A Citizen's Guide to Indiana

Michele McNeil has an article in the Indy Star entitled, State lawyer won contract from his boss. The Attorney General’s office awarded a contract to defend the state in civil suits to former deputy Attorney General, John Lewis, who was chief of the tort litigation division. The contract award has at least the appearance of impropriety. If I’m reading this right, Lewis contributed information for the drafting of the Request for Proposals for outsourcing the division’s work, then turned around and bid on the project.

Aside from that, I’m wondering how the economics of this is going to work. When doing the work in-house, the Attorney General had 12 staff positions to deal with the cases, (3,000 of them filed in 2004), and now the private firm of Lewis and Wilkins will do the work with 4 people. (Or maybe I’m misreading the article and the number of Lewis & Wilkins attorneys is not specified, just there will be 4 who used to work at the AG’s office.) In any event, I don’t see how a private firm is going to have a competitive advantage in this case. Normally you outsource peripheral duties. But litigation ought to be a core competency of the AG’s office. Furthermore, AG attorneys generally work cheaper than the private practice attorneys. And, overhead is not as much of a direct problem. There is almost certainly relevant information I don’t have in analyzing this situation, but from what I have it seems that, either this outsourcing will end up costing a lot more than the $650k that was bid or Lewis & Wilkins will end up taking a financial hit from this contract.

I believe the contract is available here. (Scroll down to Lewis & Wilkins). I was unable to view the PDF document, but that could very well be a problem with my software and not the document itself.

The Indy Star has an editorial entitled: Memo to FSSA: Let them speak The editorial board is critical, and rightly so, of the Family and Social Services Administration rule prohibiting employees from speaking with state lawmakers, their staffs, lobbyists and the media before checking with supervisors. According to the FSSA, “The purpose of this rule is simply to ensure that FSSA speaks with a consistent voice on legislative and policy matters.”

Frankly, if my experience as a staff member of the Legislative Services Agency assisting a legislative Autism study committee was any indication, getting information out of FSSA before this kind of rule was already hard enough. Because of that experience, I was very disappointed with Joe Kernan’s choice of Kathy Davis as a Lt. Gov. candidate. Anyway, back in the day, the Autism Committee asked me to get Davis who was director of the FSSA to testify. No contact with Davis directly, no return telephone calls, no response to my letters. Nothing. Now, if I can’t get a response from FSSA while dropping words like attorney, LSA, Legislature, Senator, Study Committee, testify, etc. what chance does someone have who actually needs FSSA’s services and is likely poor, powerless, and uneducated?

So, if the FSSA culture hasn’t changed in the last 6 years, then this new policy adds insult to injury. One of my hopes is that the new Daniels administration can make positive changes to FSSA. This memo indicates changes, but in the wrong direction.

The Muncie Star Press has an Editorial entitled Editorial: GOP should avoid two contentious bills. In it, the paper says:

Although House Democrats were guilty as charged – in their detestable strategy of hijacking the process – Republicans and Gov. Mitch Daniels, if they wish, can emerge as the real peacemakers if they use common sense in reviving legislation.

The yardstick to use is simple: By concentrating on substantive issues instead of overly partisan reforms possibly designed to benefit themselves, Republicans can encourage Democrats to rejoin them in working together for the ultimate benefit of all Hoosiers.

As they select topics to revive, Republicans should avoid a couple of losers that caused Democrats to see red and lose temporary control of their parliamentary sanity. Namely, GOP House leaders should drop plans to codify a state inspector general and require a photo ID for voters.

The inspector general measure would give Daniels’ self-created officer the power to prosecute alleged state government crimes as well as improprieties in Indiana counties, if local prosecutors failed to do so within a time limit.

The idea is particularly shaky in light of a constitutional separation of powers question, and because it would expose local prosecutors to political witch-hunts (if they happen not to belong to the state party in power).

The House Republicans ignored this sort of advice right away by stuffing the Inspector General bill into SB 18 Apparently they didn’t care much about the Muncie Star Press’s advice on how to keep the moral high ground. Maybe the House Democrats could do a logrolling deal whereby they vote Representative Bauer out as minority leader and the House Republicans agree to ditch the Inspector General.

The House Committee on Government and Regulatory Reform amended the Inspector General bill into Senate Bill 0018 which had to do with the removal of elected officials from office under certain circumstances. Once again, a plain English explanation of the Inspector General Bill. The Committee voted 7 to 5 along party lines to roll the old Inspector General bill into SB 18. Then, the House, in an unusual (but not all that unusual, this session) move, took a roll call vote on whether to approve the Committee report. The Committee report was adopted along party lines 46 to 44. Looks like the Democrats are really going to the wall on this separation of powers issue. Apparently they don’t think giving prosecutorial powers to a person who is unelected and serves entirely at the pleasure of the Governor is that great for a government that relies on checks and balances.

The Howey Report…The Indiana Senate, and the Animal House Great piece by Brian Howey. Good catch by The Indiana Law Blog. I think Howey is dead-on in his analysis. He gives kudos to Senator Garton as the most distinguished Hoosier lawmaker. In addition, I’d add Senators Long, Kenley, Bray, and Simpson as some of my favorites. (More, probably, from past experience than anything in particular I’ve noticed this session — except I like Senator Long’s broadband bill. (A bit of analysis here.)

Howey goes on to characterize the House of Reps as the Animal House. Bauer is apparently cast in Belushi’s role. So, I suppose that makes Bosma Greg Marmalard and Daniels would then be Dean Vernon Wormer. Howey expects this kind of stunt out of Bauer, apparently, but expects better out of solid citizens like Dave Crooks and Peggy Welch (Pinto and Flounder?). Then the Governor is doing fine until he goes all “Car-Bomb” Daniels on them. Presumably the House Democrats are now on double-secret probation.

Now, I haven’t seen that Rep. Bauer has done the Democrats any favors with his leadership, but he would have gained my respect if, rather than hiding out in his office for two days, he had done some variation of the following on the floor of the House:

Ladies and gentlemen, I’ll be brief. The issue here is not whether we broke a few rules, or took a few liberties with our lobbyists — we did. [winks at Speaker Bosma] But you can’t hold a whole Party responsible for the behavior of a few, sick twisted individuals. For if you do, then shouldn’t we blame the whole Party system? And if the whole Party system is guilty, then isn’t this an indictment of our political institutions in general? I put it to you, Brian — isn’t this an indictment of our entire American society? Well, you can do whatever you want to us, but we’re not going to sit here and listen to you badmouth the United States of America. Gentlemen!
[Leads the Democrats off the floor, all humming the Star-Spangled Banner.]

Somehow I see former Speaker John Gregg as more likely to pull something like that off.

In a Muncie Star Press article entitled Local House Democrats defend walkout, return to floor, “Rep. Tiny Adams defended the walkout on the principal of separation of powers. Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels is pushing for creation of an inspector general with prosecutorial powers to investigate waste and fraud in state government. That would give the executive branch unprecedented prosecutorial power.”

Perhaps the Governor could alter the Inspector General post to where it was not a position beholden to the Governor himself? The main problem, I presume, is that the Governor fears that the people he thinks should get prosecuted won’t get prosecuted. The more I think about it, the more I don’t like the idea of the Governor, any Governor, having prosecutorial powers. I like the idea of making prosecutors local and directly accountable to their communities. Give an Investigator General subpoena powers and let the IG make public reports on his or her findings. But leave decisions on prosecutions to the prosecutor in the locality where the crime was committed. Let the Attorney General file civil suits against appropriate parties. And let the people of Indiana vote them out if they don’t do their job, based on the information the IG makes public.

See my previous post for specifics on how the most recent Inspector General bill was structured.

The Indy Star has an article entitled Same-sex marriage ban ignites rival rallies

Eric Miller, the former gubernatorial candidate whose Advance America organization sponsored the rally, welcomed the crowd and said “You are in the right place at the right time and for the right reason — to support marriage between one man and one woman.”

Now I’m glad that public servants such as Mr. Miller are looking out for us. Because, I love my wife. And, as I understand it, if the Constitutional Amendment does not pass, the Indiana Courts are sure to issue mandates requiring that I leave my wife and marry a man. If I do not choose a man voluntarily, one will be assigned to me. Damned activist judges.