A Citizen's Guide to Indiana

Sen. Tomes has introduced SB 34 which seems mostly to be a way for him to express his unhappiness with the Black Lives Matter protests this summer. It provides that the State and local unites of government may not hire and must fire someone convicted of rioting. “Rioting” is already on the books and is defined as, “A person who, being a member of an unlawful assembly, recklessly, knowingly, or intentionally engages in tumultuous conduct.” “Unlawful assembly” is currently defined as, “an assembly of five (5) or more persons whose common object is to commit an unlawful act, or a lawful act by unlawful means.” And, “tumultuous conduct” is defined as “conduct that results in, or is likely to result in, serious bodily injury to a person or substantial damage to property.”

SB 34 also provides that state and local government can’t provide a “state or local benefit” to someone who has been convicted of rioting. Such benefits are defined pretty broadly to include most public spending directed to an individual. However, the prohibition does not extend to, among other things, emergency medical treatment, assistance with vaccine, and short-term noncash emergency relief.

The normal protection given to law enforcement against civil liability for enforcing or failing to enforce a law would not extend to “failure to enforce a law in connection with an unlawful assembly” if such failure rose to the level of gross negligence. So, that would give law enforcement incentive to prioritize breaking up assemblies “of five or more people whose common object is to commit an unlawful act” since people who were harmed or had property damaged as a result of the assembly could look to local government to compensate them for the damage caused by the people assembling. Property used by a person to finance or facilitate a crime committed while the person was part of an unlawful assembly could be seized under the civil forfeiture statute. Someone charged with unlawful assembly could not be released on bail by the Sheriff according to a bail schedule. Rather, the statute would require a bail determination in court for such charges.

Finally, it prohibits a unit of local government from “defunding law enforcement” unless the reduction in funds can be shown to be a function of a decline in revenue for the unit, a decline in the crime rate, or the availability of other sources of funding. There’s a rebuttable presumption that defunding has happened if the funding available to the law enforcement agency has declined by 5%. If a court determines that defunding has happened, it is to order that funding be restored in the amount provided in the last fiscal year plus an additional amount to cover inflation.

The legislation would enhance penalties for the crimes of criminal mischief, obstruction of traffic, rioting, and/or disorderly conduct if committed in connection with unlawful assembly.

Rep. Dvorak has proposed House Joint Resolution 3 which would add language to the state constitution creating an “Indiana Permanent Fund” which would ultimately be used to pay annual dividends to Indiana citizens.

The way it’s structured, any year in which the State realized a budget surplus, half of that surplus would be placed in the Permanent Fund. (The state would have the discretion to put such additional money in there as it saw fit.) The principal of the fund would be invested in income producing investments designated by law. For the first twenty years, the fund would simply be allowed to grow. After that, an increasing percentage of the income earned on the principal could be distributed to eligible recipients. In years 20-40, it would be up to 5%; years 41-60 it would be up to 10%; years 61-80 it would be up to 15%; and in years 81-100 it would be up to 20%. After a century, the amount would jump and be up to 95%. (Kind of the big thinking about our tricentennial I mentioned a few years ago!)  To be an eligible recipient, a person “must have voted in the most 27 recent general election in which the person was eligible to vote 28 occurring before the payment of the dividend.”

My initial impulse is to like the idea. But I doubt I’ve really wrapped my head around the collateral consequences of this sort of program. By locking up the surplus, the State wouldn’t have as much flexibility in dealing with short term problems. Maybe it would discourage saving because lawmakers wouldn’t have as much of a slush fund for their short term priorities? Obviously long term planning is a hard sell. None of us will be around in a century, and five percent in 20 years isn’t a huge carrot. On the other hand, we’re going to need to figure out some way of funding people’s needs that doesn’t necessarily rely on having a job, because the robots are coming. That’s great for the people who own the robots, but the people whose livelihoods are displaced by automation still need to live; preferably good lives.

Rep. Jackson has introduced HB 1128 concerning mental health assessment of law enforcement officers. It requires the law enforcement training board to come up with procedures for mental health assessments. It sets out a number of factors that should be considered with the assessments. Among them are things like frequency of personnel complaints against the officer, an abrupt change in behavior, irrational verbal conduct, suicidal statements, unexplained fatigue or hyperactivity, sudden weight gain or loss, a pattern of conduct suggesting an inability to defuse or a desire to aggravate, and dramatic negative changes in personal hygiene.

I can’t quite figure out if the assessments are limited to the following situations, the procedures are to be designed for assessments after “a return from military deployment, an exposure to a bloodborne pathogen, or the discharge of any firearm by a law enforcement officer during the course of a use of force incident.” The discharge of a firearm during a use of force incident doesn’t surprise me, but the military deployment and bloodborne pathogen scenarios strike me as oddly specific. Not that I can’t see the need after these situations, but it’s one of those underinclusive/overinclusive thing: lots of other scenarios where you’d probably want to conduct assessments and lots of people returning from military deployments or subject to bloodborne pathogens who don’t particularly need assessments. I don’t have any particular background here, so maybe there is something specific that makes these three scenarios the triple crown.

The legislation also provides for the assessments to be confidential, limits the purposes for which assessments may be used, and requires reasonable accommodations where the person is deemed not psychologically fit for duty.

Senator Sandlin has introduced SB 130 which is special legislation modifying the statute which governs the process by which a city may change its name. The current rule is that 500 registered voters can file a petition to change a city’s name which is then to be considered by the city council. The city council can then adopt an ordinance changing the city’s name. Under Sen. Sandlin’s proposed legislation, cities named in the Indiana Constitution or in the Indiana Code would not have this option.

I know Indianapolis is in the State Constitution. I don’t know if any other cities are mentioned. I suspect a fair number of cities are mentioned here and there in the Indiana Code. For example, Bloomington and West Lafayette are specifically mentioned in the higher education sections. But, given that Sen. Sandlin serves Marion and Johnson County, my guess — and this is just speculation on my part, I haven’t done any research or heard anything in particular — is that this is directed at Indianapolis. Perhaps a pre-emptive strike against locals running with the notion that having a name that includes “Indian” is a bad idea? This bill would stand for the notion that it’s best to take power away from locals and put it in the hands of the General Assembly.

Sen. Grooms has introduced SB 97 which would recognize Indiana grown popcorn as the state snack of Indiana. Sure, these things are kind of silly, but I’m a popcorn junkie (mainly because it’s a vehicle for salt and butter), so this is one I can get behind. I will, however, criticize the legislative drafting. It has the sort of “whereas” puffery that’s more at home in a resolution. (E.g. “Whereas, the State of Indiana produces nearly five hundred million (500,000,000) pounds of popcorn on Hoosier soil each year.”)