A Citizen's Guide to Indiana

Masson's Blog

Pal-Item on Contamination at Springwood Lake

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The Palladium-Item looks to be starting a series on the environmental contamination at Springwood Lake near the industrial corridor on Richmond’s northwest side.

[T]he once pristine, spring-fed body of water has been fouled by decades of industrial runoff and spills. The water is relatively clean, but tests on the sediment beneath have revealed the ugly truth of its past as a catch basin for the city’s industrial northwest side.

When it comes to pollution, I have to keep returning to the notion that pollution is a form of externalizing the costs of production. When externalized, that portion of the cost of production isn’t reflected in the price, meaning that the market is not sending the correct signals. In this case, the future generations in the area – the ones who have to clean up the area, suffer from the health problems, and/or live with the mess – are subsidizing the consumption of the products made at that time and place.

I don’t know, and the article doesn’t say, but I have to think that the Alcoa plant in the area is one source of the contaminants. And that makes me a beneficiary of those subsidies. Dad made a good living at that plant, allowing him to support our family in a stable fashion. Mom was at home after school, we had good health benefits. He was able to spare the time to coach our sports teams, etc. etc.

So, thanks for the help neighbors of Springwood!

Toward an American Aristocracy

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I don’t care much about how much Bristol Palin, in particular, gets paid; but recent reports that she got paid something like $260,000 advocating for prevention of teen pregnancy serve to illustrate why it’s tough to be complacent about standard arguments about why the rich shouldn’t be taxed so much.

The standard argument is that rich folks got that way through hard work and poor folks are poor because they’re lazy. Bristol’s case illustrates the fact that, if you’re well connected, you don’t have to work all that hard or even be a logical choice for the job to get paid well. I have no idea how the numbers break down statistically, but it’s hard not to suspect that money is not generally rewarding the most valuable contributors. As the song says:

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows that the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That’s how it goes
Everybody knows

Along similar lines, there was the story out of Wisconsin yesterday (h/t Indiana Law Blog), where an influential lobbyist’s son who, himself, had no particular distinction got a government job — despite the state’s loudly bemoaned financial problems — initially paying $61,000 and quickly followed by a promotion paying $81,000/year. He beat out a couple of applicants with a great deal of distinction but, apparently, no influential lineage.

It’s just not uncommon to see people prospering because of their parents and their connections. (Lest I be accused of liberal bias, we can throw in Rahm Emmanuel’s big payday after the Clinton years based primarily on Rahm’s fat rolodex.) Maybe it’s the same as it ever was. Maybe perception drowns out reality. But, when times are tough, it’s really tempting to start looking around for an aristocracy to blame.

SB 47 – Gambling & Alcohol Liberalization

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SB 47 loosens up the restrictions on Indiana gambling a little bit. It further allows us to move away from the riverboat pretense by allowing the riverboat to be converted into a permanently moored craft. It also creates a procedure for the licensed casinos to conduct card tournaments in land-based structures adjacent to the dock.

The bill also allows the casinos to outsource food and beverage service caterers who are independent contractors. Furthermore, it removes some accountability provisions attached to giving away free booze to patrons. Current law requires the facility to register free drinks on the cash register and for the license holder to actually pay the tab at the end of the night. This bill dispenses with that kind of record keeping. And, it allows a casino or horse track to get paid for advertising alcohol by brand name.

It passed the House on third reading by a vote of 58-41 and was returned to the Senate without amendment and, so, should be on its way to the governor.

SB 36 – Horse Racing Consolidation

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SB 36 allows the horse racing commission to issue permits to people who hold an interest in other horse racing permits if the commission determines that doing so is in the best interest of the state and the Indiana horse racing industry. Currently, the commission is not allowed to issue such a permit. I imagine this prohibition was put in place out of concerns related to consolidation and monopoly power.

In any event, the bill passed the House 89-9 on third reading without amendments and should be on its way to the governor.

SB 156 – Public Intoxication

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SB 156 addresses a law I thought was pretty unfair as a college student. Current law makes it a misdemeanor to be in a public place in a state of intoxication caused by the persons use of drugs or alcohol. That seemed unfair because if you were drunk (and, dear reader, sometimes I was) it shouldn’t be a crime if you weren’t hurting anyone.

SB 156 qualifies this to say you can’t be drunk in public if you’re endangering your life, the life of another, or breaching the peace or are in imminent danger of breaching the peace. That’s probably closer to fair, but I think it probably also makes a police officer’s job tougher. It’s no secret that drunk people cause more trouble. And, if you see someone who is really drunk but not actually “breaching the peace,” it’s probably just as well to get that person headed home. Probably the police can still make strong suggestions to that effect, but I imagine it creates some ambiguity about how to proceed if the drunk isn’t compliant.

SB 500 – Massage Therapist Licensure

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SB 500 gives me the opportunity to, once again, go over the three main types of professional regulation in the state. (The crowd goes wild!)

The three primary types of regulation are registration, certification, and licensure. Registration lets pretty much anyone perform the activity, as long as they sign up with the proper authorities. Certification doesn’t prohibit anyone from performing the activity, but prohibits you from calling yourself a certified practitioner of whatever it is unless you’ve met the criteria for certification. And, licensure prevents a person from performing a particular activity unless they’ve received a license.

SB 500 moves massage therapists from a certification regime into a licensure regime. At the same time, it preempts local government from establishing its own licensing requirements on massage therapists. Massage therapists that are currently certified would automatically become licensed under the bill.

SB 467: Casket Country Concealment Criminalization

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The funeral industry has always seemed to me to have oversized influence in the General Assembly. So, I’d assume SB 417 would pass. “Criminalization” probably isn’t the right word — but I wanted a 4th “C”. SB 467 makes it a deceptive act, if you’re selling or supplying a casket, to remove, cover, alter, or makes unreadable a country of origin marking on the casket.

I guess I don’t have any particular objection to the legislation, but it’s one of those things that seems oddly specific.

Butler Returns to the NCAA Championship Game

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Butler, and the Hoosiers/Milan story it echoes, is a great story. The Bulldogs are returning to the NCAA championship game. This year, instead of Duke, they’ll be competing against Connecticut.

One of the things that makes Butler such a great story is that it’s easily converted into a morality tale. Who knows what the actual reality is, but from the outside, Butler looks like everything we like — the humble underdog that gets to the top through pluck and hard work, overcoming more talented (but, because they lost, presumably less virtuous) opponents. It helps, this year, that the other side of the bracket gives us relatively cartoonish villains. It’s not too hard to imagine Kentucky’s Calipari or UConn’s Calhoun telling one of their blue chip bully boys to “sweep the leg, Johnny.”

It’s also a nice touch that Butler is returning after losing last year — gives it a nice “Rocky” flavor to it (as well as being reminiscent of the original Milan story). Maybe they’ll give us a satisfying ending to the story by winning it all on Monday.

We generally want to believe that hard work is a more important ingredient for success than money, talent, or luck.

The Imperial Governor: Transportation Edition

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One theme you see again and again from the “CEO Governor” (or President) model is annoyance at the legislative process. I expect every executive gets frustrated at one time or another by the legislative body, but it seems much more profound in those executives who fancy themselves as running their government like a business. Gov. Daniels went the power grab route early on in his administration, but seemed to tone that down in the middle years — whether because he got what he wanted, it was more trouble than it was worth, or Democrats took the house, I don’t know.

But, Heather Gillers has a story in the Indy Star about SB 473 which would give Gov. Daniels the power to cut out the General Assembly when making decisions on the creation of toll roads:

The governor would have the sole authority to create toll roads under a bill that has been quietly advancing through the Indiana legislature.

Currently, the law says that the governor cannot (with certain exceptions) approve the location of a tollway without the General Assembly enacting a statute authorizing that activity. The proposed legislation simply makes that provision inapplicable before July 1, 2015. There is a similar provision that applies to toll road privatization.

Paul Ogden suggests that Gov. Daniels has a tin ear on this subject.

The fact is the public has overwhelmingly turned against privatization and its cousin public-private partnerships. People don’t trust that their politicians are looking out for their best interests when privatizing services. They see politicians as using privatization as a new sort of patronage, a way to generate large gobs of campaign contributions from private company seeking contracts.

(It’s also seen as a way of outsourcing political will — e.g. taking a loss in the long term by relying on the contractor to raise tolls where the political body would not.)

As an example, Ogden cites the recent Indianapolis parking meter privatization deal, panned before the fact by the Urbanophile, which seems to be quickly moving from mere bad idea to full-fledged debacle as mayor Ballard has decided to cancel the contract a mere month into its implementation. (fished in by an April Fool’s joke — I still expect this to go from bad idea to debacle, so I’ll leave that part up.)

For more insight into Gov. Daniels’ track record on privatization, it’s worth re-reading Advance Indiana and Carl Moldthan’s report on the Daniels’ administration’s FSSA privatization. As the man said:

There’s an old saying in Tennessee — I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on, shame on you. Fool me, you can’t get fooled again.

Giving Gov. Daniels unfettered discretion over privatization issues is what we in fact call a “Bad Idea.”

HB 1210 – Abortions

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Fresh from protecting us from the gay peril, the Indiana General Assembly is unleashing the crazy in the fight against abortion. In particular, the debate is underway as to HB 1210.

Along with other risks, it requires a physician to tell a patient that abortion increases the risk of breast cancer. That it does no such thing does not seem to be important. Might as well require doctors to tell patients that abortions will make them fat and give them halitosis. Notably absent is any requirement that a physician advise of the risks of carrying a child to term. Obviously, this isn’t about informed consent.

What really got the Internets chirping though was a comment made by Rep. Turner while debating an amendment proposed by Rep. Riecken. The bill as written forbids a health plan offered pursuant to the federal health care reform bill from providing coverage to pay for an abortion. Rep. Riecken’s amendment would have made an exception for abortions made necessary by rape or incest. Rep. Turner said he couldn’t vote for such an amendment because women might lie about rape or incest to get their abortions. (Angry Black Lady at Balloon Juice is not amused.)

The Indiana Law Blog reposted some of the tweets from Indy Star reporter, Mary Beth Schneider during the debate:

#House defeats amendment requiring women be given “objective, scientific” info. on abortion. Really.

#Rep. Lawson, D and former sex crimes investigator, in tears as she tells House women do not lie about rape. Amendment defeated, tho, 42-54

#Rep. Turner, author of abortion bill, opposes exemption for women who have been raped, saying woman could lie about rape.

#House’s lone physician, Rep. Tim Brown, R-Crawfordsville, supported Welch’s amendment which went down 41-52.

#House rejects attempt by Rep. Welch, who is pro-life, to delete requirement that women be told abortion is risk factor for breast cancer.

#Hah! Rep. Reardon notes that majority of sponsors of anti-abortion bill in House “don’t have a uterus.”

Meanwhile, down in Indianapolis, the ACLU is attempting to help defeat the prosecution of Bei Bei Shuai. The issue generally is whether a woman should be subjected to harsher penalties simply because she is pregnant. The way the ACLU tells it:

On December 23, 2010, Shuai, a 34-year-old pregnant woman who was suffering from a major depressive disorder, attempted to take her own life. Friends found her in time and persuaded her to get help. Six days later, Shuai underwent cesarean surgery and delivered a premature newborn girl who, tragically, died four days later.

On March 14, 2011, Shuai was arrested, jailed, and charged with murder and attempted feticide. Had Shuai, who is being represented by National Advocates for Pregnant Women and local attorneys, not been pregnant when she attempted suicide, she would not have been charged with any crime at all.

Of course, no one would deny that what happened in this case is terrible and tragic, and probably no one feels that more than Shuai herself. But this case is about so much more than whether attempted suicide should be a crime — in Indiana it is not — and the death of her daughter; its implications go much further.

The state is misconstruing the criminal laws in this case in such a way that any pregnant woman could be prosecuted for doing (or attempting) anything that may put her health at risk, regardless of the outcome of her pregnancy.

Indiana is coming to resemble that old quip: Government small enough to fit into your bedroom.