Governor Daniels vetoed SB 209 which would have allowed for voting at vote centers and required certain notices be given to citizens who have to cast provisional ballots.

I had some commentary on the House version here. The Governor’s veto message is here (pdf). He says:

While this bill contains provisions that would make the act of voting more convenient, it does not contain sufficient safeguards against fraud and abuse and removes long standing bi-partisan checks and balances in the conduct of elections.

Secretary of State Rokita disagrees:

How ironic it is that the one local government reform that actually passes the legislature ends up getting vetoed. Vote Centers is perhaps the only local government reform that so far has been proven unequivocally to save taxpayers money. I would expect, given the serious fiscal condition of the state, that the concept is important enough to find its way into the budget bill so that all 92 counties be given the opportunity to realize the unquestionable taxpayer benefits and savings.

I don’t know what the politics of these vote centers are. The concept is that the citizens of a county can vote at a variety of locations throughout the county instead of at their particular precinct. In Tippecanoe County, we were one of the pilot counties for this project. And, personally, I loved it. This meant that, even though I live on the south side of town, I was able to vote at the City Building downtown when I had to attend a deposition near there that: a) made it inconvenient to vote in my precinct; and b) made it very convenient to vote downtown that day. From a purely selfish point of view, it seemed like a Good Thing. So, I find Gov. Daniels veto disheartening. (And I very rarely find myself on the same side of an issue with Secretary Rokita.)

(H/t a reader — not sure if he wants attribution. I surprised I had not caught wind of this story earlier.)

According to a story in the Kokomo Tribune, Rep. Jacque Clements (R-Frankfort) was dismissed from her part-time job with the Clinton County Auditor’s office by the Clinton County Commissioners for violation of their e-mail policy. The Frankfort Times also, unsurprisingly, has a story.

Rep. Clements was elected as Auditor of Clinton County in 2004. At the time of her dismissal, she was serving as a deputy in the Auditor’s office. She stepped down as elected auditor and took a deputy’s position when she was elected to the House of Representatives. Her election was not without controversy. Then Representative, now Senator, Jim Buck stepped down from his house seat to be appointed to the state senate to replace Sen. Jeff Drozda. The Republicans in Rep. Buck’s district replaced Buck with Heath VanNatter. However, Clements then went on to be the Republican candidate in the general election. (I don’t know if this was in the primary process or not, the Kokomo Tribune story quotes Clinton County GOP chairman Beverley Bush as saying that Clements ended up on the ballot via “backdoor politicking.”) Clements went on to win the general election.

Back to the story at hand. Rep. Clements was dismissed from her deputy auditor’s job by the Clinton County Commissioners for “unauthorized personal use” of the county’s e-mail network. Problems with tax software provided by a company called Nikish apparently play a central role in this matter. It is unclear, however, whether communications from Clements to Nikish are the basis for the dismissal or whether some other communications found during a probe of the Nikish matter form the true basis. According to the Kokomo Tribune article, Clements was a strong advocate for Nikish in landing the contract with Clinton County while Clements was the auditor. Now, the Clinton County Commissioners feel, Nikish did not deliver, and they are trying to get the data and the account transferred back to the prior vendor, Manatron, and Nikish is allegedly not cooperating.

Also, per the Kokomo Tribune:

In addition to getting the Clinton County contract for Nikish, Clements recommended the company for use by other counties at an auditor’s conference.

“Thank you for your endorsement at the Auditor’s Conference,” a company representative said in an e-mail sent to Clements in May 2007.

Between April 3 and April 5, Nikish paid for Clements to stay at a hotel in Commack, N.Y., where the company is headquartered.

A sampling of the e-mails obtained by the Kokomo Tribune through a Freedom of Information request also showed that as early as 2005, Clements maintained a personal, intimate relationship with a Nikish employee.

The Frankfort Times has a follow up article with some response from Clements. From the article, it is hard to parse whether she denies violating the e-mail policy, denies doing anything wrong vis-a-vis Nikish, or is simply denying specific allegations raised with respect to Nikish. The letter cited by the Frankfort Times may be more clear, but it does not appear to be available via the story.

The Kokomo Tribune also has a follow up story discussing Rep. Clements’ response.

I’ll be interested to see how the “improper use of e-mail” theory of dismissal holds up (if it’s challenged in any meaningful sense.) It if it’s just a matter of “honey pick up milk on your way home,” it would be tough to, say, deny unemployment benefits on that basis if other employees routinely use the county system for that type of personal use. On the other hand, the articles hint at e-mails being used to provide Nikish with confidential information from the County. They do not state directly that Clements sent any such e-mails. But, if that were the case, impermissible use of the county’s computer systems would hold up better as a rationale. Indiana is an at-will employment state and so, from that perspective anyway, the rationale isn’t hugely important. Obviously the dismissal can’t be based on some impermissible rationale like race or gender.

Incidentally, if I am reading the stories correctly, Rep. Clements was dismissed on Monday, April 27, 2009. The legislature adjourned on April 29, 2009. I wonder if IC 2-3-3-1 could introduce an unanticipated wrinkle:

Any person being a member of the general assembly of the state of Indiana who, in order to perform the duties as a member of the general assembly of the state of Indiana by attendance at any session of the general assembly, or attendance at any duly called committee meeting, conference, or legislative study committee meeting of which he is a member, has left or leaves a position or employment, other than a temporary position or employment, in the employ of any employer and is still qualified to perform the duties of his employment and makes application for reemployment within ten (10) days after the close of any such session, or meeting, of the general assembly shall be restored by his employer to such position or employment at not less than the same pay or to a similar position or employment and pay unless the employer’s circumstances have so changed as to make it impossible or unreasonable to do so. When a member of the general assembly is restored to his employment it shall be done without discrimination, nor shall the member be caused to suffer inconvenience or any other adverse action by his employer, as a result of any action taken while serving as a legislator.

Probably not. It’s been more than 10 days since adjournment, so if she hasn’t re-applied under this statute, she’s SOL. And, she didn’t leave her position to perform her duties as a legislator; rather she was told to leave for other reasons. Still, if I were a Clinton County Commissioner, I probably would have waited a couple more days, just to be sure.

Reading about the necessity of a special session, a Kinks song kept going through my head:

Standing in the middle of nowhere,
Wondering how to begin.
Lost between tomorrow and yesterday,
Between now and then.

And now we’re back where we started,
Here we go round again.
Day after day I get up and I say
I better do it again.

Pretty well sums up where the General Assembly stands today. Governor Daniels isn’t helping matters, accusing legislators of being unready to “face reality.” His posing as some sort of condescending father figure is unproductive. But, he is right to delay calling a special session for a bit. Tempers will have to cool before anything productive can be accomplished.

Senator Long has the right idea:

“The finger-pointing really is useless at this point. It isn’t going to get us anywhere,” he said. “People can blame each other and be outraged or whatever you want to call it, but the fact is we are in this situation because of the worst economic situation since the Great Depression. That has caused our problem today.”

In order of blameworthiness, I’d put it in the following order:

1. Gov. Daniels — Introduced uncertainty in the process that derailed the budget. He moved the goalposts and was not clear on whether or what he would veto and why or what changes he proposed.

2. House Republicans – This caucus is basically useless. They bellow their complaints and seem uninterested in actually attempting to help govern. I would put them higher, but as the minority party, they are relieved of a good degree of responsibility.

3. House Democrats – If you make a deal on a major piece of legislation like this, you hold your nose, hold your caucus together, and get it passed.

4. Senate Republicans – Looked to be negotiating in good faith and got the budget through their chamber. And, by and large, I really admire Sen. Kenley and think Sen. Long is growing into the major shoes left empty when Sen. Garton was voted out of office by the right wing of his party.

5. Senate Democrats – Always an afterthought. No different here.

SB 89 was one of the casualties of the end of session. The bill would have required doctors performing “surgical procedures” to have admitting privileges at a local hospital, required doctors performing abortions to advise women that a fetus “might feel pain,” and funded breast and cervical cancer screening.

Initially, this bill passed the Senate requiring only doctors performing abortions to have admitting privileges at a local hospital, ostensibly to “protect women’s health” if they needed follow up care. This requirement was expanded to the ill-defined category of doctors performing “surgical procedures.” But, the true women’s health provisions having to do with breast and cervical screening seemed to be the source of the main disagreement with Democrats tending to be in favor and Republicans tending to be in opposition. And, while I have no real proof, I wouldn’t be surprised if the true (but more expensive) women’s health provision concerning health screening was placed in the bill, in part, to kill the pretextual women’s health provision concerning abortion.

First off, if you aren’t regular readers, I wanted to point out that Abdul at Indiana Barrister did a fine job blogging about the last day at the General Assembly. They apparently passed the unemployment insurance funding bill, punted on the C.I.B. fix, and did not pass a budget. The budget failed in the House on a 27 – 71 vote.

As I digest the reports out of the Fort Wayne, Louisville, and Indianapolis papers, I think the failure boils down as follows — the House Democrats and Senate Republicans had reached an agreement they could live with. The Governor changed course near the last minute and insisted on a budget that spent $100 million less, leaving a surplus of $1.4 billion instead of $1.3 billion. This led to the Senate making the cuts in a way that caused significant House Democratic defection. Neither the Governor nor the Senate Republicans could persuade a single House Republican to make up the gap. And so the bill failed, and we will have a special session.

Niki Kelly of the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette is always good choice for in depth reporting on legislative issues. Her report on the budget failure is entitled “Split vote kills hope for budget.” The failure to pass a budget will lead to the first special session since 2002. Years of the General Assembly managing to pass a bipartisan budget has lead to a sense of complacency on my part, I guess. I did not think they would fail to get it passed this year.

A last-ditch effort to pass the state budget failed in spectacular fashion late Wednesday when the House defeated a proposed spending plan by a 71-27 vote – a move that will lead to the first special session since 2002.

The Senate passed the measure 37-13, but the issue was moot.
. . .
The key argument was over how to cut $100 million more out of a likely $30 billion spending plan propped up by nearly $2 billion in federal stimulus money.

Senate Republicans wanted the cuts to come from K-12 school funding so that the state reserves at the end of the biennium were left with at least $1.4 billion.

House Democrats wanted to preserve the education funding and give Daniels a $1.3 billion surplus.

But there was fear that Daniels would veto either of the plans.

Lesley Stedman Weidenbener’s report for the Louisville Courier Press is entitled “Special Session Looms over budget impasse.” Her report paints a picture of the House Democrats and Senate Republicans at a stalemate, each waiting for the other to blink — while the House Republicans essentially threw spitballs at them both. (I’m paraphrasing here – the House Republicans irritate me. The Senate Republicans and the House Democrats seem to make good faith efforts to govern responsibly. The Senate Democrats are mostly silent. But the House Republicans seem nothing more than noisy.)

House Speaker Pat Bauer, D-South Bend, was struggling to find enough Democratic votes to pass the plan created by the Senate, which would spend $100 million less on public schools than the proposal written by Democrats.

So Bauer was looking to House Republicans for help. As Democrats headed into an evening caucus meeting, Bauer said he might allow a vote on the Senate plan because Republican members could provide the support needed to get it passed.
. . .
[The House & Senate seemed to have a compromise last week, but as] the state’s revenues have continued to slow, Republicans have grown increasingly concerned their plan spent too much. So under pressure from Daniels and in the middle of final negotiations, Kenley insisted on slicing $100 million more from the budget, all of it from funding for public schools.
. . .
That set up a showdown with Democrats, for whom education funding is sacrosanct.

The dispute came despite a number of earlier compromises.

House Democrats had already given up on their plans to spend $200 million in state reserves to try to create jobs and fund just a one-year budget rather than the traditional two.

The Governor couldn’t broker a compromise and the House Republicans would not come along without cuts above and beyond the Senate version.

Mary Beth Schneider and Bill Ruthhart report for the Indianapolis Star. According to that report, Speaker Bauer blamed the failure, at least in part, on the Governor’s indecision and wavering.

“The governor told us this morning that he would sign the (Senate) Republicans’ budget, and then he changed his mind when he thought it would pass,” he said, adding:

“Many of my members felt if the Republicans wouldn’t vote for a Republican bill, then why should they? We wanted a bipartisan vote. They’re the party of no.”

Right now, my sympathies go out to the folks at the Legislative Services Agency. If history is any guide, these employees have been burning the midnight oil, likely for weeks if not months. They don’t typically receive additional pay for these extra hours, but they accrue comp time — comp time which is usually redeemable in the form of some pretty extended vacation time; which works out for the agency when the General Assembly is out of session and things slow way down. But now much of that vacation time will have to be delayed or canceled due to the uncertainty over special sessions. I’m sure the unemployed and the folks who live and die based on what is in the budget aren’t exactly going to cry them a river. But, still, it’s a hassle for them, and if no one else on the outside is remembering them, I am.

HB 1379 which attempts to patch up Indiana’s depleted unemployment insurance fund looks like it passed the General Assembly. This wasn’t a bill anyone wanted to mess with. The only fixes were going to be raising taxes or cutting benefits — neither of which is going to be popular in the best of times, let alone during a tough economic time.

The Senate passed the bill on a vote of 46 – 3. In other words, a bipartisan effort. I doubt anyone is going to be dancing a jig because this thing got passed, but it was foul tasting medicine that just had to be taken. Meanwhile, in the House, it was apparently a 52 – 47 party line vote with the House Republicans voting against. So, for those keeping score at home, on a bill everyone would have preferred to ignore, the Senate Republicans voted in favor, the Senate Democrats voted in favor, and the House Democrats voted in favor. The only ones sticking their fingers in their ears and yelling loudly about JOB KILLING TAXES were the House Republicans.

I suppose they have that luxury since they are in the minority, but it doesn’t instill confidence that they can be counted upon to make unpleasant decisions when the tough realities of governing have to be faced. The other three caucuses managed to look responsible. The House Republicans look like they’re taking advantage of the others’ responsibility to take political potshots. Next time, I wonder if the others will let the state burn rather than give the House Republicans a political opportunity.

I wish I understood how the unemployment fund worked better so that I could better understand who wins and who loses under these changes. Mary Beth Schneider is reporting that a tentative agreement has been struck by the House and Senate conferees.

From the reporting, it sounds like the compromise was made primarily on the business side of the ledger without much in the way of concessions on the labor side of the ledger. But I could be entirely wrong about that.

Rep. David Niezgodski, D-South Bend, said the plan includes no cuts in benefits. It would raise about $400 million by increasing taxes on employers. Under the plan, the taxable wage base would increase to $10,000 from the current $7,000. The tax rate would be 0.75 percent to 10.2 percent, up from the current 1.1 percent to 5.6 percent.

The “seasonal worker” limitations would be dropped — this would have meant that construction workers, idled during the winter months would have been limited or unable to receive unemployment benefits.

The very influential Indiana Manufacturers Association is apparently not pleased and hopes the deal falls apart, saying that “that putting all the brunt of fixing the system on businesses is the wrong step in a recession.”

The AP is reporting that SB 89 is stalled for the time being. This is the bill that started as an attempt to require doctors who performed abortions to have admitting privileges at a local hospital. The pretext for this was that it was necessary to preserve women’s health.

Now the hold up is a provision put in by House Democrats that included a screening program for breast and cervical cancer. Republicans are apparently complaining about the expense and propriety of the screening provision.

I’m not going to research this, but I can pretty much guarantee that undetected breast and cervical cancer are greater threats to women’s health than complications from abortions that would be prevented by requiring a doctor to have admitting privileges at a local hospital. Looks like women’s health isn’t really that strong a motivator after all.

I call it the abortion bill, but House changes have broadened it quite a bit. SB 89 started as a bill to limit the availability of abortions by requiring doctors performing the procedure to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital. This was done under the pretext that it was necessary to protect patient health. Taking this pretext at face value, the House expanded the legislation to require such admitting privileges for any doctor performing a “surgical procedure,” a term the legislation does not define.

Niki Kelly, writing for the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, has an article on the current status of the bill. The Speaker has appointed Scott Pelath as one of the conferees. As chairman of the Rules Committee, Pelath frequently has the task of killing bills the Speaker doesn’t like. No word on whether that is his task at the moment. In any case, the Speaker says that if the bill dies, it’s not the House’s fault — after all, the Senate can simply agree to the House’s changes. One of the problems with that is, apparently, the medical community is not terribly happy with this expansive bill that regulates any doctor’s ability to perform “surgical procedures.”

[House Minority Leader Brian] Bosma noted the original bill would have affected only a handful of doctors in the state, but the Indiana State Medical Association opposes the expansion. He said 25 percent of Hoosier physicians do not have admitting privileges because of their practice.

“So those folks who routinely don’t have to go to the hospital would have to be affiliated and that apparently caused quite a stir in the medical lobby,” he said.

I couldn’t resist the title. Bill Ruthhart has an article describing the weakening of the bill that seeks to regulate puppy mills.

No limit to the number of dogs an owner can breed. No state inspections of commercial breeding facilities. No restrictions on how often a dog can be bred.

The conference process is pretty opaque so it’s tough to know what will be left. At some point, it’s probably better for a bill to die a noble death than to live as a pale shadow.