A Citizen's Guide to Indiana

Masson's Blog

Rove on Obama

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From this blurb at Talking Points Memo about Rove’s column on Obama, I couldn’t tell whether Rove was really talking about Obama or a flashback to C. Thomas Howell’s character in the movie Soul Man.

I’m probably not going to stun you by telling you that Karl Rove is using racial code words. But as long as we’re talking about Andrew Cuomo’s decision to stick his foot so far into his mouth that it’s coming out of his behind, you really must read Karl Rove’s piece on New Hampshire in today’s Journal oped page.

I’ll just pick out the highlights, but in the course of a single column Rove manages to flag Obama’s “trash talking”, “his days playing pickup basketball at Harvard”, and the alleged fact that “he is often lazy.”

Awkward

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Man runs into wife . . . at a brothel.

WARSAW (Reuters) – A Polish man got the shock of his life when he visited a brothel and spotted his wife among the establishment’s employees. Polish tabloid Super Express said the woman had been making some extra money on the side while telling her husband she worked at a store in a nearby town.

SB 16 – Elimination of township assessors

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SB 16 concerning the elimination of elected township assessors has passed the Senate Local Government and Elections Committee by a 5 – 4 vote.

In its introduced form, the bill would transfer property tax assessment duties from elected township assessors and township trustees to the county assessor. It also provides that each appraiser that performs assessments on behalf of a county property assessment contractor must have a level two assessor-appraiser certification, and requires the department of local government finance to consider before approving the contract the contractor’s experience, training, and number of employees.

Township assessors, unsurprisingly, oppose the measure. Also among those opposing the measure was Republican Mike Young of Indianapolis:

Sen. Mike Young, R-Indianapolis, was among the lawmakers who voted against the plan, saying that it makes sense to eliminate township assessors in a small county with only a few thousand residents, but not in large counties like Marion.

There has been no evidence, he said, that there will be fewer errors or greater efficiencies when assessing duties are consolidated in the county office.

But Sen. Connie Lawson, the Danville Republican who is chairwoman of the committee and who authored SB 16, said the state needs to change, even if it costs more to hire additional professional employees to replace the elected assessors.

“If we have to put more money into the assessment system to get it right, then that’s what we need to do,” Lawson said.

The roll call vote doesn’t seem to be available yet on the General Assembly’s web site so I don’t know who else opposed the measure. The fiscal analysis is indeterminate as to whether this will actually save money, but it provides a nice summary of the township positions:

Currently, townships with a population of more than 8,000 elect a township assessor. Townships with a population between 5,000 and 8,000 may elect a township assessor if the legislative body of the township adopts a resolution indicating that a township assessor is necessary and the resolution is filed with the county election board. A township trustee in a township with less than 5,000 population serves as the township assessor. In 2000, there were 1,008 township assessors in Indiana, 827 of whom are trustee-assessors.

[tags]SB 16-2008, Kernan-Shepard, townships[/tags]

HB 1146 – Bankruptcy and motor vehicle judgments

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Here is a bill that is a decade or two overdue. HB 1146 concerns the effect bankruptcy has on judgments pertaining to motor vehicle accidents.

Indiana has a nice little legal feature designed to encourage folks who operate motor vehicles to comply with the motor vehicle insurance laws. If you have a civil judgment entered against you because of a motor vehicle accident (up to the minimum insurance required) and you fail to pay the judgment within 90 days (presumably because you don’t have the money and were not properly insured), the judgment holder can apply to have your license suspended until you pay up. I do this routinely in my subrogation collection practice against uninsured motorists, and it provides much better leverage against debtors than I have in my average collection case.

When implementing this tool, Indiana tried to hedge against bankruptcies. Currently IC 9-25-6-7(b) says that a bankruptcy discharge won’t lift a license suspension. A court case from, seems like, 15 or 20 years ago essentially said, “nice try, but federal bankruptcy law trumps Indiana state law and, it doesn’t matter what the state law says, the discharge voids the license suspension.”

So, it’s nice of the Code Revision Commission to recommend cleaning up this code provision. Such a thing can’t really be included in the technical corrections bill because it’s not purely technical. But, it should be an uncontroversial clean up. Carrying this sort of legislation is, by the way, mostly thankless. So, I’m happy that Rep. GiaQuinta has taken it upon himself to move this legislation through the process.

HB 1152 – Sex offenders

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HB 1152 by Rep. Richardson would limit access of sexually violent predators or offenders against children to primary and secondary schools in cases where the offenders either attend such a school or are the parent or guardian of someone who attends such a school. In the former case, there would be a prohibition against the sex offender/student from being on the grounds of other primary or secondary schools. In the latter case, the offender would have to provide written notice to the school that the person is an offender, and the offender would not be able to be on school grounds unless attending a meeting with a teacher or administrator and escorted while on school grounds.

[tags]criminal code, sex offenders[/tags]

Voter ID

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Indiana’s Voter ID law got a hearing before the United States Supreme Court today. Maureen Groppe is of the opinion that the Justices appeared reluctant to throw out the law. (And, why not, from the crowd that brought us the appalling Bush v. Gore decision.)

TPM Muckraker notes that Todd Rokita gave a particularly inept defense of the law during a recent interview.

To get a handle on what lawmakers were trying to accomplish, it might be useful to take a look at what sorts of amendments were considered and rejected:

Senate Bill 083 requiring Hoosiers to produce state or federally issued photo ID before being permitted to exercise their right to vote passed Second Reading in the House. The House Republicans voted against:

# a provision that would have allowed a voter, in lieu of a photo ID, to sign an affidavit which would subject them to perjury prosecution if they were voting fraudulently and would have subjected absentee voters to the same ID requirements if they were casting their vote in front of an absentee voter board or voting absentee at the Clerk’s office.

# a provision that would have required a precinct election board who prevented a Hoosier from exercising their right to vote for failure to produce identification to provide the voter with information advising the voter of 1) the permissible forms of identification; 2) the requirements for having the provisional ballot counted; 3) contact information for the circuit court clerk, the voter’s senator and representative, the toll-free number staffed by the election division, and the election division’s web-site.

# a provision requiring the secretary of state, before each election, to send notice of the identification requirements for voting to each person who registered to vote after the most recent primary or general election.

UpdatestAllio! has a good round up on some of the Voter ID discussion going on out there.

Brayton on the Founders & Religion

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Ed Brayton has a wonderful post on the Founders’ personal religious beliefs and the relationship of those beliefs to the Founders’ opinions of the proper role of government in religion (or vice versa). Go read the whole thing, but the short version is essentially this:

Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and Madison were all rational theists and not really Christians. They had a difference of opinion as to whether religion was necessary to support public virtue and morality. Jefferson and Madison believed that religion was not a necessary component of public virtue and morality. Washington and Adams believed that, while certain superior minds might be capable of virtue and morality independent of religion, by and large the rabble required religion to keep them in line. (I am paraphrasing, of course.)

With respect to a couple of today’s issues, Mr. Brayton suggests that Washington and Adams would have no trouble with “In God We Trust” on the currency but that posting the Ten Commandments in court houses would be a closer call. Jefferson and Madison would be opposed to all of it.

More on Lafayette-area flooding

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The Lafayette Journal & Courier has some excellent coverage of the flood situation in the area:

Monon area flooding by Brian Wallheimer – In one Monon trailer park, residents were told at 5 a.m. that leaving was recommended; by 5:30 a.m. it was a necessity. One resident said she just has to find a new place to live on account of repeated flooding. At least one family had to be evacuated by boat.

Death of Goodland man by Brian Wallheimer – Ronnie Napier, Sr. was driving to work at Omni Forge at about 2:30 a.m. when floodwaters on Carpenter Creek pulled him to his death.

Invasion of floodwaters by Max Showalter and Meranda Watling – the floodwaters have affected a 6 county area north of Lafayette, with the hardest hit being around Remington, Monon, and Monticello. Three people have died, including two young children in Fulton County who were trapped in an SUV. Record flows were recorded at the Norway and Oakdale dams along the Tippecanoe River, forming Lakes Shafer and Freeman, respectively.

Preparing for the worst by Sophia Voravong and Meranda Watling – The Tippecanoe County Emergency Management Agency is preparing for the worst. The Wabash River is expected to hit 22 feet, 11 feet above flood stage.

No warning below Oakdale Dam by Meranda Watling – a big mess south of the Oakdale Dam.

Higher than I’d seen in 30 years by Curt Slyder – High waters at Buffalo, along the Tippecanoe River.

Region flooded by Katie Duffey (Monticello Herald Journal) – Murphy’s Law was apparently in effect. The National Weather Service reported a dam failure which put a lot of people into a panic. A ton of rain that would’ve been tolerable in the summer creates more problem in the winter because the ground doesn’t absorb the water as well, making it all run off into the river.

Sounds like a big mess out there but that the various communities are really coming together. Just when you think humans are nasty, brutish creatures, some external threat comes along and suddenly people figure out how to treat each other decently.