Rep. Dembowski introduced HB 1047 which provides for a time zone public question on a county’s ballot. The procedure applies only to counties that are adjacent to the Eastern/Central time line. For the public question to get on a ballot, a petition must be submitted to the circuit court clerk of the county. The petition must have a number of signatures that is at least equal to 2% of the number of votes cast in the county in the most recent secretary of state race.
A public question would then be put on the ballot as follows:
Shall the county executive of ___________ (insert the name of the county) County petition the United States Department of Transportation to initiate proceedings under the Uniform Time Act of 1966 to hold hearings in the appropriate locations in this county on the issue of whether the county should be placed in the _______________ (insert the time zone the county is currently not located in) Time Zone?
If the public question is approved, then the county commissioners must adopt a petition requesting the USDOT to initiate time zone proceedings. Once all this is done, the county has to request approval from the Governor to proceed. The Governor apparently has unfettered discretion to approve or deny permission to proceed. If the Governor grants approval, then the County Commissioners must proceed with the petition.
This strikes me as more or less useless. Currently, county commissioners can apply to the USDOT to switch time zones – without the Governor’s permission and without any sort of public referendum. All the public referendum does is force the Commissioners to take some action. But, pursuing that action to its conclusion can still be blocked by the Governor. This provision primarily takes discretion away from the Commissioners and gives it to the Governor who, by the way (I believe), can petition the USDOT without this process already.
What is useful, I suppose, is finally obtaining solid information about people’s time preferences. All sides seems to make strong claims about what the people *really* want. It seems like whichever side is currently not getting what it wants suddenly wakes up and comes out of the woodwork to raise hell about the issue. Maybe a public question could at least give us some solid numbers. But, a state wide question would probably make more sense. Just make sure you keep the county-by-county returns so you could use that data if you wanted.
Unless they make this ballot statewide it is useless.
What Rev said. Hurrumph!
Seriously, what time zone I want my county to be in TOTALLY depends on what everyone else is doing. No one wants to be a TZ island.
I might be just find with my time zone assuming no one else is going to change. However, I might rather ALL of the counties be in a different TZ.
The bill doesn’t seem to me to require the Governor’s approval to procede. Quoting the bill:
[Upon approval by the voters of the referendum question on time zone change the commissioners shall]
“2) Notify the governor in writing that the voters of the county have approved a public question under this SECTION. The notice must include a copy of the petition described in subdivision (1).
(3) In the notice required by subdivision (2), request the governor to send to the county executive a letter supporting the county’s petition.
(g) If the governor sends the county executive a letter supporting the county’s petition, the county executive shall send:
(1) the petition;
(2) the governor’s letter of support; and
(3) any other information the county executive considers necessary to support the county’s petition;
to the appropriate official of the United States Department of Transportation.”
As I read it the commissioners are only required to send in the petition if the governor approves it, but it seems to me that they would still be free to send the petition to the DOT if the governor disapproves it or says nothing.
The bill seems to be a vehicle for assuring commissioners that the governor won’t pull a number on them like he did to St. Joseph County. They should know the governor’s position before they submit a petition, though even this bill wouldn’t work to pin the governor, particularly this governor, down.
All told though, if this bill were to become law it seems almost unworkably clumsy. What would the consequences be for groups of counties wanting to work together using the petition process as a vehicle for demonstrating popular support. If the southwest 5 had wanted to use this vehicle in the latest go around, Pike County would have out in the cold since it didn’t border any eastern time zone counties when it petitioned. If the MACOG counties wanted to file a joint petition (unlikely as that seems) two of the four counties couldn’t rely on the process. I’d guess Dembowski wants to look like she is doing something on the issue.
The DOT in its recent letter to St. Joseph County encouraged cooperation among groups of counties. This approach reflects the DOT’s sensitivity to regionalism, as did its refusal to move Evansville to Eastern Time in 1985. While I don’t agree with the sentiment that there should be a State wide vote, Dembowski’s bill goes to far in encouraging “atomization” where the DOT would like to see cooperation, at least on the regional level. The DOT’s action in the 1960’s regarding NW and SW Indiana, in Evansville in 1985 and in South Bend in 2005 reflect that there is little “one state, one zone sentiment” at the DOT regarding Indiana. Regional requirements will prevent all of the State from being put into one zone.
As always, I’ll add my view that there is no overriding, obvious economic need relating to region forcing most of the counties in the State, as a block, into Eastern or Central Time [I exclude St. Joseph and Marshall Counties from that block]. There are life style, mental health and education issues, all of which I think strongly argue for Indiana being in the Central Time Zone.