The AP is reporting that the Indiana House of Representatives did not adjourn sine die as it had hoped to do. Instead, the House has adjourned until next Wednesday and will reconvene to see if some final compromises can be worked out in this year’s short session.

In particular, measures hang in the balance that would allow schools access to some funds that would help mitigate the some of the spectacular shortfalls that have resulted from the decision to shift the funding of school operations from stable property taxes to much more variable sales and income taxes.

Unfortunately, for some reason, that issue seems to be tied to the even thornier issue of the unemployment insurance fund. After largely ignoring the underfunding of the UI fund for many years which caused it to run out of money and has required Indiana to borrow money from the federal government to stay afloat, in 2009, lawmakers reached a bipartisan compromise even though nobody had any particular appetite for the needed fix. But, now there is a push afoot to undo or at least delay that fix even though it probably requires borrowing even more money from D.C. (nevermind about our constant bellyaching about the federal government). The Senate has pushed a measure to delay the solution for a year. The House has adopted a measure that would scrap the solution altogether and “crack down on employers who misclassify workers as independent contractors to avoid paying jobless premiums, expand eligibility for benefits in order get $148 million in federal stimulus dollars for the fund, and increase weekly maximum benefits.”

So, I guess we wait another few days to see what happens. I’m sure the teachers in my school district, among many others, are waiting anxiously.

Updating my Schrodinger’s Gun II: Electric Boogaloo post, HB 1065 contains the “bring your guns to work” language prohibiting an employer from adopting a rule that prohibits an employee from bringing a gun onto the employers property if the gun is locked in the employee’s car. Jim Shella tells us the conference committee report was approved by the House on a 74 – 20 vote. Johnny Cash tells us why this is a bad idea:

Update Almost on cue:

Police say an Indiana Department of Workforce Development auditor who had just received a poor job review shot at co-workers at the agency’s office in Portage. . . . Sgt. Keith Hughes says the 60-year-old man became upset during his job review and told his supervisor he needed to go to his car. After he retrieved a shotgun, a manager locked the front door and ordered the other 15 employees to the rear of the office.

Here are some of the House bills (1000 – 1099) that have been returned by the Senate without Amendments and are ready for enrollment and delivery to the Governor for his signature.

1005 – Removes the age limit for teachers who hold an indefinite contract.

1008 – Allows a member of the 1977 police officers’ and firefighters’ pension and disability fund (1977 fund) to purchase at full actuarial cost service earned out of state in a position for which the 1977 fund would give credit if the service were earned in Indiana.

1021 – Provides that a debtor’s Indiana earned income tax credit is property that is exempt under the bankruptcy property exemption statute. (Current law provides only that a debtor’s federal earned income tax credit is exempt property.)

1044 – Provides that circuit court clerks and the clerk of the supreme court are not personally liable for acts or omissions in the performance of the clerks’ duties absent gross negligence or intentional disregard of the responsibilities of the office of clerk, however this does not prvent an action against the clerk’s bond for errors or omissions.

1050 – Allows a member of the 1977 police officers’ and firefighters’ pension and disability fund (1977 fund) to designate one or more beneficiaries to receive the 1977 fund member’s contributions plus interest if the 1977 fund member dies without receiving retirement or disability benefits and without a spouse, child, or parent entitled to receive survivor benefits.

1059 – Provides for mandatory provisional billing for property taxes first due and payable after 2010 if property tax bills were delayed in the immediately preceding year (unless a provisional statement was used in that immediately preceding year) and the county council or county treasurer determines that the county auditor has failed or will fail to deliver the abstract for that assessment date to the county treasurer before April 1 of the year following the assessment date. . . . Entitles a taxing unit to interest generated by the county on property tax collections if the county treasurer fails to meet the deadline for compliance with a request for advance distribution of the collections.

1061 – Reallocates distribution of the County identification security protection fee.

1062 – Enacts the uniform enforcement of foreign judgments act to permit the enforcement of a judgment of another state upon filing the judgment in the office of the clerk of the court.

1064 – Establishes a procedure to collect voluntary donations when hunting licenses are sold. Specifies that the proceeds must be used to process donated wild game related to feeding the state’s hungry.

1065 – Prohibits a person from enacting or enforcing a rule that prevents an employee from keeping a firearm in the employee’s car.

1068 – Limits public access to handgun licensure information.

1069 – Adds three members to the board of trustees of a commuter transportation district.

1076 – Eliminates the requirement that a local port authority contract be in the name of the political subdivision creating the authority. Specifies that a local port authority is an instrumentality of the state and may exercise certain powers independent of any political subdivision. Authorizes local port authorities to borrow money. Relocates bonding authority for local port authorities from the list of general powers to a separate section. Retains the requirement that a local port authority obtain the approval of the governing body that created the authority before entering contracts concerning royalties from natural or mineral resources of land owned by the authority and relocates the requirement from the list of general powers to a separate section.

1084 – Provides that the maximum weight limitation for a heavy duty vehicle that is equipped with an auxiliary power unit for climate control or electrical purposes is increased by 400 pounds. Provides that a motor carrier or an operator of a commercial motor vehicle that provides the intrastate commercial transport of one or more metal coils of a certain weight commits a Class A misdemeanor unless the operator of the commercial motor vehicle has been certified in proper load securement. Requires the department of revenue to adopt rules concerning the certification of commercial motor vehicle operators who transport one or more metal coils of a certain weight.

1099– Allows the board of animal health to assist organizations that represent poultry producers with issues related to poultry. Allows the board to adopt rules to establish standards governing the care of livestock and poultry.

It looks like the General Assembly is bent on undoing one of its most useful accomplishments of the 2009 session: its attempt to fix the broken and bankrupt unemployment insurance fund. In 2009, they passed HB 1379 which was signed into law.

Now, via an amendment to SB 23 (h/t Jim Shella). The House approved the amendment by a vote of 95-5. The five voting “no” were Avery, Day, Tincher, Tyler, and Candelaria Reardon.

The Republican proposal in the Senate was to delay implementation of the 2009 compromise by a year. The nearly unanimous House proposal is to undo implementation entirely. I guess both House and Senate are counting on the federal government continuing to loan us money to pay unemployment benefits. Anyone who voted to undo the 2009 compromise-fix who pisses and moans about D.C. on the campaign trail should be questioned closely on this issue.

Update Niki Kelly, writing for the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, has more.

Dan Carden, writing for the Northwest Indiana Times, has an article about how things are getting a little chippy in the General Assembly. But, really, I’m not sure if there is a story here. The hours of work are wearing on, and any easy stuff they had to deal with has probably been taken care of already.

The minority party in both chambers feels shut out by the majority. But, with all due respect, that’s what comes with being a minority party. The Senate Democrats are not numerous enough to pay much attention to, and the House Republicans have frequently shown themselves to be grandstanding blowhards. (Remember when the House Republicans declared protecting Indiana from the potential scourge of gay marriage was “the most critical piece of the people’s business?” He said this as such things as the property tax and unemployment insurance time bombs were still ticking.) Oh, and Speaker Bauer apparently has something of an ego. Who knew?

Niki Kelly, reporting for the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, reports that an Ohio federal court ruling casts some doubt on the legality of an ethics provision making it’s way through the Indiana General Assembly that requires a one year cooling off period before a legislator can lobby the General Assembly.

The decision, Brinkman v. Budish (here pdf), was decided by Judge Dlott of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio. It’s appealable to the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals. As such, it has no precedential value here in Indiana, but it does throw up a caution flag.

The challenged Ohio law is similar to the proposed Indiana law in that it also requires a one year cooling off period before a former legislator can lobby the legislature. Jim Siegel, writing for the Columbus Dispatch has a story on the Ohio court’s decision.

State officials “have not articulated or presented evidence to establish that the temporally limited restriction adequately addresses the concern against quid pro quo corruption,” wrote Chief Judge Susan J. Dlott.
. . .
Dlott went after the law from a number of angles.

She said it was not narrow enough, because it prohibited lobbying regardless of whether it was an issue the person had worked on while in the legislature. The law also iswas “over-inclusive” because it captured unpaid lobbying, which Brinkman wanted to do.

On the flip side, Dlott said, the law was under-inclusive because it did not restrict gifts, employment offers or other potential corruption-inducing activities of former members.

The judge also said the law “severely burdened plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights.”

Dlott even cited the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that lifted the ban on corporate contributions in federal elections, saying the high court’s reasoning “refutes the premise (that Ohio’s revolving-door law) is necessary to prevent former General Assembly members from having special access to the legislative process.”

Niki Kelly, writing for the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, has an article on the Senate passage of HB 1068 which makes government gun licensure information not subject to public disclosure.

I have mixed feelings on this one, I guess. I think Democracy requires public access to government records. After all government is us. They’re our records. And, I don’t see anything particularly special about guns. Whether a record is public or not doesn’t hinder a person’s ability to bear arms. (The right is not one to bear arms in secret.) On the other hand, it’s adding insult to injury that, by jumping through government hoops to engage in legal activity, your personal business is opened to public scrutiny. Maybe a broader law would be appropriate, one that more generally shields private information provided to the government. Though, I’m not sure how you write that law in a way that doesn’t unduly shield government activity from public scrutiny.

SB 126 would allow the merger of one or more rural electric membership corporations (REMC) with one or more rural telephone cooperative corporation. The resulting corporation would have the rights and privileges of each.

It has been passed out of the House Committee and will now head to the floor.

The Senate passed SB 310 which requires the regulatory flexibility committee to study security issues related to cloud computing by state agencies.

The study must cover issues regarding potential security risks presented by the use of cloud computing services based on the:
(1) mission of an agency that might use cloud computing services;
(2) types of data that an agency might have;
(3) level of sensitivity of the data;
(4) potential services to be used; and
(5) existing and potential security related threats to the state agency.

The bill doesn’t define “cloud computing,” and the Wikipedia definition is a little beyond me, but generally, it has a privatization feel to it:

In general, cloud computing customers do not own the physical infrastructure, instead avoiding capital expenditure by renting usage from a third-party provider. They consume resources as a service and pay only for resources that they use. Many cloud-computing offerings employ the utility computing model, which is analogous to how traditional utility services (such as electricity) are consumed, whereas others bill on a subscription basis. Sharing “perishable and intangible” computing power among multiple tenants can improve utilization rates, as servers are not unnecessarily left idle (which can reduce costs significantly while increasing the speed of application development). A side-effect of this approach is that overall computer usage rises dramatically, as customers do not have to engineer for peak load limits. In addition, “increased high-speed bandwidth” makes it possible to receive the same response times from centralized infrastructure at other sites.