for the Office of Code Revision — though I never had to do a recodification. I did, however, put together 1999s technical corrections bill.
  • HB 1375 Waiver of insurance producer requirements. Requires the commissioner of the department of insurance to establish a policy to allow a waiver of continuing education and license renewal requirements for insurance producers who are in active service in a combat zone. Passed 92-0. SB 75 exempts an insurance producer who is at least 68 years old from continuing education requirements. That passed the Senate 44-2. Good day for old insurance producers in combat zones who don’t want to mess with continuing education.
  • SB 115 Interstate probation compacts. Adds a cross-reference to specify that certain hearing and notification provisions that apply to the Interstate Compact on Out-of-State Probationers and Parolees also apply to the Interstate Compact for Adult Offender Supervision. Passed 46-0.
  • SB 209 Changes the term “poor relief” to “township assistance” in the Indiana Code. I sure hope this has some practical effect and isn’t just an undertaking designed to preserve the feelings, somehow, of those receiving poor relief. Passed 46-1. In any event, it looks like the change in terminology was mandated by HEA 1972-2003.
  • SB 223 Designation of blood type on license and identification card. Allows a person’s documented blood type information to be on the person’s driver’s license, driver’s permit, or identification card. Passed 45-1.
  • SB 282 Municipal riverfront development projects. Allows a municipal riverfront development project to be located in certain community revitalization enhancement districts. Passed 46-0.
  • SB 285 Bullying. Defines “bullying”, and requires a school corporation to adopt rules to prohibit bullying. Allows the use of grants from the safe schools fund to provide education and training to school personnel concerning bullying, and requires the inclusion of anti-bullying training in school safety specialist education. Requires each school to establish a safe school committee. Passed 40-7. You know, I’m not a big fan of bullying. You might be surprised that the author of a blog obsessing over the activities of the Indiana General Assembly was the target of bullies from time-to-time. But, I assure you, it’s true. Nonetheless, I don’t think a mandate coming down from Indianapolis is going to help the gangly 6th grader in Muncie or the paste-eating 2nd grader in Kentland. Bullying is defined as “overt, repeated acts or gestures, including verbal or written communications transmitted; physical acts committed; or any other behaviors committed; by a student or group of students against another student with the intent to harass, ridicule, humiliate, intimidate, or harm the other student. Just one more piece of bureacracy for schools to keep track of.
  • SB 301 Cheerleading safety. (Was I just talking about school bureaucracy?) Requires the state board of education to develop standards and guidelines concerning cheerleading safety in schools. Passed second reading.
  • SB 298 Administrative rules requiring fiscal review. Makes the following changes to the administrative rulemaking statute requiring an agency to submit a rule with an estimated economic impact greater than $500,000 to the legislative services agency (LSA) for a fiscal impact statement: (1) Requires the agency to consider the rule’s annual economic impact after the rule is fully implemented. (2) Specifies that the $500,000 threshold applies to the impact on all regulated persons. (3) Requires the agency to submit to LSA a rule meeting the threshold for a fiscal impact statement not later than 50 days before the public hearing on the rule. (4) Requires the agency to consider the rule’s impact on an entity that already voluntarily complies with the rule. Makes conforming changes to the statute requiring the education roundtable to determine the fiscal impact of certain recommendations it makes. Passed 65-0.
  • SB 308 Qualification of assessing personnel. Allows the county fiscal body to reduce the compensation of a county assessor, an elected township assessor, or a trustee assessor who does not obtain a required assessor-appraiser certification, in an amount proportional to the assessor’s real property assessment duties. (Basically the reduction calls for the fiscal property to determine the ratio the assessor’s real property assessment duties bear to the assessor’s overall duties and reduce the pay according to that ratio.) Passed 42-4.
  • SB 340 Court involvement in child neglect and adoption proceedings. Among other things, the court has to determine that the proper papers have been provided to adoptive parents before adoption. The State has to give a reason for dismissing a CHINS petition. Prohibits a sex offender from adopting. Passed 46-0.
  • SB 372 Transfer tuition. Specifies that if a transferor school corporation fails to take action within thirty (30) days after receipt of a transfer tuition request, the request is considered approved. Provides that a student who is placed in a facility, a home, or an institution may attend school in the school corporation in which the facility, home, or institution is located, and that the state is required to pay transfer tuition for the student if no other person or entity is required to pay the student’s transfer tuition. Passed 46-0.
  • SB 417 Requires the appraisal of Westville Correctional Center and Putnamville with reports to the legislative council concerning such property that could be sold. Passed 46-0.
  • SB 442 Removes geophysical surveying from DNR regulation. Exempts certain activities connected to near surface or subsurface use of regulated explosives associated with oil and natural gas from criminal act regarding reckless violation of a rule concerning the use of explosives. Passed 46-0.
  • SB 569 Safety of children during storms. Requires the state department of health to adopt guidelines and enforcement mechanisms concerning the safety of children during bad weather conditions and to distribute the guidelines to the department of education and to relevant organizations.
    Passed 46-0.

    • Top Marginal Income Tax Rates, 1913 – 2003

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    Apropos of not very much, this link is to a page showing Top US Marginal Income Tax Rates, 1913–2003 (TruthAndPolitics.org)

    One thing I happen to think is necessary to keep America healthy is to avoid overly large concentrations of wealth. A large middle class strikes me as essential to a healthy democracy. I have no problem with a few super wealthy families or a fairly large population of moderately rich families. (Defining those terms could probably fill a text book, but hey, my blog — I get to be sloppy when I feel like it.) What isn’t healthy is the prospect of a major portion of the nation’s wealth concentrated in the hands of a few families — let’s say more than 50% of the wealth into the hands of less than 1% of the population. Anyway, I’m not sure there’s a perfect correlation between concentration of wealth and higher income tax rates, but it seems like there would be a strong relationship.

    Another thing is that the U.S. isn’t really acting like it’s at war with respect to the top tax rates. Looking at other war periods:
    1917 – 1919 (WWI): 77% on everything over $1 million.
    1941 – 1945 (WWII): 88% on everything over $200,000.
    1950 – 1953 (Korean War): 91% on everything over $400,000.
    ~1966 – 1973 (Vietnam War): 70% on everything over $200,000.
    2001 – 2003 (War on Terror(tm)): 35% on everything over $310,000+-

    J&C and DST

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    The Lafayette Journal & Courier has 4 articles on Daylight Savings Time:

  • Time for a Change;
  • Goodland mired in time uncertainty;
  • Time uncertainty irks some business owners; and
  • Debate Springs Forward, Falls Back

    I myself have done a fair amount of posting on the subject:

  • Analysis of HB 1034;
  • Information on sunrise and sunset on and off DST;
  • Sen. Bray & Mark Kruzan on why DST will probably fail;
  • Analysis and citations to current law regarding DST;
  • More on current law; and
  • Utter lack of proof that DST would help business;

    At the end of the day, I think Indiana is geographically suited to being on Eastern Standard Time year around. We’re further west than is really suitable for Eastern Daylight Time during the middle of the summer, and we’re further east than is really suitable for Central Standard Time during the middle of the winter. As for the difficulty this causes people in other areas of the country trying to keep track of the time, I think it boils down to lack of respect. When they tell us to change, they’re saying that they can’t be bothered to remember the relatively simple fact that Indiana is on Eastern Standard Time all year. One of the J&C articles mentions SIA’s concerns about DST. Somehow I don’t think SIA Indiana is urging Japan to adopt DST. I just don’t think our relationship to corporations in other states should be as important as arranging our time to suit our daily lives.