A couple of days ago, I posted a link to Ruth Holladay’s unmasking of IU-Indy School of Law Professor Bradford as a fraud. My post was entitled “Sometimes they just don’t like you because you’re a wanker” and the discussion was about as a substantive as the title suggests.

By contrast, Josh Clayborn has posted an entry on the subject at In the Agora entitled Web of Lies, which is a great deal more informative.

Writing for Nuvo, Laura McPhee has an article on the Legislative Prayer lawsuit entitled Bosma loses prayer suit. No new information to speak of, but I do like that she calls Bosma on his disingenuous response to the court’s ruling:

For his part, Bosma released a statement that, while not exactly misquoting the judge’s ruling, does exaggerate its consequences.

“I am shocked and dismayed by the court’s decision,” Bosma said. “I find the court’s unprecedented decision disturbing in that it directs me, as speaker, to advise people that they are prohibited from using ‘Christ’s name or title or any other denomination appeal.’ The ruling forbids invited ministers and members to continue to exercise their right to free speech and pray in the tradition of their faith.”

Actually, the ruling does not limit anyone’s right to free speech or prayer and does not prohibit the House from opening its session with prayers. It does require that any official prayers be inclusive and non-sectarian, and not advance one particular religion.

In essence, Hamilton has required that the speaker of the House require anyone offering a prayer to follow the guidelines for prayer already established. Those invited to give the prayer are sent a letter that states in part: “The invocation is to be a short prayer asking for guidance and help in the matters that come before the members. We ask that you strive for an ecumenical prayer as our members, staff and constituents come from different faith backgrounds.”

Rep. Bosma’s convenient (to him) omission of the critical distinction between government speech, which is limited, and private speech, which is not, is a source of continuing irritation.

An Associated Press article reports that Indiana Commission on Hispanic/Latino Affairs will propose an arrangement whereby undocumented immigrants in Indiana would receive a special driver’s license if they pass an exam and buy auto insurance. I’m all for undocumented immigrants being put in a position where they can purchase auto insurance. I’ve sued a fair number of illegals who have gotten into auto accidents. By and large, they do better than the average uninsured motorist in trying to pay for the damage. This leads me to believe that they are uninsured more because of problems with getting the insurance than with an unwillingness to pay for insurance.

I know a lot of people will have problems with the perception that this condones illegal immigration. Maybe it does, but the fact of the matter is that immigration is an issue for the federal government, and the states don’t have a lot of policy making authority in that area. I believe the state’s best course of action is to mitigate, as best it can, any negative effects associated with the presence of illegal immigrants. So, making it easier for illegal immigrants to be insured when they drive makes a lot of sense to me. As a practical matter, I’m not sure it makes a lot of sense for the immigrant though — doesn’t this effectively put a big sign on their backs saying, “I’M HERE ILLEGALLY, COME AND GET ME!!!”?

(As an aside, I’m not sure what the best federal policy is to address illegal immigration. On the one hand, admittance to the country needs to be regulated, and breaking the law is not something I’m in favor of. On the other hand, most of the folks I’ve suspected to be here illegally seem like hard working folks devoted to the idea of a strong, tight-knit family. They seem like they’d love nothing more than to be given the opportunity to be active, upstanding citizens. I can’t necessarily say the same of a lot of our natural born citizens. There is an outstanding possibility, however, that my experience is not representative of the situation as a whole.)

Two days, two of my committee chairs are out of the legislature. I posted yesterday on the death of Rep. Jim Bottorff. Today, I see in the Evansville Courier Press that Senator Larry Lutz (D-Evansville) will retire. When I was working for the legislature, Senator Lutz was a Representative and he chaired the House Public Safety Committee, another committee on which I had the privilege to serve as staff counsel. In his inimitable style, Senator Lutz described his reasons for retiring this way:

“A wise man once told me that there’s three ways to leave the Legislature and two of them aren’t very good,” Lutz said Tuesday. “It’s time to retire. It’s time for a younger person to take over.”

The Indy Star has an article entitled Indiana teachers’ pay lags, reporting that Indiana’s teacher pay is 17th in the nation with an average salary of $47,808 which increased 1.7% from last year while the cost of living increased 3.1%. And before you get too excited by that $47k — which doesn’t sound like an awful salary — keep in mind that that includes teachers who have been there for 30 years. It’s not uncommon for starting teacher salaries to be somewhere in the $25 – $30k region.

It’s anectdotal, but I know of one teacher who had a couple of kids and a wife staying at home taking care of the kids who had to rely on government assistance in the form of the WIC program. So, it’s like Superintendent Reed said:

“If a young person is a science teacher and they can choose making $25,000 in Indiana or making $30,000 working somewhere else . . . they may decide to go somewhere else.”

Or, more likely, they might decide to opt out of teaching science altogether, going to work for the private sector or, horror of horrors, choosing to become school administrators who, I understand, actually get paid pretty well.

The Indy Star has an article entitled School sex article questioned. The article didn’t surprise me. Some students put together an article for their high school paper about the dangers of oral sex. Mainstream newspapers like to run the “controversy” story so they can titillate their audiences without getting in trouble.

No, what surprised me was the passing mention:

Columbus resident Kenn Gividen, who ran unsuccessfully for school board and was the 2004 Libertarian candidate for governor, said the student newspaper was not the proper place for such a frank sexual discussion.

“I’m sure this is something kids are talking about. Kids talked about a lot of dirty things when I was in school,” he said. “But it’s something completely separate for the school to endorse it, which is obviously what they did by publishing it.”

Some libertarian. Against free speech because the speech is “dirty?” Next thing you know, Gividen will be weighing in against “Miss Ann,” the dominatrix being hounded by prudes and Democrats in Indianapolis.

(Looks like Liberal Indiana is way ahead of me on the commentary.)

Oh, my. This is just awful. Representative Jim Bottorff (D-Jeffersonville) has died, the Indianapolis Star is reporting. He was 61, and the Star is reporting that he died of cancer in a Louisville Hospital.

It was my privilege to serve, in 1997 and 1998, as counsel for the House Commerce Committee which was chaired by Representative Bottorff. I recall one of the receptionists at the Legislative Services Agency who had been there for many, many years and knew whereof she spoke concerning legislators, describing Rep. Bottorff as a “mensch”.

The Star article states:

State Rep. James L. Bottorff, a Democrat from Jeffersonville, died today at a Louisville hospital after a battle with cancer.
Bottorff, 61, was elected to the Indiana House of Representatives in 1990 and has served on the Agriculture and Rural Development Committee; the Natural Resources Committee and the Utilities and Energy Committee.

House Minority Leader B. Patrick Bauer, D-South Bend, praised Bottorff.

“We have lost a man who defined the role of public servant, a man who devoted much of his life to the idea that answering the needs of others was a noble callling,” Bauer said.

Bottorff was a real estate appraiser who had previously served as both Clark County treasurer and Clark County assessor. He is survived by his wife, Carlene, and two sons, Christopher and Robert.

Funeral arrangements are pending.

This is just, very, very sad. Rest in peace Representative Bottorff.

Update Lesley Stedman Weidenbener’s article for the Louisville Courier Journal is here. Her article says he had been battling colon and liver cancer for about 7 months.

WTHR is carrying the AP story here. That story mentions that “a caucus of Democratic precinct committeemen will be held to select Bottorff’s replacement to represent the district.”

Representative Heim has his recollection of Rep. Bottorff here. Rep. Heim describes Rep. Bottorff as a quiet, gentle man who was helpful even to a freshman legislator in the opposing, minority, party and also describes him as a master negotiator. (Though I do recall a time when Rep. Bottorff wasn’t afraid to use partisan force as opposed to negotiation. Things had been fairly bipartisan up until the last day of committee hearings. All of the Republicans (who were in the minority at the time) were there. Only Representative Bottorff was there for the Democrats. But, Rep. Bottorff had a fist full of proxies from the other members and hammered some contentious bills through committee on strictly party line votes. Tempers flared, but to Rep. Bottorff’s credit, there wasn’t anything personal or malicious in the proceedings. Just a recognition that compromise wasn’t achievable and the Democrats had the numbers to pass the bills. So, he did the will of his party.)

Rep. Dvorak has a blog entry here.

Taking Down Words has a blog entry here.

Benjamin Lanka, writing for the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette has a story entitled Allen seeks alliance to rival rural majority in legislature. Basically, Allen County is seeking to enter into a lobbying coalition with other large counties so that concerns peculiar to those counties can be heard by the legislature through a unified voice.

The [Allen County] commissioners sent a letter dated Oct. 28 to Hendricks, Monroe, Delaware, St. Joseph, Vanderburgh, Johnson, Hamilton, Elkhart, Tippecanoe and Marion county commissioners asking them to form a coalition.

Lake (pop. 490,000), Porter (154,000), and LaPorte (109,000) Counties are conspicuously absent from this coalition for some reason. The article notes that the Association of Indiana Counties may not be a good organization to advance large county issues because its membership is dominated by smaller counties.

Apropos of our debate over government prayer versus private prayer (here, here, and here) I came across this little bit at Pandagon: Merry Christmas ACLU. Apparently there is a campaign afoot to send Christmas cards to the ACLU. The more Christmasy the better! As Pandagon sarcastically observes:

I’m sure the [ACLU] is totally demoralized to discover that a bunch of private citizens on their private time and on their own dime are sending Christmas cards to celebrate their private religious convictions. Dammit. It’s as if removing state endorsements of that wretched holiday weren’t enough to end Christmas all together.

This method of “torturing” the ACLU has a vaguely Pythonesque Spanish Inquisition feel to it reminiscent of “torturing” the nice old lady with “THE COMFY CHAIR.” I know, I know, you didn’t expect me to bring the Spanish Inquisition into this, but then again, nobody does.

In any event, it reveals a fundamental disconnect between the reality of the ACLU’s motives and the perception in these government and religion cases. I always figured those opposing these ACLU actions just ignored the government part of the equation because it sounded more inflammatory and politically expedient to say “The ACLU hates Jesus!” But, if there are folks out there who honestly think that private citizens sending Christmas cards to the ACLU will be a source of irritation to the organization, that suggests those folks truly do not understand that it’s the government involvement with religion that causes concern — not the religion itself.

The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette has an editorial entitled Privatization takes a toll which harkens back to the thinking of Dwight Eisenhower to make its point. While the Journal Gazette doesn’t go as far back as I did to Henry Clay’s “American System,” but clearly I approve of looking to past leaders for guidance on the U.S. infrastructure.

The Journal Gazette’s focus is on Gov. Daniels idea of selling or leasing one of our highways (I-80/90) to private companies.

As a young lieutenant colonel in the Army, Dwight Eisenhower was part of an 81-vehicle convoy that spent two months of 1919 slogging over rough roads, mud, bridgeless rivers and other hazards to travel from Washington to San Francisco. It convinced him of the need for an integrated federal system of highways.

During World War II, when he saw how the German autobahn could be used to move U.S. troops into enemy territory, Gen. Eisenhower became more convinced. As president, he fought for and won passage of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956, setting in motion construction of a 47,000-mile web of interstates that continues to fuel the nation’s economy.

Wonder what Eisenhower would think of bids to lease that system to companies based in Spain, France, Italy, Australia and Hong Kong?

Among the downsides to leasing our highways are the costs — profits will likely be made by private contractors by way of higher tolls or decreased maintenance/service. The quest for cheaper routes could put additional strain on local roads. Political accountability provides better safeguards than a lease agreement. (I’m not sure I agree with this last one, necessarily, but certainly I agree with the first two.)

In the previous entry that I linked to, I was discussing public development of broadband, but the same principles apply:

I’m generally a limited government kind of guy, but for infrastructure, I tend to support a strong government presence. I started thinking this way when I first heard about Henry Clay and his “American System.” Government development of infrastructure almost always seems to yield dividends for the public.