Advance Indiana suggests that there could be a Libertarian upset in the making. Citing the Indiana Daily Insight, AI reports that there is a tight 3-way race to represent Indiana’s 54th House District over in eastern Indiana. Tom Saunders, the incumbent, is facing a stiff challenge from the Libertarian, Rex Bell and Democratic candidate, David Sadler.
Saunders incumbency seems to have been tainted by his son, Andrew Saunders’, hit and run accident that left pedestrian Thomas Jackman dead. Andrew had apparently been drinking quite a bit before trying to drive home from the Elks’ Lodge when he struck Jackman and fled the scene. He was sentenced to four years in jail. Advance Indiana suggests that perhaps the relative lightness of the sentence as well as some issues concerning a potential delay of Tom Saunders reporting the incident to the police after he learned of it may be dogging Rep. Saunders reelection campaign.
Update Mark Rutherford has a post with the numbers:
Results of last night’s poll commissioned by the Libertarian Party of Indiana on Libertarian Rex Bell’s Indiana House District 54 race:
Among Decided Voters
Saunders (R) (I) : 35.4%
Bell (L) : 33.1%
Sadler (D) 31.3%It’s a horse race folks!!!!!! Look out for Libertarian Party of Indiana press releases on this. Opinion Factor conducted the poll.
So, if Kole wins the Sec’y of State race, and neither the Republicans or the Democrats have a majority in the house, and Mr. Bell wins, who becomes Speaker?
So, if Kole wins the Sec’y of State race, neither the Republicans or the Democrats hold a majority in the house (but the house isn’t “tied” because Bell won, who becomes Speaker?
If an L won, it would present several interesting infrastructure challenges. For example: the D’s and R’s both have attorneys in the “bubbles” in the house to deal with various administrative matters; there are only two bubbles – so where would the L atty sit? Second, the house clerk’s office generally has R and D staff; would they add a new L staff person? Right now, in addition to the bubble attys, there are majority and minority attys and fiscal analysts; I guess there would need to be an L atty and fiscal analyst, too.
(I suppose, realistically, a sole L member could have one atty and fiscal person to serve as bubble atty, regular atty, legislative assistant, and maybe even check out what’s happening in the clerk’s office.)
Another interesting question is whether the L member would be able to serve on any committees. Mathematically, that would be very tricky. Assuming a 52D, 47R, 1L split, it’s not clear whether the L would be entitled serve on a committee numerically. But if the D’s did give the L membership on a committee, the R’s would probably complain, since (assuming the numbers in my hypo), a 6D/5R committee would become a 6D/4R/1L committee.
But it will be interesting to watch.
Hadn’t even considered the bubble attorneys. Interesting point — though, my biased suggestion would be to just go to LSA for all your drafting needs and procedural questions.
And committee assignments. Hoo boy. Seems like the minority party would do well to try to let the libertarian onto a few committees that aren’t terribly powerful, but which coincide with Mr. Early’s personal areas of knowledge. If the House is that tight, you don’t want to unnecessarily alienate a vote that has no particular allegiance to the majority.