A Citizen's Guide to Indiana

Sen. Tallian has introduced SB 213 which would raise the threshold for possession of marijuana as a crime to two ounces. Beer is my area of expertise, so I don’t really have any idea if that’s a lot or a little. The bill would also remove possession of marijuana, hashish, hash, or salvia as permissible grounds for revoking certain professional licenses.

Ten years ago, I would have said it was impossible for a bill like this to move in Indiana. Now I’m not so sure. Decriminalization of marijuana seems to be one of the few high profile issues these days that seems like it has some level of bipartisan support — it’s certainly not universal, but I can’t say that it’s particularly a Democratic or Republican issue. I’ve seen some results of legalization in recent trips to California and Colorado. I can’t say that I’m in love with seeing folks smoking marijuana on the streets or the marijuana shops. Some of that is just me having to get used to something new and some of it is me not liking public smoking in general (regardless of substance). But throwing people in jail for possession of marijuana is starting to look like an anachronism.

I’m under no illusion that this is going anywhere, but Sen. Tallian has introduced SB 212 which would allocate Indiana’s electoral votes to the national popular vote winner under the “Agreement Among the States to Elect the President by National Popular Vote.” That agreement would become effective when enough states to constitute a majority of the electoral votes adopt the agreement. Once a state enters into the agreement, it can’t withdraw less than 6 months before the end of the current Presidential term.

Objections to a popular Presidential vote usually revolve around the idea that this is a Republic, not a Democracy, and the electoral college is necessary to prevent the more sparsely populated states from being subsumed by the more populous states — rural states should have bulwark against being governed by urban states. A variant on this is simply an appeal to authority – the Founders created the electoral system, so that settles it. These are more or less subjective value judgments, so I can’t necessarily argue against them factually. It comes down to the normative question of “so what?” Is it bad for an urban majority to be able to write laws that override the preferences of a rural minority? Is it bad for modern sensibilities to override the policy preferences of the Founders? I tend to think not, but probably because I feel like rural voters have led us to some unfortunate places in recent years. Nationally, I think that conservative Southerners have — throughout our history — been almost unerringly on the wrong side of history. But, that’s my opinion. If the Founders had gone with a popular vote model, we’d have missed out on such towering figures as Donald Trump, George W. Bush, Benjamin Harrison, and Rutherford B. Hayes.

Sen. Koch has introduced SB 220 entitled “Going upon the premises of another.” (That’s not his title — the legislative summaries are prepared by the Legislative Services Agency drafters). It amends IC 14-22-10-2. That section limits landowner liability by specifying that a person going on the property (where the landowner isn’t charging money) of another for the purpose of swimming, camping, hiking, sightseeing, or accessing a trail, or a greenway doesn’t have an assurance that the premises are safe for that purpose. The basic policy idea is to make it easier for landowners to make their property available for recreational purposes without worrying about getting sued. The only change to that statute proposed by this legislation is to add “or departing from” a trail or greenway.

I have no real idea, but my guess is that there is a lawsuit floating around there by a person who got injured while headed away from the trail rather than headed toward the trail whereupon a creative lawyer argued, “Aha! The statute doesn’t apply because my client was going in the wrong direction!” Rather than the trial court telling him to pound sand, the case hung around long enough for someone to ask their legislator for help. Just a guess.

With SB 129, Sen. Leising continues with her quest to dictate that all schools throughout the land teach cursive to their students, regardless of whether educators making those decisions regard cursive instruction as the best use of limited teaching time. Last year, HB 1420 passed with a bit of fluff indicating that schools are permitted to offer cursive instruction (which has always been the case). She had successfully injected mandatory cursive into the version of the House bill that passed the Senate, but that was stripped out in conference in favor of the voluntary language.

Before anyone gets going on the cognitive benefits, motor skills, and so forth supposedly offered by cursive, please be careful to distinguish benefits derived from handwriting in general (including printing) versus those (if any) provided by cursive specifically. If schools want to teach it, fine. But the State shouldn’t mandate cursive based on legislators’ nostalgia or based on benefits kids will get from printing anyway.

I’ll close by quoting one of my many, many, many, many, many, prior entries on Sen. Leising’s efforts:

Sen. Leising has been tilting at this particular windmill for years since the State Board of Education made cursive discretionary for schools to teach. Advocates of cursive come up with post hoc rationalizations for why they care so much. It’s for the children, of course. But the justifications are specious:

“They need to be able to sign their name.”
Fine, spend a few hours one day teaching them to sign their name.

“It affects brain development.”
You get the same development from printing.

“They need to be able to read the original Declaration of Independence.”
When they get to this point, proponents of mandatory cursive are grasping at straws.

The fact is that cursive is the slide rule of writing. Nostalgia is the motivation for hanging on to it. The world is changing, and that’s upsetting. The offered rationales are pretexts to justify the underlying nostalgia. If we just discovered cursive today, we would be in no rush to force it on our kids.

Sen. Tomes has introduced SB 120 which would increase the amount the State pays counties to hold state prisoners. Generally speaking, after offenders are convicted of a felony and sentenced by a state court, housing them is a state responsibility. The State changed this somewhat by leaving lower level felons (Level 6 — what had been Class D) in county jails as a matter of course. The State reimburses counties for offenders left in county jails rather than being housed in the state prisons. According to the fiscal note, the amount of that reimbursement since 1991 has been $35 per offender per day. This legislation would set a floor of $55 per day.

I’m certainly in favor of an increase. I have no real idea as to whether $55 per day realistically reflects the cost of incarcerating an inmate. Local government has very little control over who is sentenced and for how long. Judges are state officials following state sentencing guidelines in enforcing state laws. As we’ve seen with respect to the civil rights lawsuits against Vigo County with respect to jail conditions, local government can be left holding the bag despite their relative lack of control over jail populations.

The fiscal note says that this would cost the State treasury an additional $14.2 million per year.

Sen. Melton has introduced SB 83 which would allow redevelopment commissions to use up to 15% of the tax proceeds received by a tax increment financing allocation area in a given year for maintaining and repairing roads, sewers, and other public infrastructure. At a very general level, I think the idea is to use TIF revenues for capital expenses rather than operating expenses. So, this would be a departure in that repair and maintenance are expenses you’d expect general tax revenues to take care of. But, of course, one of the knocks on tax increment financing is the idea that it captures taxes that would otherwise be available for repair and maintenance. (The counterargument is that those tax dollars wouldn’t be available in the first place without TIF projects spurring economic development). There’s an argument to be made that this change is consistent with the overall TIF philosophy if economic activity is making additional demands on roads and public infrastructure. Nobody wants to invest in an area with inadequate sewage services and crumbling roads.

Sen. Sandlin has introduced SB 78 which identifies three specific crimes as “public order” offenses and then permits a sentencing enhancement if these crimes are committed while wearing a mask or face covering. I can definitely see where there is a policy argument to be made that attempting to conceal one’s identity while wearing a crime should be punished more harshly than committing the crime openly; but it seems arbitrary to single out the crimes of criminal mischief, rioting, or disorderly conduct or the means of concealment being hiding one’s face. Why not add a sentencing enhancement to campaign finance crimes or dodging taxes while hiding behind shell corporations?

My guess is that Sandlin is reacting to the Antifa panic.

My title here is almost as long as the bill itself, but Sen. Koch has introduced SB 222 which amends the law concerning communicable diseases at a food establishment. Current law says that a person with a communicable or infectious disease can’t work in a food establishment in any capacity in which epidemiological evidence indicates the person may spread the disease. (Pretty sure I’ve seen folks with colds working at fast food joints). The legislation would require a local health department to disclose, upon request, certain information concerning a food establishment with a person who is or was prohibited from working under those circumstances. (I don’t know that the local health department is always going to have this information.)

The health department must disclose the specific disease, the name and location of the food establishment, and the period of time during which the person worked while infectious. The legislation goes on to say, however, that the health department may not disclose the name of the person or any other identifying information of the person. I’m not necessarily against this legislation, but my guess is that, in smaller communities with smaller establishments, the disease, location, name of establishment, and period of time worked are going to be more than enough information for news organizations or citizen sleuths in the comment sections to figure out who has what disease.

Sen. Grooms has introduced SB 177 which urges the study of loot boxes in video games. Specifically, it requires the Indiana Gaming Commission to provide the legislative council with recommendations on how best to regulate loot boxes in online games and applications and options for a regulatory system concerning the sale of such games and appropriate disclosures.

The legislation itself doesn’t make this explicit, but the referral to the Gaming Commission indicates the concern that these loot boxes are a type of gambling. Here is the first explainer that came up on Google regarding the general issue. Players pay additional money to get the “loot box” – bonus items with additional items or features related to the game. I use the term “bonus” somewhat loosely, since the additional items or features can be important to game play. It can be similar to gambling in that there is an element of chance – you don’t know what you’re getting. Depending on how it’s set up, there can be a slot machine effect, where you combine gaming and intermittent reward mechanisms to create an addictive dynamic. Also, it can be somewhat unclear prior to purchase how important the additional pay-to-play elements are to game play.