Search Results for: troy woodruff

The Lafayette Journal & Courier wants the debate over time zones to stop.

Prior to [2005], most of Indiana remained on Eastern Standard Time all year, which meant that from November through March, most of Indiana was on the same time as New York City. From April through October, most Hoosiers’ watches were in sync with Chicago.

Legally, the entire state was on the same time as Chicago for seven months of the year. There were a handful of counties around Louisville and Cincinnati that observed Eastern Daylight Time, but they did so illegally.

The counties in the state chose which time zone — Eastern or Central — to be in.

This is a disingenuous description of how the process worked. First, Gov. Daniels campaigned on the premise that Indiana would be united on Central Daylight Time. Then the issue of time zones was ignored or misrepresented as DST was rammed through the legislature only to pass DST by one vote on the 4th or 5th try with that vote being a betrayal of ex-Representative Troy Woodruff’s promise to his constituents. Then the Governor didn’t submit to the Department of Transportation as required the materials necessary to allow the Department to put Indiana on one time zone. Then, he punted the thing to an ad hoc county-by-county decision making process that stacked the deck by giving counties away from the time line almost no incentive to change because they lacked information on what counties between them and the time line would do.

You can make the case that leaving a flawed system in place is preferable to the costs of changing it around. But, then, you could have made that case before Daniels started monkeying with our clocks. What you can’t do with any credibility is make the case that our current time system, particularly the time zone half of the debate, was the result of a full and fair debate on what ought to be done.

Associated Press journalist, Mike Smith has a good recap of the time zone process that has taken place to date. He quotes retired Indiana University economist Morton Marcus as Marcus dubs the counties seeking to switchback to Eastern Time the “seesaw six.”

Smith leaves out a number of details, but in the limited space available to a print journalist, it would be impossible not to. Still, I thought the summary was well done. Smith also offers this observation about Troy “I’ll Never Vote For It” Woodruff and the upcoming elections:

Many already were upset with state Rep. Troy Woodruff, R-Vincennes, for casting the needed 51st vote for the daylight time bill’s passage after promising constituents he would never support daylight time. This latest chapter is sure to remind voters of that in November, when House Democrats try to regain control of the narrowly divided chamber.

. . .
House Democrats hope people are angry about the time changes and will take it out at the polls. All but a handful of House Democrats voted against the bill that led to the changes. There could be more changes if the federal government grants the reversal requests. And more counties might seek switches in the future, keeping the saga alive.

The Associated Press has an article on Knox County’s consideration to move to Eastern Time. Eastern Time agitators who were apparently not very diligent when the USDOT was considering the time zone issue last fall have obtained 3,000 signatures in support of Eastern Time. The Knox County commissioners will decide next week whether to join Daviess, Dubois, and Martin counties in requesting a do-over on the time zone decision.

Many blamed Gov. Mitch Daniels and Rep. Troy Woodruff, R-Vincennes, for the time-zone confusion and said the matter would be an issue in the fall campaign when Woodruff runs for re-election.

Daniels pushed the legislature last year to adopt daylight-saving time, with Woodruff casting the needed 51st vote in the House after pledging to constituents that he would never support daylight time.

Just a reminder of what the map looks like currently:

In any event, the county-by-county approach to timezones is and always has been ridiculous. It pits county against county and makes county commissioners try to solve a complex jigsaw puzzle where they only control one piece and have no way of knowing what the other pieces are going to do.

The Lafayette Journal & Courier offers us a time zone exhaustion editorial:

The issues of daylight savings time and what time
zone Indiana should be in have been discussed, dissected and cross
examined. Is there really anything more to say?

If only this weariness had set in during the 30 years when opponents of the system that served us for those decades offered DST legislation year after year. Pretty convenient that it sets in the year after Daylight Saving Time squeaked through.

In any event, it is not so much about saying more about the subject. It’s about giving the citizens of Indiana a vote on the subject. Keep in mind that the DST legislation was passed on the strength of Rep. Troy Woodruff’s vote after he promised to “never” vote for Daylight Saving Time and a fragmented time zone with the majority of the state being on Eastern Daylight Time signed into law by a Governor who said on the campaign trail that he favored statewide Central Daylight Time.

Now, it’s a stretch to conclude that voters voted for candidates based on their opposition to DST or preference for Central Time, particularly, but certainly we cannot conclude that the result we have is the “will of the people” when elected representatives acted contrary to their stated positions. At least Rep. Crooks proposal, which the Journal & Courier finds so exhausting, would allow the people to have their say.

First, my apologies for the lack of blog activity. My home internet service went out on Friday night and was down all weekend.

At the time the USDOT’s time zone decision came out, I noted that the Pulaski County decision surprised me a bit. They had been preliminarily denied and hadn’t made much effort to supplement their petition to get USDOT to reconsider. Nevertheless, they were included in Central while St. Joseph, which had been preliminarily approved, was ultimately denied. Apparently this also came as a surprise to Pulaski County. Now the officials are attempting to reconsider whether they want to be on Central Time.

The county commissioners and County Council plan a special joint
meeting on Monday to hear public comments on whether to appeal the U.S.
Department of Transportation’s ruling to shift Pulaski County from
Eastern time beginning April 2, when daylight-saving time begins.

A statement released by County Council President Sam Frain called
the federal decision released Wednesday a “sudden change” from the
agency’s October recommendation that the county remain in the Eastern
zone. The statement said county officials had received numerous
complaints about the decision.

Meanwhile, we have a chorus of “we got what we wanted, so shut up now” from the eastern parts of the state. One of the voices is an editorial from the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette. But, not surprisingly, the most disingenuous voice seems to be the editorial from the Marion Chronicle Tribune.  Their headline gives away the problem with their reasoning, “After decades of arguing, it’s time to move on.” Why wasn’t it time to move on last year or the year before or the year before that? Because the folks at the Marion Chronicle editorial board hadn’t gotten what they wanted: Eastern Daylight Time. Why is it time to move on now? Because they got what they wanted. So could the rest of us please shut up now? (My comments in italics)

Already, some Hoosier legislators want a statewide referendum on the time zone issue.

“The people ought to be given a voice,” House Minority Leader Pat Bauer whined. Somehow it wasn’t whining when people complained that the system that worked well enough for 30 years ought to be changed.

They’ve had a voice, for crying out loud. They had it when they elected Mitch Daniels, who campaigned on making the change. Folks, you really, really, don’t want to hang your hat on what Mitch Daniels campaigned on. He campaigned on state-wide Central Daylight Time. That is not at all what we have now.

They had it when the General Assembly debated the issue and when the feds conducted hearings and took comments around the state. Nor do you want to hang your hat on the action by the General Assembly. The Daylight Saving Time died twice. First when the original bill didn’t make it out of the House. Second when the bill that ultimately passed was defeated 50 against to 49 in favor only to be resurrected for passage when Troy Woodruff went back on his word to his constituents that he would “never” vote for Daylight Saving Time. And the federal process was stacked against consideration of Central Time. An overwhelming default preference was given to Eastern Time with those preferring Central having to overcome a heavy burden to obtain a shift. Furthermore only changes affecting petitioning counties would be considered — meaning that, even if the State and the interests of commerce would be best served by shifting a non-petitioning county (say, Elkhart County for example), the time shift simply would not be considered under any circumstances.

They’ll have yet another voice when 100 Indiana House seats and 25 Senate seats come up for election this year. You got that right.

But the state does not need a referendum about this. Why? Because the people of Indiana might disagree with the wisdom handed down by the Marion Chronicle Tribune?

It seems to me that the only way out of the time mess is to fill the General Assembly with legislators who are comitted to planning and requesting from the USDOT a statewide time solution or, in the alternative, returning Indiana to the status quo which worked well enough for 30 years, despite the whining from the likes of the Marion Chronicle Tribune.