County officials in Pulaski County are apparently following the example set by Governor Daniels on time zone laws: they are going to ignore the ones they don’t like. Gov. Daniels ignored IC 1-8-1.1-3 when he opposed St. Joseph County’s petition to switch to Central Time despite the state law that told him the state is supposed to support such a petition. According to WSBT:

Pulaski County leaders say they will defy the federal government and stay on Eastern time in April.

County leaders voted to ask the U.S. Department of Transportation to reconsider their decision to place the county on Central time. If that decision is not made by April 2nd, county leaders say they will declare home rule and make Eastern the official time of the county.

The Pulaski County leaders also point to the fact that counties around Cincinnati and Louisville ignored federal law for the past 30 years. They call it “Home Rule.” I can pretty much guarantee that Indiana’s “Home Rule” statutes do not permit time zone defiance. The time zones are set by federal law, and the state of Indiana, even were it so inclined, does not have the power to confer upon localities the authority to ignore federal law. I think that, in the case of the southeastern counties, it was a case of benign neglect on the part of the feds. It would be interesting to see if the feds would be willing to look the other way in Pulaski County.

An Associated Press story on the subject explains Pulaski County’s shifting preference.

Officials in the county midway between South Bend and Lafayette asked for the shift last year when neighboring counties were doing the same. But the federal agency shifted only Pulaski and neighboring Starke counties to Central time and rejected requests from six other nearby counties.

Once again, all of this highlights the clusterf*&k created when the Governor and the General Assembly decided to move ahead with implementing statewide Daylight Saving Time without crafting a proposed time zone solution on a statewide basis.

Also, I missed that at least some citizens in Martin County are having second thoughts:

Martin County officials are reconsidering a time zone switch approved last month by a federal agency amid growing concern about its impact on the Crane Naval Surface Warfare Center.

Workers at the base, which is southern Indiana’s second-largest employer, want it to remain on Eastern time, and not move to Central time, said Cary Bledsoe, a representative of Crane’s six employee organizations. . .
The [Martin County] commissioners said they would set a date for a new public hearing on the time zone change during their Feb. 14 meeting.

Thanks to Paul O’Malley for forwarding this article by Scott Allen in the Pulaski County Journal and Independent. Pulaski County had originally requested Central Time like many of its neighbors. At the time of the request, the time zone map looked like this:

The counties in dark grey represent counties already in Central Time. The counties in red represent those that requested Central Time. The U.S. Dept. of Transportation preliminarily denied many county requests, resulting in a map that looked like this:

The preliminary determination left out Pulaski County as well as a number of other counties in the area. The folks from Pulaski County were mostly content with this, since their primary objective was to be on the same time as their neighbors. Marshall, Fulton, Cass, and White weren’t going to be on Central Time either. So, they didn’t push to have the USDOT reconsider. But reconsider it did, rescinding its preliminary decision to move St. Joseph County, but also rescinding its preliminary decision not to move Pulaski County, creating a final map that looks like this:

According to the article, the people of Pulaski County are mad at the decision of the Dept. of Transportation and are going to meet on Feb. 6 to consider their options. I think pretty much their only option is to submit a new petition to get themselves moved back, though I wouldn’t think the USDOT would have much interest in such a petition at this point.

I’m a geek, so I thought I’d sift through the Daylight Saving Time vote (SB 127-2005) and see who the flip-floppers were — the guys who could have killed Daylight Saving Time at one point or another, but didn’t. By my count, the big winners are Reps. Ayers, Borders, Buck, Gutwein, Heim, Koch, Lehe, Ripley, Ruppel, Ulmer, and, of course, Woodruff.

Here is the table I ginned up. Originally I was going to put the table in the post, but the formatting was so ugly it just had to be a new page. Vote #1 was a third reading vote on 4/11/05 that failed 49 in favor, 50 against. Had there been 51 against, it would have been dead for good. Vote #2 was a Motion to Reconsider the previous vote which passed 52 in favor, 46 against. Had that vote failed, the original defeat would have stuck. Vote #3 was the reconsidered third reading vote that passed 51 in favor to 47 against. Had one other person abstained or voted against it, it would have failed for lack of a majority. Vote #4 was the Conference Committee vote which failed 48 in favor, to 49 against. Had two more people voted against it, it would have been dead for good. Finally, Vote #5 was a do-over of the Conference Committee vote which passed 51 in favor to 46 against. This is the vote where Rep. Woodruff finally cracked and did what he promised his constituents he would never do — voted in favor of Daylight Saving Time. At that point, Rep. Bosma stopped holding votes on the subject because he had gotten what he and the Governor wanted.

In the table, a “Y” indicates a yes vote. A blank indicates a no vote. “No vote” indicates did not vote. “DNA” indicates “did not appear.”

First, my apologies for the lack of blog activity. My home internet service went out on Friday night and was down all weekend.

At the time the USDOT’s time zone decision came out, I noted that the Pulaski County decision surprised me a bit. They had been preliminarily denied and hadn’t made much effort to supplement their petition to get USDOT to reconsider. Nevertheless, they were included in Central while St. Joseph, which had been preliminarily approved, was ultimately denied. Apparently this also came as a surprise to Pulaski County. Now the officials are attempting to reconsider whether they want to be on Central Time.

The county commissioners and County Council plan a special joint
meeting on Monday to hear public comments on whether to appeal the U.S.
Department of Transportation’s ruling to shift Pulaski County from
Eastern time beginning April 2, when daylight-saving time begins.

A statement released by County Council President Sam Frain called
the federal decision released Wednesday a “sudden change” from the
agency’s October recommendation that the county remain in the Eastern
zone. The statement said county officials had received numerous
complaints about the decision.

Meanwhile, we have a chorus of “we got what we wanted, so shut up now” from the eastern parts of the state. One of the voices is an editorial from the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette. But, not surprisingly, the most disingenuous voice seems to be the editorial from the Marion Chronicle Tribune.  Their headline gives away the problem with their reasoning, “After decades of arguing, it’s time to move on.” Why wasn’t it time to move on last year or the year before or the year before that? Because the folks at the Marion Chronicle editorial board hadn’t gotten what they wanted: Eastern Daylight Time. Why is it time to move on now? Because they got what they wanted. So could the rest of us please shut up now? (My comments in italics)

Already, some Hoosier legislators want a statewide referendum on the time zone issue.

“The people ought to be given a voice,” House Minority Leader Pat Bauer whined. Somehow it wasn’t whining when people complained that the system that worked well enough for 30 years ought to be changed.

They’ve had a voice, for crying out loud. They had it when they elected Mitch Daniels, who campaigned on making the change. Folks, you really, really, don’t want to hang your hat on what Mitch Daniels campaigned on. He campaigned on state-wide Central Daylight Time. That is not at all what we have now.

They had it when the General Assembly debated the issue and when the feds conducted hearings and took comments around the state. Nor do you want to hang your hat on the action by the General Assembly. The Daylight Saving Time died twice. First when the original bill didn’t make it out of the House. Second when the bill that ultimately passed was defeated 50 against to 49 in favor only to be resurrected for passage when Troy Woodruff went back on his word to his constituents that he would “never” vote for Daylight Saving Time. And the federal process was stacked against consideration of Central Time. An overwhelming default preference was given to Eastern Time with those preferring Central having to overcome a heavy burden to obtain a shift. Furthermore only changes affecting petitioning counties would be considered — meaning that, even if the State and the interests of commerce would be best served by shifting a non-petitioning county (say, Elkhart County for example), the time shift simply would not be considered under any circumstances.

They’ll have yet another voice when 100 Indiana House seats and 25 Senate seats come up for election this year. You got that right.

But the state does not need a referendum about this. Why? Because the people of Indiana might disagree with the wisdom handed down by the Marion Chronicle Tribune?

It seems to me that the only way out of the time mess is to fill the General Assembly with legislators who are comitted to planning and requesting from the USDOT a statewide time solution or, in the alternative, returning Indiana to the status quo which worked well enough for 30 years, despite the whining from the likes of the Marion Chronicle Tribune.

Another truly inspired post from Lawgeekgurl as she explains “what the big deal is” to non-Hoosiers.

An excerpt:

I could attempt to explain it in a dry, rational fashion by saying it is a topic that is crosses political boundaries, geographic boundaries, and socioeconomic and ethnographic boundaries. It is grounded in a kind of crisis of self-identity for the state. In forcing the issue of statewide observance of DST, the state’s citizens have been forced to examine their own ideas about where Hoosiers fit in the spectrum of Americans. Is Indiana the kind of place that’s more like Chicago, it’s brash, big-shouldered neighbor who understands farming and the hard physical labor of manufacturing – the one who may be a wee bit more liberal, but who still speaks Midwestern – or is it the kind of place that’s more like New York with its sophisitication and Woody Allen movies and fast-past living and high-tech businesses? Is the state really all that torn between the Modern Age or its Rural Past? And if it is, the state asks itself, wasn’t the DST compromise that we had a good solution?

I also particularly liked:

I have said it before, and I’ll say it again. To Hooisers, daylight savings time is one of those things like class basketball, where the name “Hoosier” really originated, and whether or not Bobby Knight deserved to be fired. No matter how long ago they occurred, mention them to a Hoosier and you’ll get an earful. If there are several Hoosiers in the room, you may see a fight.

Inspired. Go check out the whole thing.

Here is a roundup of the coverage of the U.S. Dept. of Transportation’s time zone ruling.

I’m too tired to do a write up, but Lawgeekgurl has an outstanding entry on Daylight Saving Time, the time zones, and, particularly, Governor Daniels’ clownish mishandling of the whole thing.