Wuhoo! We’re getting a State Poet Laureate! Senate Bill 0433 is on its way to the Governor. The position pays a cool $2,500 per year honorarium plus per diem for days the Poet Laureate makes official appearances and travel expenses. Sweet.

The bill’s language is kind of opaque. It specifies that “the person honored by HR 73-2002 as poet laureate is the initial poet laureate.” So, I went to that resolution, and they’re talking about a person by the name of Joyce Brinkman, former Indiana State Treasurer.

According to her bio Ms. Brinkman’s professional experience is in politics. However, after retiring from elected office due to medical concerns,

Joyce began searching the Bible for God’s guidance on the art of writing. She developed a workshop called Writing Faithfully. Bible study and prayer led to the Twelve Ways to Write Faithfully.

(Another note, according to the bio, she’s married to Judge Carl Van Dorn, who is quite the gentleman and formerly a judge in Kokomo (I seem to recall). He is now acting as a Senior Judge with whom I’ve had the pleasure of working on one or two occasions in Tippecanoe County.)

The House & Senate worked out their differences on Senate Bill 0379 regarding cigarettes and tobacco products. It appears to enhance restrictions on sale of cigarettes to Indiana citizens by out of state vendors while relaxing restrictions on other tobacco products. My guess would be that this is an attempt to avoid people dodging taxes on mass-produced cigarettes but attempting to allow Hoosiers more varied access to possibly more exotic and specialized tobacco products such as cigars and pipe tobacco.

I don’t really understand the bill, but it looks important and like there is a lot of money involved. So, I’ll just paste the Conference Committee synopsis:

Provides that the Indiana economic development corporation reviews and approves applications for the biodiesel, blended biodiesel, and ethanol income tax credits. Provides standards that the corporation must apply. Creates a $20,000,000 overall cap for the biodiesel, blended biodiesel, and ethanol producer credits. Allows the corporation to allocate the maximum credits for all taxpayers for all taxable years so long as each credit has a cap of at least $4,000,000. Establishes a credit cap for a particular producer of biodiesel or ethanol at $3,000,000 for all taxable years but allows the Indiana economic development corporation to increase this cap to $5,000,000. Allows credit carryovers for six taxable years. Provides for the expiration of the blended biodiesel retailer credit as of January 1, 2007. Extends the blended diesel retail sales tax credits to dealers that distribute blended diesel at retail by a means other than a metered pump. Provides a tax credit for a taxpayer who places into service an integrated coal gasification powerplant, and requires the taxpayer to enter into an agreement with the economic development corporation requiring the taxpayer to use Indiana coal and satisfy other requirements relating to the operation of the powerplant. Provides for allocating the credit among co-owners of a integrated coal gasification powerplant or owners of a pass through entity. Corrects an internal reference. Makes other related changes. (This conference committee report does the following: (1) allows the Indiana economic development corporation to increase the credit cap for the production of biodiesel to $5,000,000; (2) changes the requirement that a taxpayer maintain the level of the taxpayer’s statewide payroll for the term of a tax credit for placing an integrated coal gasification powerplant into service to a requirement that a taxpayer maintain the level of the taxpayer’s payroll at the location of the taxpayer’s investment for the term of the tax credit; (3) adds a severability clause; and (4) makes technical corrections.)

The House & Senate worked out their differences on Senate Bill 0233 Child solicitation. Current law makes it a felony for a person 18 or older to “solicit” a child 14 or younger. (Solicitation essentially means to seek sexual gratification from in this instance.) The new bill also makes it a felony for a 21 year old to “solicit” a 16 year old. What strikes me as odd about both existing law and this law is that it’s a Class D felony normally, but a Class C felony if the solicitation occurs using a computer network. So, it’s more acceptable for a person to seek sexual gratification from our kids in person than over the Internet? That’s just weird. I suspect it reflects a panic over new technology rather than anything particularly rational.

Senate Bill 0054 Provides a certain degree of immunity from civil liability for advertisers or sponsors at charitable events, fundraisers, tradeshows, and the like as long as their actions are not willful or reckless and their only involvement is as a sponsor or advertiser. The Senate concurred in the House amendments 47-0. (There is also a tweak to the immunity provided for health care provided free of charge.)

The Indianapolis Star reports Work on state budget nearing completion.

House Ways and Means Chairman Jeff Espich, R-Uniondale, said he hopes to have a printed version of the $24 billion budget conference committee report on House Bill 1001 available by Wednesday morning.

Given my background, what that means to me is that the small but remarkably efficient machinery of the Legislative Services Agency is whirring into gear. (Though in-house printing capacity had been increasing steadily prior to my departure.) Possibly the Director of the Office of Code Revision is commandeering copy machines all around the state house to produce hundreds of copies of a 400 page document overnight. The bill drafters for the House Ways and Means and the Senate Finance Committees can expect a long night as new amendments drift down from majority counsel’s office. A row of proofreaders review the text as best they can in the time allotted. The typists stand by to make the corrections. If the necessary deals haven’t yet been finalized, Code Revision eventually has to let it be known that the legislators can either keep negotiating or they can have their bill printed by the desired time, but not both. The printers probably won’t sleep at all.

At least that’s how I remember it. Maybe it’s all changed.

The Indy Star has an article entitled Daniels to sign judicial pay raise bill, discussing the passage of SB 363. It passed the Senate 42-4 and passed the House 75-17.

Trial court judges get a pay raise from $90,000 to $110,500; appellate court judges go from $110,000 to $129,800; and Supreme Court justices go from $115,000 to $133,600. I don’t begrudge the judges a higher pay particularly after 8 years, but I feel compelled to point out that, from my perspective, that seems like a pretty sweet deal in some of the more rural counties with lighter case loads. I practice in an 11 county radius around Lafayette and the difference in the apparent case loads seems pretty significant. Maybe I just show up on slow days in those counties, but I sort of doubt it. I’m also skeptical of the ability of private practitioners in those counties to make $110,000, guaranteed each and every year, plus pension, health benefits, paid vacation, etc. while working the same number of hours. But, I don’t know, I could easily be wrong, and maybe the argument is that the best lawyers wouldn’t hang around those counties — they’d move to the big cities where they can make considerably more. (On the other hand, those attorneys apparently hung around the area long enough to become established and be elected judge.)

But, that’s just so much hand waving. Each county needs a court. It would just be nice if the case loads could be balanced out a bit. Some courts are so busy as to have the appearance of “justice mills” while others have the appearance of slow, leisurely, stately kinds of places. It seems unfair to pay the judge of the latter as much as the judge of the former.

Court fees are going to go up quite a bit to pay for this. Small claims filings, for example, will cost an additional $10, up 21% from $46 to $56. When I started in private practice in 1999, the fee was $35. So, small claims filing fees are up 60% over 6 years. Court fee increases seem to be keeping pace with health insurance premium increases. Oh well, I suppose that’s just more money to collect from the debtor who was too poor to pay his bill in the first place.

The Indy Star has a Major bills update.

Mary Beth Schneider for the Indianapolis Star is reporting that Daylight saving-time bill has squeaked by once again. According to the article, it cleared the Senate Rules Committee by a 6-5 vote with Senator Allen Paul (R-Richmond) voting the bill out of committee to allow a full Senate vote but stating that he will vote against the bill at that time.

The House and Senate have both adopted the Conference Committee version of Senate Bill 0217 raising speed limits on Indiana highways. The Senate passed the bill 29 to 18 and the House passed it 70 to 23.

The changes are:

On an interstate in a nonurbanized area and the Indiana Toll Road, speed limit increases from 65 to 70 mph (60 to 65 for heavy vehicles other than buses);

On U.S. 20 between Elkhart CR 17 to U.S. 31 and on U.S. 31 from U.S. 20 to the Michigan state line, up from 55 to 65 mph;

On certain other highways up from 55 to 60 mph.