Tippecanoe Politics to Close according to the proprietor. That’s too bad. I enjoyed reading it. Thanks for the good work, and I’ll keep them on my RSS list for a while, “just in case.”

The BMV computers are spitting out bogus information to law enforcement officials. The State of Indiana website is down. I can’t wait to see what happens when the consortium involving FSSA chief Mitch Roob’s ex-employer and IBM gets ahold of the billion dollar FSSA contract to screen applications for welfare benefits.

At the moment, the BMV situation is the most pernicious. Sheriff’s Departments are being advised that the information from the BMV should be considered unreliable and, therefore, they can’t take appropriate action against violators unless they can confirm the information independently of the Bureau.

Hamilton County Sheriff Doug Carter says the BMV system accessed by dispatchers or officers’ mobile computers is spitting out faulty information that implicates drivers in offenses they never committed. Gov. Daniels says that the problem isn’t the BMV data, its faulty training of personnel leading to incorrect interpretations of the data. That’s a bit tough to square with Sheriff Carter’s statement that he did BMV records checks on six of his radio dispatchers as well as on himself and that every one of them was incorrect, showing, among other things that he had a defensive driving credit when he’d never been to defensive driving.

(Update: I’ve been told that some folks at the State House have access to the State of Indiana’s website. My suspicion is that there is some problem with a nameserver or somesuch.)

Lesley Stedman Weidenbener mentioned several blogs for political junkies in the Louisville Courier Journal, including this one, Taking Down Words, Frugal Hoosiers, and the Indiana Law Blog.

I’m certainly appreciative of the mention. For those of you who might be wandering this way for the first time, I’ll just mention that I’m in the middle of a move from Monticello to Lafayette and so postings are a little light these days — even moreso than they generally are this time of year. My primary, but by no means exclusive, interest on this blog has been the General Assembly and the legislation they consider. Right now the General Assembly is out of session and the “summer” study committees are just starting to kick into gear.

Niki Kelly has an extensive article in the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette analyzing Gov. Daniels’ “Buy Indiana” plan. Many of you might recall candidate Daniels beating up pretty good on then-Governor Kernan during the campaign on the issue of the State of Indiana purchasing from non-Indiana companies.

Under Daniels, the State has issued some reports that, on their face, make it look like the State is now doing a better job at purchasing from Indiana businesses. However, much of this could be due to the State playing word games with what it means to be an Indiana company. Under the Daniels’ administration definition, the University of Cincinnati and the University of Utah are both “Indiana entities.”

The minutes of the June 13, 2006 Legislative Council meeting are now available. The Legislative Council is the administrative arm of the General Assembly. It’s the main manifestation of the legislature while the General Assembly is not in session. Rep. Bosma is the Chair and Sen. Garton is the Vice-Chair.

Among other things, they assigned topics of study to study committees. Some of the studies are required by legislation — usually substantive legislation that couldn’t get passed morphs into a study committee that is offered as sort of a consolation prize, but other topics of study are by request of the Legislative Council directly. They range from the significant — survey of FSSA performance to the less so — study restraint of trade issues with contact lense sales.

Also of significance was the announcement that the Executive Director of the Legislative Services Agency, Phil “Satch” Sachtleben will be stepping down.

The Indianapolis Star has a scathing editorial excoriating the performance of the Bureau of Motor Vehicles. They say that the poor service Hoosiers are receiving in the wake of the installation of the BMV’s new computer system is unacceptable and that Gov. Daniels needs to have a “stern talk” with Joel Silverman.

Frankly, I’m inclined to cut the BMV some slack on this one; not because I have low expectations for state government, but because I have low expectations for transitions between computer systems. Such transitions, in my experience, are always bumpy. And my experience at the Lafayette BMV yesterday to get new plates wasn’t too bad. I was there about 45 minutes. The only complaint, of sorts, I would mention is that the BMV’s “waiting time” figures are flawed. Supposedly, you can go online and figure out how long the wait is at your license branch. The problem is that the clock doesn’t start running on their system until they get you checked in. In my case, about half of my waiting time was spent standing in line to get checked in. So the 22 some odd minutes it showed on my receipt was only about half of the story.

Mary Beth Schneider has an interesting story on license plates (to the extent license plates can ever be particularly interesting.) Basically, there are two ways a new license plate can be authorized: directly through legislation created by the General Assembly or administratively by meeting certain criteria set forth by the Bureau of Motor Vehicles. I believe there are about 30 license plates that have been created by the General Assembly. I don’t know how many have been created administratively.

The story describes the surprise of groups petitioning for special license plates for the Special Olympics and for a POW-MIA license plate at not being approved while the “Choose Life” plate which will benefit “Crisis Pregnancy Centers” was approved. All of these petitioners met the statutory requirements, the most significant of which is submission of 500 signatures of people who pledge to purchase the plate if it’s approved.

However, clearing the statutory hurdle merely provides the Commissioner of the Bureau and the Governor the discretion to approve the plate. They declined to exercise their discretion to approve Special Olympics and POW-MIA, but decided to go ahead and approve the “Choose Life” plate.

That discretionary treatment could potentially create a wrinkle if any lawsuits are forthcoming against the “Choose Life” plate, particularly since proceeds will go to the Indiana Association of Pregnancy Centers, a coalition of Crisis Pregnancy Centers which, according to Laura McPhee of Nuvo, was created for the purpose of getting approval for “Choose Life” license plates.

According to the Central Indiana Crisis Center mission statement, board members, directors and volunteers “are expected to know Christ as their Savior and Lord.” CPCs are devoted to detouring women from receiving abortions and converting those women to Christianity. Though CPCs advertise counseling services and “pregnancy choices,” staff members are volunteers from area churches who receive an average of 20 hours of training “in evangelism and counseling.” There are more than 100 Crisis Pregnancy Centers in Indiana and more than 5,000 across the country.

These pregnancy centers have been criticised for deliberately misinforming women on birth control. I don’t have the cite for this one, but I read an article on a woman who went to one of these centers for help getting an abortion, only to be stalled through deception until she was out of the first trimester and abortion became more difficult to obtain.

It seems to me that there would be a greater basis for a legal challenge against the Choose Life plate and support for these sorts of centers where granting or denying such support is arbitrarily exercised by the Governor rather than being open to all comers who meet certain criteria. And the decision does seem to be largely arbitrary. When asked about his rationale as to why “Choose Life” was chosen but not, for example, Special Olympics, Governor Daniels said, “I don’t necessarily have a good reason. I can’t make a good case for the choice of one versus another.”

Sylvia Smith has an interesting analysis of Senator Lugar’s campaign operation, describing how he remains diligent and attentive to politics throughout his term and not just as the election approaches. She also describes how he finds common ground with potential Democratic challengers and manages to engage them in policy that is mutually beneficial to themselves and their constituents and, at the same time, serves to neutralize the likelihood that these Democrats will work too hard to unseat him in the future.

Something the analysis only touched on briefly, about which I am now curious, is how Sen. Lugar engages in this sort of bipartisanship without riling up the conservative Republicans who are usually very sensitive about their politicians consorting with “the enemy.”

(Thanks to Paul O’Malley for alerting me to the story.)