Eric Bradner, writing for the Evansville Courier Press, suggests that four items are likely to dominate the upcoming legislative session: redistricting, social services, gambling, and liquor sales.
Redistricting has been getting a lot of attention. Ostensibly there is a move afoot to take the politics out of redistricting. My sense is that there will be a lot of noise about making redistricting non-partisan, lawmakers will make all the right noises but not commit to anything, then when push comes to shove, whoever has power in 2010 will draw the maps to benefit incumbents and try to expand the majorities of their parties. Same as always. Even if there is a panel that takes some of the map-drawing responsibilities out of the hands of lawmakers, directly; the panel will be appointed in such a way that whoever has political power will have power over the district maps.
Social services is on the radar because, after expensive years of mismanagement, Gov. Daniels finally pulled the plug on the ACS/IBM contract for welfare eligibility determination. Now steps will have to be taken to put the pieces back together.
The state relies heavily on gambling revenue. Times are tough, and revenue is down anyway. The racinos have found that they overpaid for their slot licenses. There is concern that other states, Ohio and eventually Kentucky, are opening up to gambling which will reduce their revenues. The casinos generally want tax breaks. Various communities around the state want casinos in their area for economic development.
Finally, having put off the liquor issues last year, they might come up this year. Legislators are claiming that the public doesn’t want Sunday sales or cold beer in grocery stores, but, in reality, it seems they are simply getting more pressure from liquor store owners than the public generally or the general purpose stores that would benefit somewhat from Sunday sales or cold sales in grocery stores. It’s the hound and the hare fable — the hare is faster because he’s running for his life; the hound is just running for his lunch. The liquor stores are running for their life.
Conspicuously absent from the list is Speaker Bauer’s new ethics reforms. As the session gets going, we’ll see how hard anyone fights to get the ethics reforms passed. The reform package might have value simply as a “well, we tried” kind of thing.
How about some ballot access reform? A 5,000 maximum cap on required signatures for any office in the state would suffice. A few legislators have indicated mild agreement with the concept, but no one has so far been willing to introduce any legislation. Why?? Well why fix a system that’s rigged to ensure you and your buddies always win I guess. Redistricting reform would be fine, but we also need to open our system to more competition.