Taking Down Words has done some original reporting and has discovered that Indiana’s job creation over the past year was even more lackluster than previously thought. TDW noticed the feds had substantially (by about 7,000) revised down the number of jobs Indiana created in January and February 2006. TDW A friend of TDW placed a call to a BLS economist who stated that Indiana changed its estimate because it discovered a reporting error. So, between February 2005 and February 2006, about 12,000 new jobs have been created as opposed to 44,000 created during the last year of the Kernan administration (Feb. 2004 – Feb. 2005.) (The usual caveats apply as to how influential any government is in creating jobs.)
Atrios on S.Dak. abortion ban
Atrios has an entry on the South Dakota abortion ban. (For those who don’t know, South Dakota recently adopted a law banning all abortions in the state. I believe there is an exception to preserve the mother’s life, but not to preserve her health.) He points to this article reporting that opposition to the ban has been stronger than anticipated and concludes by saying:
Elsewhere in the article you get the key lesson national Democrats should take from the South Dakota case: most voters don’t think Republicans are serious about banning abortion. Well, they are, and most people don’t like that very much. If this gets on the ballot in November, and the voters of that state vote to nullify the law, I hope people finally understand that choice is, in fact, a winning issue.
Anti-choice advocates line up against Garton
Mike Smith, writing for the AP, has an article on Indiana Right To Life’s endorsement of Senator Garton’s primary opponent, Greg Walker. They blame Senator Garton, President pro tem of the Senate, for failing to ensure a floor vote on the anti-science, anti-doctor, pro-meddling government wingnut legislation (fair and balanced, that’s me) that would have forced doctors to tell their patients that life begins at conception (legislated into fact by the same legislation, apparently) and that a fetus might feel pain.
Justice O’Connor: Independent judiciary as bulwark against dictatorship
I’m not going to suggest Justice O’Connor takes her talking points from Masson’s blog, but apparently we see eye-to-eye on a couple of things. Take my April 9, 2005 post entitled “Judicial Tyranny:”
I’m getting sick of ignorant, arrogant nutjobs, some of whom unfortunately seem to be in national GOP leadership positions, trying to erode the rule of law. In case they haven’t noticed, an independent judiciary and the depth of the common law is the soil in which our Democracy grows. Or maybe that’s the point, I don’t know. You’ve got Senator Cornyn (R-Texas) suggesting that maybe that rapist in Atlanta who shot his way out of a court room was doing it because of “activist judgesâ€. You’ve got Tom DeLay and Rick Santorum lying about the Schiavo law they passed; wrongheaded as it was, it wasn’t as far reaching as they seemed to suggest, and talking about “judicial tyranny†when the Florida District Court judge followed the law and applied the accepted rules for issuing a preliminary injunction.
That post also had some quotes from a conference entitled “Confronting the Judicial War on Faith” featuring conservative luminary, Phyllis Schlafly and lawyer-author Edwin Viera who attacked Justice Kennedy and recommended his impeachment. Viera went so far as to quote approvingly from Joseph Stalin who said, “no man, no problem,†the full quote being “Death solves all problems: no man, no problem.”
A couple of days ago, Justice O’Connor gave a blistering speech at Georgetown University that criticized the actions of DeLay and Cornyn without naming them specifically. The link above is to Raw Story’s transcript of a Nina Totenberg NPR report.
The nation’s founders wrote repeatedly, she said, that without an independent judiciary to protect individual rights from the other branches of government those rights and privileges would amount to nothing. But, said O’Connor, as the founding fathers knew statutes and constitutions don’t protect judicial independence, people do.
And then she took aim at former House GOP leader Tom DeLay. She didn’t name him, but she quoted his attacks on the courts at a meeting of the conservative Christian group Justice Sunday last year when DeLay took out after the courts for rulings on abortions, prayer and the Terri Schiavo case. This, said O’Connor, was after the federal courts had applied Congress’ onetime only statute about Schiavo as it was written. Not, said O’Connor, as the congressman might have wished it were written. This response to this flagrant display of judicial restraint, said O’Connor, her voice dripping with sarcasm, was that the congressman blasted the courts.
It gets worse, she said, noting that death threats against judges are increasing. It doesn’t help, she said, when a high-profile senator suggests there may be a connection between violence against judges and decisions that the senator disagrees with. She didn’t name him, but it was Texas senator John Cornyn who made that statement, after a Georgia judge was murdered in the courtroom and the family of a federal judge in Illinois murdered in the judge’s home. O’Connor observed that there have been a lot of suggestions lately for so-called judicial reforms, recommendations for the massive impeachment of judges, stripping the courts of jurisdiction and cutting judicial budgets to punish offending judges. Any of these might be debatable, she said, as long as they are not retaliation for decisions that political leaders disagree with.
“I,” said O’Connor, “am against judicial reforms driven by nakedly partisan reasoning. Pointing to the experiences of developing countries and former communist countries where interference with an independent judiciary has allowed dictatorship to flourish, O’Connor said we must be ever-vigilant against those who would strongarm the judiciary into adopting their preferred policies. It takes a lot of degeneration before a country falls into dictatorship, she said, but we should avoid these ends by avoiding these beginnings.”
Obviously we have a recent homegrown version of this kind of hostility to judicial independence. As I mentioned in a February 21, 2006 post, Rep. Sodrel introduced H.R. 4776 toward the end of February which would strip federal courts of jurisdiction to remedy Constitutional violations committed by state governments through government speech. Sodrel’s co-authors on his bill include Indiana Republican Representatives Burton, Buyer, Hostettler, Souder, and Pence (but not, apparently, Rep. Chocola). The bill was introduced in retaliation (called a legislative temper tantrum by the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette) for a federal judge’s decision that state sponsored sectarian Christian prayer violated the First Amendment as it has been interpreted by the United States Supreme Court.
Justice O’Connor is reminding us that our legislators are tampering with the foundations of the Republic when they seek short-term policy gain by undermining the independence of our judiciary.
Toll Road Round Up
Jennifer Whitson has an article in the Evansville Courier Press that does a good job providing an idea of where votes stand to be gained and lost on HB 1008, the Toll Road privatization bill. Some legislators are against the Perry Township provision which prohibits I-69 from going through Perry Township in Marion County if it is a toll road in that section. That, they say, will add long delays to the construction of an I-69 extension to Evansville. That provision is critical to some legislators vote, particularly those representing southwestern Indianapolis.
Other legislators, notably Senator Bray of Martinsville, want a provision that prohibits replacing any portion of State Road 37 with a toll road. (S.R. 37 runs from Indianapolis through Martinsville to Bloomington and beyond).
Meanwhile, Niki Kelly, writing for the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, has an article discussing a Toll Road cost analysis commissioned by the Daniels’ administration that, unsurprisingly given the source, shows a state run Toll Road would net less than the sale of Toll Road operation rights for 75 years. That assumes a 22% rise in tolls every 7 years and 5% growth in operational expenditures.
The article discusses a Democratic ad blitz, apparently in response to the ad blitz started by the Governor. Whereas the Governor’s ad campaign focuses on Democrats in Southern Indiana who voted against the bill (two of whom also turned down the Governor’s chief of
staff’s suspiciously timed job offers with the State), the Democrats’ ads focus on Republicans in the northern part of the state: Mary Kay Budak, Steve Heim, Jackie Walorski, Marlin Stutzman, and Ralph Ayres. This regional division is a natural development in response to a bill that essentially taxes northern Indiana to pay for road construction in other parts of Indiana.
Finally (for me anyway), the Indy Star has an editorial asking the Governor and his people to spare us the spin when they say that “Aiming Higher,” the organization running the pro-privatization ads is unconnected to the Governor:
It comes as no surprise that the highway construction industry is giving generously to an organization run by close associates of Gov. Mitch Daniels and dedicated to the advancement of Major Moves, his road-building initiative.Just don’t insult the intelligence of the public by pretending this is all some kind of accidental intersection of folks interested in good government and Hoosier jobs.Community benefit may very well be on the minds of Aiming Higher and its contributors, but self-interest just might have at least a bit role as well. As for the efforts to downplay the connection to the governor, please.
The Star is on record as supporting the toll road privatization, so their objection here isn’t a matter of being another avenue to express underlying objections to HB 1008.
Legislative theologians
Niki Kelly has an article in the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette on the continuing efforts at wingnuttery with respect to HB 1172. This is the bill, the House version of which, decides by legislative fiat an issue that has confounded philosophers and theologians for millenia. They would decide that fully human life begins at the moment of conception, and they would use the power of the state (ultimately, men with guns if one fails to obey) to force doctors to inform their patients of this legislated fact. Doctors would also be required to tell their patients that fetuses may feel pain prior to twenty weeks of gestation, regardless of whether this is actually true or not.
The article notes that all the conferees on the bill are men. The current version of the bill requires that 18 hours prior to an abortion, the pregnant woman be informed in writing that adoption alternatives are available with “many couples” who are willing to adopt a child, and that “adoptive parents may legally pay the costs of prenatal care, childbirth, and neonatal care.” It also requires the pregnant woman to be notified that there are physical risks to the woman in having an abortion. The physical risks of pregnancy are not addressed.
The author of the bill, Tim Harris, is trying to undo the changes made in the Senate and basically reconstitute the bill as it came out of the House, complete with the language regarding fetal pain and human life beginning at conception.
Look, if abortion is murder then outlaw it. If it’s not, then don’t. I don’t see any real middle ground on that score. It seems ridiculous to try to fight murder by making a doctor hand out a pamphlet. The fact that anti-abortion activists are willing to take this approach indicates to me that, in their heart of hearts, they think abortion is something they don’t like, but something less than murder.
Wingnuttery from Missouri
It’s not just Indiana. In every state, there is a certain segment of society that feels a need to keep pushing and pushing to make government a vehicle for advancing their chosen religious beliefs.
Consider Missouri House Concurrent Resolution No. 13 which seeks to have the Missouri General Assembly resolve that the Founders recognized a Christian God, that the Missouri legislators recognize that a “Greater Power” exists, and that government displays of Christianity and prayer are Constitutional and the will of a majority of constituents.
What is this obsession with using government as a vehicle for religion? Our Founders were well aware of the history of government and religion and the suffering caused by the mix of the two. Most legislators and citizens today are not. Perhaps we should just trust our forefathers that mixing the two is a Bad Idea.
Democratic and republican government is about the people organizing themselves in such a way as to effectively govern themselves. It’s a bottom-up, self-contained operation. Established principles of conducting ourselves contained in our religious traditions should certainly be considered when legislating. But those principles should be considered based on whether they work or not and lead to a more perfect union. With respect to good governance, whether the principles were divinely inspired or not is completely beside the point.
In my ever so humble opinion, mixing government and religion serves only to diminish both government and religion.
Pandering in the Name of Jesus
The Indy Star has an article on House Resolution 1 which opposes Judge Hamilton’s decision upholding the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and prohibiting sectarian prayer as official business of the House of Representatives. The Resolution characterizes the decision as “intolerable” and as restraining “religious liberty and the freedom of
conscience and, in conflict with the historic and cherished
rights of Americans, purports to control the specific content
of prayers.” The Resolution is toothless, as all simple resolutions tend to be. After a litany of disingenuous “wherefore” clauses, the resolution ends by “resolving” that it is the judgment of the House that Judge Hamilton’s order is contrary to “the word and spirit” of the First Amendment and that the Speaker of the House is urged to spend taxpayer money on as many appeals as are possible. (O.k., the resolution doesn’t specify taxpayer dollars, but that’s the effect of urging prosecution of “all possible appeals.”)
Far from showing that Judge Hamilton’s decision was misguided, the unanimity of the vote on the resolution shows how important the decision is. The Resolution deliberately fails to recognize that Judge Hamilton’s order was a limitation on *government* speech, not on private speech. The First Amendment is designed to limit government power and to preserve minority rights. Private speech is not at all at issue in this matter. Every Representative and citizen of Indiana continues to be free to pray (or not) as they see fit, so long as they are speaking for themselves. Indiana’s government, however, is limited in its ability to promote a specific religion. The fact that no Representatives are able or willing to tolerate limited government when it comes to promotion of the majority religion shows why it is so important to have limitations on government authority imposed by the Constitution.
I should mention that, according to the Indy Star article, Rep. David Orentlicher, the only Jewish member of the legislature, stayed away from the vote to protest the resolution.
Indiana’s ‘informed consent’ abortion bill the wingnuttiest
The Louisville Courier Press has an article on HB 1172. This is the ‘informed consent’ bill on what physicians have to tell their patients about abortion. I put the term ‘informed consent’ in ‘scare quotes’ because that’s the name given to these sorts of regulations, regardless of the quality of the information being provided to the patient. Among other things, the bill will require the physician to tell the patient that human life begins at conception, theological, philosophical, or medical evidence to the contrary be damned. It also requires the physician to advise the patient of various negative consequences of abortion without providing any sort of context.
The Courier Journal article compares Indiana’s proposed law to other laws in the country and, as it turns out, ours is the wingnuttiest. South Dakota is the only other state that has legislated human life as beginning at conception. And no other state requires a physician to tell a patient that a fetus might feel pain before 20 weeks of gestation. But who cares about “evidence” and “medical facts.” As long as we value life until birth and after brain death, we can feel good about ourselves and ignore what happens to children and other people between those events.
Proposed Amendments to abortion bills
HB 1080 and HB 1172 were up for second reading today. (Second reading is the stage at which floor amendments (as opposed to committee amendments) for a bill are proposed or considered.)
House Bill 1080 is a bill that provides meticulous specifications for any building used to perform abortions. This appears to be an attempt to make sure that few or no facilities are available to women who want to exercise their reproductive rights because it’s too difficult or too expensive to come up with a building that meets the standards. (Presumably, the legislature could change the building requirements year after year to make it that much harder.)
Representative Kuzman proposed an amendment that would give the State Department of Health the authority to regulate “pregnancy counseling centers.” My understanding is that this is the name given to places where the goal is to put pressure on a woman to keep the child and not to have an abortion.
Representative Orentlicher proposed an amendment that would have imposed the meticulous requirements of HB 1080 on all ambulatory outpatient surgical centers and not just on abortion clinics.
Both of these amendments failed on a voice vote. This goes to show that proponents of HB 1080 aren’t concerned about the quality of women’s reproductive choices generally or the health and safety of outpatient surgical centers generally, they just want the government to tell women that they aren’t allowed to make this decision for themselves.
And, most amusingly to me, Rep. Porter’s amendment which would have required that sex and education information (already mandated by state law) on abstinence and other issues be medically accurate. This insistence on medical accuracy was ruled “out of order.” (It probably was out of order, given that HB 1080 deals with building regulations whereas Rep. Porter’s amendment had to do with educational issues. However, given the recent ruling that the anti-gay rights amendment was germane to the eminent domain bill, I thought the bar had been lowered.)
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The House also considered amendments to HB 1172 which is a bill that tells physicians what to tell their patients with respect to abortion. A physician must tell his or her patient that human life begins at conception. He must also tell her that her fetus may feel pain. (More discussion of HB 1172 here.).
Rep. Kuzman proposed one amendment that would have omitted the requirement to advise women about potential fetal pain in the case of incest or rape, and another amendment that would have permitted the physician to additionally provide his or her patient with the physician’s own professional medical opinion concerning the capacity of a fetus to experience pain, the advisability of administering anesthetic to a woman or fetus, and when human life begins. Both amendments were defeated by a voice vote.
Rep. Troy “I’ll never vote for Daylight Saving Time” Woodruff withdrew his amendment which would have inserted a section stating simply “Human life begins when a human ovum is fertilized by a human sperm.”