The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette has an editorial published July 2, blaming/crediting the aggressive fireworks industry lobby for Indiana’s lax fireworks laws. Bob Morris (of “Girl Scouts are a tactical arm of Planned Parenthood” fame) and Eric Turner (of lucrative nursing home regulatory environment fame) get special mention as advocates for the industry. The fireworks lobby apparently contributes more here than in neighboring states in spite of the comparatively low cost for political campaigns in Indiana.

The upshot of the editorial seems to be that we have lots of fireworks at all hours and our General Assembly is a bargain!

The Indiana Legislature’s ethics rules are not “strong.” Consequently, Rep. Eric Turner did not violate them when lobbying for legislative action or inaction that concerned millions of dollars in investments for him and his family.

Jim Shella, writing for WISHTV reports that the House Ethics Committee will vote next week but that it will be a formality. There are no rules about what a member can say or do in a private caucus which is apparently where Turner did the heavy lifting in his efforts to kill a bill that would have put a crimp in his family’s nursing home development business.

Turner, a Cicero Republican, did send written responses to committee questions and Chairman Greg Steuerwald read some of them aloud including one where Turner said, “I violated neither House rules, nor the code of ethics.”

It’s all about legislation that could benefit the Mainstreet Property Group, a nursing home company that builds upscale facilities. It’s owned by Rep. Turner’s son and Turner is an investor.

During a private GOP caucus, Turner argued against a nursing home moratorium that would hurt the company. He admitted to doing so in a written response.

“I offered my particular expertise on the nursing home industry and the nursing home moratorium,” he said in answer read aloud by Steuerwald.

The committee found that there are no rules that apply to private caucuses.

One thing I found remarkable is that Turner only had to provide written responses to interrogatories for the committee. He was never required to sit for a deposition or to give live testimony to the committee. He didn’t even show up for the hearing. Interrogatory responses are a poor substitute for live questioning. It’s dead easy to draft interrogatory responses that technically answer the question ask but which are equivocal and avoid answering directly those points you’d rather not address.

But, if there are no ethics rules or they are very weak, then it’s likely that Turner didn’t in fact break them. So there is not much more that the committee can do — even if it were so inclined. That speaks to a need for developing a set of rules that are more substantial than the fig leaf the General Assembly currently has.

Niki Kelly, writing for the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, has an article about a committee hearing concerning legislation that would restrict the property rights of schools by preventing them from restricting gun owners from keeping a gun in parking lots on school property. What struck me was the contentious posture apparently taken by some of the lawmakers toward testifying witnesses.

It got especially heated when Zionsville mother Shannon Watts, of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, testified. For every statistic she used, Lucas countered from a book he carried. For every statement she made on mass shootings, another lawmaker would refute. Lucas even pointed out her maiden name and read a list of her previous jobs to note her expertise in media and marketing. And Rep. Jud McMillin, R-Brookville, called her disingenuous for supporting background checks and other gun regulations but claiming to be a strong supporter of the Second Amendment. A representative from the National Rifle Association spoke in support of the bill, but no private citizens did.

Proponents of reduced firearm regulation don’t do themselves any favors by being unnecessarily confrontational. They will tell you that they are promoting self-defense and the constitution. However, they need to be aware that many proponents of increased firearm regulation see firearms as a force enhancer for blowhards who are spoiling for a fight. At this point in the process, Sen. Lucas should have his votes sewn up. Or at least he should have already educated his colleagues on the fence sufficiently that a witness like Watts is incidental to the process. At best, engaging her will do nothing. At worst, it will blow up in his face – making her more important to the process than he had any need to make her.

Also, are firearms still not permitted at the State House? Seems like a decent respect for consistency would make that the first place to drop restrictions.

When the Indiana Department of Transportation seeks to acquire land for a road, it is required to make an acquisition offer to the owner. If the owner rejects the offer, under current law, INDOT is required to file a complaint to acquire the land by eminent domain within 6 years. If it fails to do so, INDOT is prohibited from initiating a renewed acquisition process for an additional 3 years.

HB 1076 shortens the time for filing a complaint to acquire the land from the 6 years to 3 years. Additionally, if INDOT does file such a complaint, courts are ordered to expedite the action and the court of appeals is instructed to adopt rules to expedite review of those trial court decisions.

That last part is pretty vague and, therefore, probably toothless if courts are inclined to ignore it. Aside from that, in light of the separation of powers, I wonder if the General Assembly is truly entitled to require courts to expedite particular things.

Tom LoBianco, writing for the Associated Press has an article on summer study committees entitled “Legislative Studies often precede tough action.” That’s true, but – as the article also discusses – it’s often where legislation goes to die. And, I guess that’s appropriate too. Sometimes a study will reveal that no action is the proper action.

Generally the dynamic is that a legislator will have a cause. The cause can’t quite garner enough votes for substantive action. As a way of avoiding total defeat, sometimes the substantive bill will get amended to be a study committee. It’s a half a loaf situation for opponents and proponents alike.

Critics of these studies say they equate to “punting” on the issue, while supporters say it allows the time to delve deeper into a subject after the harried days of the session. Either way, months of routine meetings on one specific topic often help drive action on many of Indiana’s toughest issues.

The best example from this year could be the regulations for religious daycare centers that lawmakers are on the verge of approving. Proposed regulations were often stymied in previous sessions, despite grim reports of child deaths and multiple newspaper investigations that exposed widespread problems. But it wasn’t until after lawmakers spent a summer reviewing the issue that new rules seemed possible.

Maybe things have changed in the 15 years (yikes!) since I was at LSA, but the summer study committee is an area where the General Assembly could stand to study the committee process itself and maybe implement more formal procedures. From my perspective anyway, the process seemed fairly slapdash. The witnesses and materials reviewed by legislators seemed arbitrary and far from comprehensive. The meetings could be sporadic and often rushed at the end of the summer and in the first half of fall. The meetings were, at times, pro forma.

The quality of the studies was largely dependent on who the chair of the committee was. Among other things, some legislators are simply more diligent than others. And, of course, if the study gets assigned to a committee where the chairperson isn’t very interested, not a lot is going to happen. (Though that’s true of the regular session committee as well.)

Another factor is that we still have, at least nominally, a part time legislature. These lawmakers mostly have jobs in the “real” world as well. And they have a lot of catch up to do after spending the winter and early spring in session. So, beefing up the summer study committees will be challenging under the best of circumstances.
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Eric Weddle, writing for the Lafayette Journal & Courier has a good article on the rash of daycare deaths in Indiana and the efforts in the General Assembly to increase regulation of day cares.

There have apparently been 31 deaths at day cares since 2009 and 21 of them have been at unregulated day cares. One issue is the fact that a day care doesn’t have to be licensed if the provider is caring for less then 5 unrelated kids. Church affiliated day cares are another blind spot in the system.

I’m not sure there will be a huge appetite to do much about this problem. None of our legislators want to see kids dying at day cares. But, social services take a lot of money and that money doesn’t tend to yield a lot of immediate economic benefits. Even if we add additional rules, there has to be money for enforcement. The regulatory agencies would have to be able to detect a day care and know when it changes in a way that brings it within the scope of regulation.

Day cares in general are an unfortunate innovation and necessity of modern society. It used to be you had a parent at home or lived in and around extended family that watched after the kids while the parents worked. Of course, in times past, kids died a lot more for all kinds of reasons. So, modern society is probably more good than bad if you net it out. Still, if jobs pay enough to allow functional one income families, that probably would be optimal.

But, as to the immediate problem, my suggestion (and maybe something like this already exists) would be a registration and certification program. Create an easily searchable day care registry and an additional certification program. A family sending their kids to day care would probably be aware that the fact the day care was not on the registry was a major red flag and would have an extra level of comfort if the day care jumped the quality assurance hoops necessary to be certified. Perhaps a small extra level of information by requiring unregistered day cares have customers sign a consent form indicating that they had been advised that this was an unregistered day care and they, nevertheless, wanted to send their kids there. The disclosure could be easily ignored but you could attach some fairly brutal penalties to a violation if a kid was hurt and the parents had not signed a consent to have the kid supervised at an unregistered day care.

Johnny Cash sang of a young cowboy named Billy Joe whose mother warned him not to take his guns to town. He went to town and got drunk at the bar when another patron started talking trash. Enraged and, perhaps, emboldened by booze and his firearms, Billy Joe drew on the trash talking cowpoke. But the other guy was faster and shot Billy Joe first. Had he followed his mother’s advice, he might well have walked away and lived.

Ignoring the wisdom of Johnny Cash at their peril (as do we all), the Indiana General Assembly has moved legislation forward that would facilitate the presence of guns at or near schools. SB 229, as recently amended, removes schools from the places exempt from the 2009 “Bring Your Gun to Work” legislation.

Generally speaking, the legislation would allow possession of a firearm in school parking lots if the firearm is in the locked trunk or glove compartment of a vehicle, and it would prevent property owners from adopting or enforcing rules to the contrary.

Sen. Boots has taken several runs at the idea of having the attorney general represent judges in mandate litigation. Mandates are generally where a judge orders the county to pay more to fund the operation of the courts. If the county disagrees, there is a procedure that, among other things, usually entails the judge retaining private counsel and the county having to foot the bill. Insult to injury from the perspective of local officials. Normally, when a state official – including a judge – gets involved in litigation, the attorney general represents that official.

In years past, the legislation has simply died. This year, Sen. Boots got legislation urging the legislative council to have a summer committee study the matter. That’s a sort of legislative limbo. It will be interesting to see if it receives any serious study and, if so, what the committee will recommend.

The Senate will take up HB 1123 on second reading. It prohibits a health insurance policy from covering abortion services provided by a medical provider except that it can provide such coverage if the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest or if an abortion is necessary “to avert the pregnant woman’s death or a substantial an irreversible impairment of a major bodily function of the pregnant woman.” However such coverage may be provided through an endorsement or rider.

This is pretty clearly an effort to make it more difficult to get an abortion. (I have keen insights, I know.) If we pretend there is another motivation for this bill, what’s the rationale? “Abortion is murder, but it’s o.k. if you finance it with a separate contract.”

The “major bodily function” language is, I think, telling. What if there is the risk of irreversible impairment to the woman as a person but not, necessarily, to her as a biological machine? Too bad, I guess. Mental impairments are too easy to fake and, in our heart of hearts, we don’t believe they’re “real” diseases.