House Minority Leader, Pat Bauer has proposed that the Secretary of State’s Office should assume responsibility over the Bureau of Motor Vehicles.
The Indy Star, not known for agreeing with Bauer on much of anything, disagrees with him on this as well. The Star suggests that adding a new level of bureaucracy won’t help anything and suggest that perhaps privatizing BMV services could help.
As to laying blame and providing accountability:
Hoosiers, however, know whom to blame.
Gov. Mitch Daniels has made it clear that he’s ultimately responsible for the BMV fiasco. He has admitted that the conversion to a new computer system, designed to ensure the accuracy of BMV records, went badly. He’s openly stated, “No excuses made.”
. . .
Hoosiers have someone to hold accountable for fixing the BMV. It isn’t Secretary of State Todd Rokita or even BMV Commissioner Joel Silverman. It’s Mitch Daniels.
I never quite know what to make of top level elected officials “accepting responsibility” for these sorts of things. For mid-level workers, accepting responsibility might mean being fired, demoted, or otherwise penalized. For Daniels, I’m not sure what penalty he’s accepting. Obviously he shouldn’t be kicked out of office before his term ends because of this. I’m reasonably sure he won’t apologize on the campaign trail or otherwise suggest that voters ought to penalize him for the BMV snafus. So, what does it mean for him to “accept responsibility?”
None of which, of course, addresses whether the Secretary of State’s Office assuming responsibility for the BMV is a good idea. The only reason it makes some sense is because the legislature recently tied our right to vote to our ability to procure a driver’s license or state ID. Other than that, there does not seem to be a compelling link between the two.
Actually the motor voter law enacted at the federal level linked the BMV functions with voting some time ago. Indiana seems to have only half-heartedly embraced this requirement, but in other states voters are registered when they stop at the BMV to get their adult (unrestricted) licenses on a routine basis.