The Indy Star editorial board has worked itself into a frenzy over the Democratic walkout in an editorial entitled AWOL Democrats obstruct state’s progress. The editorial begins with:
If they have any sense of shame left, all 48 House Democrats should stand on the Statehouse steps this morning and apologize to the 6 million Hoosiers they embarrassed and abandoned Tuesday night.
Well, no. Assuming all districts are roughly equal, then 48% of 6 million is 2,880,000 Hoosiers. And I would submit that the Democrats were doing what they could to represent those 2.9 million Hoosiers the only way they could if their concerns were not being addressed by the representatives of the other 3.1 million Hoosiers. Like I said in an earlier entry, it might be that Bauer is burning bridges unnecessarily and if he’s creating more problems than he’s solving for the 2.9 million Hoosiers represented by Democrats, then he needs to be tossed in favor of a more effective leader. At best, the Democrats should be urged to apologize to the portions of their 2.9 million constituents who feel that Indiana suffers from a lack of legislation.
Then the Indy Star calls Governor Daniels “car-bombing” metaphor justified. Given that U.S. citizens can be declared an enemy combatant by a Washington bureaucrat and thrown in a military brig without access to the courts in the name of the “War on Terror” – tagging anyone with a terrorist label, metaphorical or otherwise, should be done judiciously. The circumstances before us do not qualify.
Finally, the Indy Star grasps at straws to distinguish the Republican walkout last year from the Democratic walkout this year. You see, the Republican hissy-fit over gay marriages was justified because “Republicans wanted the legislative process to unfold as intended — with lawmakers casting a public vote on the issues of the day.” According to this logic, the Democrats would be justified walking out any time a committee chair didn’t give their bill a hearing. Ridiculous. That’s just not the way the legislative process works and the Indianapolis Star should know better. For better or for worse, and I contend it’s for better, the legislative process makes it far easier to kill legislation than to enact it. The legislative process is about compromise and negotiation. For whatever reason, it didn’t happen here. If it turns out that the Republicans were bending over backward to meet Democrats in the middle (or at least 48% of the way) and the Democrats refused to deal, then I’d agree that Bauer needs to be thrown under the metaphorical bus.
Otherwise, the Star is not serving its readers very well by working itself into high dudgeon over the Democrats using one of the few tools in their toolbox.
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