I just came across the blog of Kreg Battles, the Democrat opposing Troy “I’ll never vote for it” Woodruff to represent Indiana’s 64th House District. His official website is here. Woodruff and hopefully his defeat are of special interest to me given his position as a legislator who promised his constituents that he would never vote for Daylight Saving Time only to turn around and become the legislator who gave DST its one vote margin of passage.
Search Results for: troy woodruff
A little more national attention for Indiana
The Washington Post has an article on the vulnerability of GOP districts across the nation. Unsurprisingly, Indiana gets a mention:
Even more worrisome to the Republicans is Indiana, where three House incumbents — Reps. Chris Chocola, John N. Hostettler and Michael E. Sodrel — could fall to Democratic challengers. There, Bush’s weaknesses have been compounded by the problems of freshman Gov. Mitchell E. Daniels Jr. (R), who is in hot water over his decisions to switch some counties to new time zones and to lease the Indiana Toll Road to a foreign consortium.
I would be at least a little amused if Troy “I’ll never vote for it” Woodruff’s switch in time has the effect of changing the balance of power in the U.S. House of Representatives. Woodruff and Daniels get another mention in an Indy Star article on the Indiana campaigns. Daniels seems to be a political pariah, raising money for the candidates but otherwise staying out of view. Woodruff is a top target for the Democrats.
Daviess, Dubois, Knox, Martin, Pike, and Pulaski petition to change time zones again
Daviess, Dubois, Knox, Martin, and Pike Counties have filed a petition (pdf) with the United States Department of Transportation to move from the Central Time Zone into the Eastern Time Zone. Pulaski has also apparently filed a petition separately from the southwestern counties.
Governor Daniels has written a letter (pdf) supporting the joint petition. The letter contains a few whoppers worth noting:
For the vast majority of the 76 Indiana counties that joined the world of Daylight Saving Time, the selection of time zone was not difficult.
Well, no it wasn’t. Because nobody bothered to ask them. How many counties even had their commissioners take up the issue? I’ll bet considerably less than half.
The law passed in 2005 that put Indiana on DST also specifically encouraged each individual county to assert its own view on the choice of time zone, and bound the state to support that view.
Yes and no. SEA 127-2005 specifically directed the Governor to provide the USDOT with any documentation necessary to have the USDOT initiate hearings on the proper boundary between the Eastern and Central Time Zones. He did not provide any documentation to the USDOT with respect to the convenience of commerce in the state. He did nothing more than provide the USDOT with a copy of the legislation. Gov. Daniels is, however, correct that the State was bound to support any county that petitioned for a change in time zone. He actively chose to break that law by requesting the Secretary of Transportation to reject the request of the Commissioners of St. Joseph County. At the time, he put forth some disingenuous nonsense about how the legislation required him only to support the process by which the Commissioners reached a determination, not the decision itself. Now that it suits him, he acknowledges that the state is bound to support the choice of the County Commissioners.
As governor, my longstanding position has been that local preference should be respected as much as possible.
Nothing about the Governor’s many, many positions on time zones can be regarded as “long standing.” First Central Time was most desirable. Then, once he was elected, he seemed to have no position on time zones. Then he was in favor of state wide hearings. Then he was in favor of decision making by county commissioners. Then he didn’t favor the St. Joseph County Commissioners decisions. Then he favored the Southwestern region of Indiana around Evansville being on Central Time. Now he favors much of that region being on Eastern Time.
It is important to note that during the initial petition process, the counties in these affected regions were forced to make their petitions not knowing for certain which time zone their neighbor counties would land in.
That wasn’t a problem just for the affected regions. That was a problem everywhere. That is the main reason why a county-by-county solution is a Bad Idea.
Also, as Jim pointed out in the comments, the Governor’s current position is, surprise surprise, at odds with his past position with respect to southwestern Indiana. November 29, 2005 (pdf):
Second, in Southwest Indiana your proposed rule would divide a multi-county region that, through your public hearing process, has expressed a clear argument and desire to be placed together on Central time. The Department proposal correctly added three counties (Perry, Knox, and Pike) to the five existing Central Time Zone counties in Southwest Indiana. However, to fully preserve the unity of this region it is essential that you grant the petitions of the three remaining counties in this corner of the state (Daviess, Dubois, and Martin).
Contrast that with his August 14, 2006 position:
Daviess, Dubious [sic], Knox, Martin, and Pike Counties in Southwest Indiana belong in the Eastern Standard [sic] time zone.
(Governor, we all belong on Eastern Standard Time; which is where we were year round before you and Troy “I’ll never vote for it” Woodruff put us on Eastern Daylight Time.)
Below is a map showing the affected areas. My thanks to my wife, Amy, for touching up the map a bit. This is the 8th map iteration and frankly, the map was getting a little dog-eared with all the changes.
Targeted House Republicans
Thanks to Paul O’Malley for directing my attention to Shella’s Blog which lists several Republican incumbents who Democrats will try to unseat in the upcoming election.
They include 6 Representatives of Toll Road counties: Jackie Walorski (R-Lakeville), Tim Neese (R-Elkhart), Marlin Stuzman (R-Howe), Ralph Ayres (R-Chesterton), Steve Heim (R-Culver) (blog), and Mary Kay Budak (R-LaPorte). Four others are Troy “I’ll never vote for it” Woodruff (R-Vincennes), Billy Bright (R-North Vernon), John Smith (R-Kokomo), and Tim Harris (R-Marion).
The Toll Road targets are obvious. Woodruff has looked like a dead-man walking since he cast the deciding vote for Daylight Saving Time after promising his west-Indiana constituents he wouldn’t. I’ll speculate maybe Harris is vulnerable because of the CAFO kerfuffle in Blackford County where the Daniels administration has put pressure on county officials who had concerns about the impact of a confined feeding dairy operation. I don’t actually know if that’s the case, and I don’t know why, particularly, Smith and Bright might be deemed vulnerable.
Toll Road is privatized
I got to bed early tonight only to be woken up by my crying 7 month old daughter. Advance Indiana and Taking Down Words are reporting that the House has passed HB 1008, privatizing the Toll Road and authorizing the Governor, without further approval from the legislature, to create I-69 as a privately operated toll road from Evansville to Martinsville but not from Martinsville to Indianapolis. Perhaps my daughter was crying for the road that won’t belong to Indiana again until she is 75. Probably it was just gas.
I don’t believe in an advantage that the Democrats can’t fritter away somehow, but this was something of a Ben Kenobi/Darth Vader moment for the Democrats, particularly in northern Indiana. You might recall the famous Star Wars scene where Ben and Darth are fighting and Ben says, “You can’t win Darth. If you strike me down, I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.” With this vote of 51 to 48, I believe the Republicans have created a solid blue strip across the north on the electoral map from Illinois to Ohio.
Governor Daniels has 3 years to rehabilitate himself in the minds of citizens. Representatives that have hitched their wagons to the Governor and his unpopular agenda items have only 8 months and two time changes to get the job done. And they might be able to do it if the Dems are as politically tone deaf as Advance Indiana reports Craig Fry (D-Mishawaka) as being.
Fry urged opposition to the toll road privatization on the grounds that nuclear waste could now be transported across Indiana on a highway controlled by foreigners. That’s just a little stupid. The foreignness of the toll road purchaser has never been the problem, it’s the privateness. And, even more, it’s the fact that the motorists of Northern Indiana will be paying for road construction in other parts of the state, and it’s the fact that future motorists will be paying for road construction in the present.
Another objectionable trait I notice in those who have backed two of Governor Daniels most controversial initiatives, Toll Road privatization and Daylight Saving Time, is a sort of inferiority complex they have on behalf of Indiana. With DST, the question was almost never whether the change would be best for Hoosiers in their every day lives, it was almost always a question of what those in other states think of us. “They’re laughing at us,” you could almost hear the proponents whine. And we have echoes of this once again in the reporting of Advance Indiana on Rep. Randy Borror’s (R-Ft. Wayne) sentiments, a sentiment I’ve heard before from the Governor:
Rep. Randy Borror (R-Ft. Wayne), the bill’s chief sponsor, got it right. We need to let the folks in California and New York know that there is something in between, and that something is Indiana.
I believe Indiana is already a great state, and I’m not particularly concerned what people in California or New York think of us. If we have problems we need addressed, we need to fix them ourselves.
Well, my daughter has stopped crying (and bless my wife, by the way, for taking care of her). I guess it was just gas.
Update
Democrats focused on the loud popular opposition to leasing the Toll Road for the next 75 years in exchange for money to bridge the state’s highway transportation gap.
“We are gobbling up everything … and we’re going to grab it right now. We’re not going to leave it for our kids,†Moses said. “Then we’re going to turn around and we’re going to spend it, and we’re going to spend it right away.â€
Ms. Kelly does a good job of explaining the general provisions of both the privatization contract and HB 1008.
Proposed Amendments to abortion bills
HB 1080 and HB 1172 were up for second reading today. (Second reading is the stage at which floor amendments (as opposed to committee amendments) for a bill are proposed or considered.)
House Bill 1080 is a bill that provides meticulous specifications for any building used to perform abortions. This appears to be an attempt to make sure that few or no facilities are available to women who want to exercise their reproductive rights because it’s too difficult or too expensive to come up with a building that meets the standards. (Presumably, the legislature could change the building requirements year after year to make it that much harder.)
Representative Kuzman proposed an amendment that would give the State Department of Health the authority to regulate “pregnancy counseling centers.” My understanding is that this is the name given to places where the goal is to put pressure on a woman to keep the child and not to have an abortion.
Representative Orentlicher proposed an amendment that would have imposed the meticulous requirements of HB 1080 on all ambulatory outpatient surgical centers and not just on abortion clinics.
Both of these amendments failed on a voice vote. This goes to show that proponents of HB 1080 aren’t concerned about the quality of women’s reproductive choices generally or the health and safety of outpatient surgical centers generally, they just want the government to tell women that they aren’t allowed to make this decision for themselves.
And, most amusingly to me, Rep. Porter’s amendment which would have required that sex and education information (already mandated by state law) on abstinence and other issues be medically accurate. This insistence on medical accuracy was ruled “out of order.” (It probably was out of order, given that HB 1080 deals with building regulations whereas Rep. Porter’s amendment had to do with educational issues. However, given the recent ruling that the anti-gay rights amendment was germane to the eminent domain bill, I thought the bar had been lowered.)
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The House also considered amendments to HB 1172 which is a bill that tells physicians what to tell their patients with respect to abortion. A physician must tell his or her patient that human life begins at conception. He must also tell her that her fetus may feel pain. (More discussion of HB 1172 here.).
Rep. Kuzman proposed one amendment that would have omitted the requirement to advise women about potential fetal pain in the case of incest or rape, and another amendment that would have permitted the physician to additionally provide his or her patient with the physician’s own professional medical opinion concerning the capacity of a fetus to experience pain, the advisability of administering anesthetic to a woman or fetus, and when human life begins. Both amendments were defeated by a voice vote.
Rep. Troy “I’ll never vote for Daylight Saving Time” Woodruff withdrew his amendment which would have inserted a section stating simply “Human life begins when a human ovum is fertilized by a human sperm.”
Time Zone/DST coverage
Here is a roundup of the coverage of the U.S. Dept. of Transportation’s time zone ruling.
ndiana has declined to observe daylight-saving time for decades, and though there were rumbles from time to time, the issue never went anywhere in the legislature.
Last year, though, a daylight bill pushed by Daniels passed. Daniels, who originally said he thought the state should be on Central time, changed course and said counties could decide for themselves by petitioning the federal government individually to indicate what time zone they wanted to be in. Some have described that process as a big mess.
Rep. Bauer says, “The only way most people in Indiana will feel that they haven’t been force-fed by the federal government and the governor is to have a referendum so they can express their views.”
Advance Indiana is personally comfortable with the new map, but shares my thought that some politicians may be in for a rocky ride because of this.
Indy Star: We got what we want, could the rest of you please shut up now?
The Indy Star has an article entitled Clock has expired for DST replays which says that now that the pro-DST forces eked out a victory, the rest of us should just shut up about it for the rest of eternity. The General Assembly, they say, should resist the temptation to reopen the issue.
Any compromise of a clear-cut identity for the state in the matter of time would dishonor the vote to spring forward.
“Dishonor the vote to spring forward?” Would that they had such concern about the votes not to spring forward. The State voted long ago to remain on Eastern Standard Time year round. There was no concern about dishonoring that vote. Prior Daylight Saving Time bills over the past 30 years died death after death after death. There was no concern about dishonor when new DST legislation was brought to the floor. The original Daylight Saving Time bill in the 2005 General Asssembly died in the House of Representatives. No concern about dishonor then. The Second Daylight Saving Time bill was defeated 50 to 49. No concern about dishonoring that vote. The DST bill had been defeated again 48 for and 49 against while Representative Bosma held the vote open long enough to get Representative Ulmer and Representative Troy “I’ll never vote for it” Woodruff to switch their votes. Certainly no concern about dishonoring the original vote on that one.
No, it would only be dishonorable to switch the vote now that the “business community” (which I take to mean executives who are movers and shakers in the Indiana Chamber of Commerce) got what they want. After all, according to the Star, it matters not a whit what us peons might desire for ourselves, only what the business community overlords dictate:
[T]he Indiana General Assembly early this year finally decided something the business community has long accepted: This state must get in step with the nation by following daylight-saving time[.]
. . .
[The details of Indiana time] must be worked out on the basis of business, not politics or sentimentality.
I guess the help should beg forgiveness for being too noisy.
Political articles in today’s Indy Star
Some good articles on Indiana politics in today’s Indy Star:
“”My personal belief is there has to be a master designer who has placed life on Earth,” Bosma said. “The question is, do we require that to be taught as part of the curriculum in science class? That’s a tough question.” Just asking it doesn’t signal agreement, he said.
And, Representative Phil Hinkle ought to be in for at least a bit of derision: He said, “he doesn’t believe evolution is science.” A few things. First, Intelligent Design isn’t science. Evolution is. So, teach evolution in science class. Teach Intelligent Design in philosophy or comparative religion classes. If you teach ID in science classes, you’re contributing to the decline of Indiana’s scientific and technological base and contributing to the perception that Indiana is a hick backwater — a perception the Republicans claimed to be trying to fight by screwing around with our time. Placing superstition in science classes is going to do a heck of a lot more to add to that perception than whether or not we fiddle with our clocks. Another point to keep in mind: the school board members in Dover, Pennsylvania — al 8 who were on the ballot were shown the door after trying to jam ID into science classes where it doesn’t belong.
Hostettler, you see, was not only a “no” vote on Katrina but also a no-show after the tornadoes, deciding not to tour the parts of his district flattened last Sunday in the deadliest storm to hit Indiana in 30 years.
Ellsworth, by contrast, was often the first person reporters would talk to when they arrived at the demolished Eastbrook Mobile Home Park, and he was often still there when they wrapped up their reports at night.
Even More Daylight Saving Time
Adding to the Daylight Saving Time fun, Congress is adding 2 months to DST. According to this article, DST will begin on the first Sunday in March and end the last Sunday in November. Currently it begins the first Sunday in April and ends the last Sunday in October.
One quote in the article suggests that U.S. Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) thinks being in Congress GIVES HIM POWER OVER THE SUN! Quoth the Markey: “The more daylight we have, the less electricity we use.”
Anyway, this will presumably rile up those who were not in favor of Daylight Saving Time. Poor Representative Woodruff can’t catch a break. (Did I mention that he cast the deciding vote in favor of DST after having promised his constituents that he would *never* vote for DST?) First he reneges on a promise which brings DST to the state. Then Gov. Daniels does a half-assed job submitting the petition for time zone consideration required by SEA 127, and now we’re going to be on Daylight Saving Time during Thanksgiving. The sun won’t rise until just shy of 9:00 a.m. in Rep. Woodruff’s hometown of Vincennes at the end of November. (That means if you go out to wait for the school bus at 7 a.m., you’ll have just over 2 hours until the sun comes up.) On the flip side of the coin, I put my toddler down to bed at 7:30 p.m. This time next year, it won’t be dark for another 2.5 hours after that.
Update 2:00 p.m.: While I might be the only blogger obsessing on the DST issue, I’m not the only one talking about it. Some others:
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