HJR 1, the proposed Constitutional Amendment that will enshrine property tax caps into the Indiana Constitution has passed the General Assembly for the second time and will now be placed on the ballot. These property taxes are already the law, so the amendment would do nothing in the short term. It will only limit options if, for any reason, the law turns out to be unsatisfactory in the future.

Recent polling suggests property tax caps are popular as are, presumably, chocolate and puppies. I don’t believe the polling has any information on whether the people polled understood that the caps were already the law or some notion of the impact property taxes had on sales taxes, income taxes, or government funding. Am I calling people stupid? No, not all of them. There are plenty of stupid people out there. But, by and large, the lack of understanding will come from lack of time and inclination. And, of course, there will be a fair number of people who understand the proposed amendment and favor it. But, I do question whether most of my fellow Hoosiers will understand this when they vote to put it in the state Constitution:

(b) A provision of this section permitting the General Assembly to exempt property from taxation also permits the General Assembly to exercise its legislative power to enact property tax deductions and credits for the property. The General Assembly may impose reasonable filing requirements for an exemption, deduction, or credit.
. . .
(e) This subsection applies to property taxes first due and payable in 2012 and thereafter. The following definitions apply to subsection (f):
(1) “Other residential property” means tangible property (other than tangible property described in subsection (c)(4)) that is used for residential purposes.
(2) “Agricultural land” means land devoted to agricultural use.
(3) “Other real property” means real property that is not tangible property described in subsection (c)(4), is not other residential property, and is not agricultural land.
(f) This subsection applies to property taxes first due and payable in 2012 and thereafter. The General Assembly shall, by law, limit a taxpayer’s property tax liability as follows:
(1) A taxpayer’s property tax liability on tangible property described in subsection (c)(4) may not exceed one percent (1%) of the gross assessed value of the property that is the basis for the determination of property taxes.
(2) A taxpayer’s property tax liability on other residential property may not exceed two percent (2%) of the gross assessed value of the property that is the basis for the determination of property taxes.
(3) A taxpayer’s property tax liability on agricultural land may not exceed two percent (2%) of the gross assessed value of the land that is the basis for the determination of property taxes.
(4) A taxpayer’s property tax liability on other real property may not exceed three percent (3%) of the gross assessed value of the property that is the basis for the determination of property taxes.
(5) A taxpayer’s property tax liability on personal property (other than personal property that is tangible property described in subsection (c)(4) or personal property that is other residential property) within a particular taxing district may not exceed three percent (3%) of the gross assessed value of the taxpayer’s personal property that is the basis for the determination of property taxes within the taxing district.
(g) This subsection applies to property taxes first due and payable in 2012 and thereafter. Property taxes imposed after being approved by the voters in a referendum shall not be considered for purposes of calculating the limits to property tax liability under subsection (f).
(h) As used in this subsection, “eligible county” means only a county for which the General Assembly determines in 2008 that limits to property tax liability as described in subsection (f) are expected to reduce in 2010 the aggregate property tax revenue that would otherwise be collected by all units of local government and school corporations in the county by at least twenty percent (20%). The General Assembly may, by law, provide that property taxes imposed in an eligible county to pay debt service or make lease payments for bonds or leases issued or entered into before July 1, 2008, shall not be considered for purposes of calculating the limits to property tax liability under subsection (f). Such a law may not apply after December 31, 2019.

Eric Bradner has a column in the Evansville Courier Press discussing the progress of the General Assembly so far. He points out that they haven’t actually done anything all that significant yet. The property tax Constitutional amendment is politically popular, and it won’t actually change anything directly — the property tax caps are already law. Township “reform” is pretty much just passing the buck. They allow for local referendums on whether to eliminate townships. They can claim to have done something about the Kernan-Shepard report while at the same time telling their colleagues in township government that they never voted to eliminate the position. I’m not sure the ethics bill fits Bradner’s narrative especially well, but his point is well taken – it involves relatively small changes in response to what is perceived to be a big problem.

Big changes, suggests Bradner, would be moving on Sen. Becker & Rep. Crouch’s proposal to make Medicaid waiver eligibility presumptive for at-home elder care, thereby reducing the hardship involved with sometimes lengthy eligibility determinations. Or, he suggests, redistricting reform could move forward. (On that, see a good analysis of Rokita’s disingenuous craftiness on the subject.) In addition, net metering could be important as could gaming issues.

So far, there has been a little sizzle, but the meat remains to be seen.

Paying work has kind of taken over my life the past couple of days. Sorry ’bout that. I hear the legislature has been doing stuff though. Feel free to discuss it.

Sen. Becker has introduced SB 171 which would require health insurers to report medical loss ratios. In the health insurance biz, money spent on actually paying for health care is regarded as “medical loss.” Sen. Becker’s bill would require health insurers to report what percentage of premiums are used to pay for health care as opposed to other stuff like salaries, marketing, hiring staff to deny claims, etc. The idea – for customers, anyway – is that the best health insurer is the one that is best able to translate premium dollars into health care payments. Investors and other stakeholders might prefer that premium dollars get diverted to other pockets.

The bill requires accounting for specific categories of expenditures, including: Chief executive officer and executive salaries and benefits; Advertising and marketing expenses; Travel and entertainment expenses; and State and federal lobbying expenses.

Senator Vi Simpson has introduced SB 141 which tries to exempt contraception from the abortion laws.

It defines contraception as “the use of a drug or device that has been approved by the federal Food and Drug Administration to prevent pregnancy.” Then it says that “contraception” is not subject to IC 16-34 which sets forth the public policy on abortion and criminalizes the performance of an abortion except under specified conditions.

It’s remarkable how often the same people who oppose abortion also seem to oppose contraception or sex education. Credibility for the argument that the real concern is the sanctity of human life would be enhanced by support for reproductive rights when they clearly do not involve the life of a child. Widespread contraception and sex education are much more effective at reducing the need for abortions than, say, abstinence only education.

I have not come to a full understanding about why conservative morality so frequently seems to involve controlling a woman’s sexuality. And, by “conservative morality” I’m not talking specifically about politics in the United States in the 20th and 21st century. This sort of thing seems to crop up in conservative strains of different religions in different times. At some point, I guess I ought to try to understand the source of the impulse to control women in this fashion.

The House passed HB 1001 and HB 1002 by votes of 97-2 and 61-38, respectively. HB 1001 had to do with lobbying and ethics, and HB 1002 had to do with preferences for Indiana companies in public works projects.

In case you were curious, the two “no” votes against HB 1001 were Tim Brown (R-Crawfordsville) and Dave Wolkins (R-Winona Lake).

The House also passed HJR 1, which takes the property tax cap law that’s already in place and enshrines it in the Constitution for future generations to enjoy regardless of whether it ends up being good policy or not. The resolution passed by a vote of 75 – 23. If it passes the Senate, which it probably will, then it will be up to The People to vote. Perhaps I underestimate the attentiveness of my fellow Hoosiers, but when it comes time to vote on this, I’d be surprised if 1/2 the people casting votes do so with the understanding that these tax caps are already the law; it will save them exactly nothing in property taxes – at least in the near term; and all they will be doing is make things harder to fix if the Law of Unintended Consequences rears its ugly head. But, I guess if you get to campaign on being Tough on Taxes, it’s all worth it.

Update Abdul has published an excerpt from a letter sent by the Indiana Association of Cities and Towns to legislators. It responds to legislators who claimed that local officials didn’t “make the case” forcefully enough against Constitutionalizing property tax caps. What that seems to mean is that the locals didn’t provide enough political cover for legislators to vote against this block of text making its way into our Constitution.

Bill Ruthhart, writing for the Indianapolis Star, has an article on the relatively good natured razzing being directed to the Senate for canceling business on account of the looming Snowpocalypse, a/k/a, The White Death from Above. All 4 inches of it.

The razzing seemed to primarily take the form of northern types puffing out their chests and proclaiming “You call this snow? I’m from the North, and this ain’t nuthin!” (I paraphrase). The other form seems to be that of the rough and tumble House members making fun of the more genteel, and therefore weenie, culture of the Senate.

The decision to shut down the Senate boiled down to: 1) There was a lot of snow in the forecast; 2) There wasn’t a lot of business scheduled for Thursday; and 3) The Senate rules weren’t flexible enough to change the meeting time to an earlier time, allowing such business as there was to get done before the roads got too bad.

Having a Senate day scheduled without much business on the agenda makes the cynical mind start thinking of things like per diems, but I really have no idea.

HB 1010, introduced by Rep. Torr, would prohibit a government entity awarding a public works contract from making certain labor friendly provisions part of the bid or contract requirements.

Specifically, it couldn’t require a contractor to enter into or comply with an agreement with a labor organization on the same or a related public works project and it couldn’t require employees of the contractor to become part of a union or pay extra fees to the labor union.

Some of this makes a certain amount of sense to me, but it sounds like this would prohibit a government unit from penalizing a contractor even if the contractor was breaching its existing union contract.

But sensible or not, at the end of the day, I think it probably boils down to a general antipathy to unions.

Update There is almost always a backstory to these bills, and I just go along aware that I don’t usually know what they are. Reading this post over at Advance Indiana leads me to believe that this bill has to do with Marion County and Wishard Hospital construction.