A Citizen's Guide to Indiana

House Bill 1113 – Another court fee. Raises the small claims filing fee another $5 and, charges $10 for each additional defendant added to the case. Can’t say I like that. I file between 600-800 small claims cases per year. Keeping track of the fees will be burdensome for me. I’m guessing many of the courts will have a bit of trouble as well. The bill appears to be silent on the question of whether I can collect all of the costs from one defendant if that’s the poor schlub I find with a bank account or a job. My guess is that I can. Anyway, the bill passed the House 67-27.

Just noting a few Indy Star articles:

Same-sex marriage ban progresses “An Indiana Senate committee voted on party-lines today to support a constitutional amendment that bans same-sex marriage.” One gem is where a supporter of the ban describes homosexuality as “human learned perversion.”

Meth bill expected to draw support – discusses various bills designed to address the problem of meth production and distribution, mainly through control of access to cold medicines. I don’t know if that is the right approach, but I certainly agree that meth is a huge problem, apparently different in scope than problems presented by other controlled substances.

Mitch Daniels not living in Governor’s Mansion – basically, Daniels doesn’t like the Governor’s mansions, and says it needs repairs — though the former chairman of the Governor’s Residence Commission (there’s a commission for that?) says the mansion is livable. He’s currently living in a $800,000 home in Geist and bought a plot of land in a gated community outside of Indianapolis where homes sell for between $1.2 million and $1.8 million. He’s many things, but a man of the people he isn’t.

The Indy Star has an article entitled Plan would let governor pick county’s judges. According to the article, HB 1703 would require Marion county judges to be appointed by the Governor. I’m shocked. More power for the Governor? That’s so unusual for the Daniels administration.

Horrible idea. I think the judges should be elected. But, if you’re going to take the decision out of Marion County’s voters directly, at worst the appointments should be made by the mayor and/or the city-county council. Why should an official elected by state-wide voters be appointing judges for the citizens of Marion County? This bill passed out of the House Judiciary Committee on a party line vote.

The Republicans say they want to “get the politics out of the judiciary.” I sympathize, I think permanent federal judgeships have something to recommend themselves. But limited term judgeships for a county appointed by a state official doesn’t do this. Leave the system alone. But, if they must tinker with judgeships, at least let Marion County officials do the appointing. There is no non-partisan rationale for handing it up to the Governor.

The Lafayette Journal & Courier has 4 articles on Daylight Savings Time:

Time for a Change;

Goodland mired in time uncertainty;

Time uncertainty irks some business owners; and

Debate Springs Forward, Falls Back

I myself have done a fair amount of posting on the subject:

Analysis of HB 1034;

Information on sunrise and sunset on and off DST;

Sen. Bray & Mark Kruzan on why DST will probably fail;

Analysis and citations to current law regarding DST;

More on current law; and

Utter lack of proof that DST would help business;

At the end of the day, I think Indiana is geographically suited to being on Eastern Standard Time year around. We’re further west than is really suitable for Eastern Daylight Time during the middle of the summer, and we’re further east than is really suitable for Central Standard Time during the middle of the winter. As for the difficulty this causes people in other areas of the country trying to keep track of the time, I think it boils down to lack of respect. When they tell us to change, they’re saying that they can’t be bothered to remember the relatively simple fact that Indiana is on Eastern Standard Time all year. One of the J&C articles mentions SIA’s concerns about DST. Somehow I don’t think SIA Indiana is urging Japan to adopt DST. I just don’t think our relationship to corporations in other states should be as important as arranging our time to suit our daily lives.

Government Performance Project 2005/Report card: Indiana –

Just a few years ago, the major criticism of Indiana’s finances was that they were simply too conservative. The state had no long-term investments beyond its pension program and had accumulated a gargantuan $1.6 billion of reserves between its rainy-day fund and year-end general treasury balances. Critics were concerned that the state might be denying its citizens some affordable services or tax cuts because of its insistence on keeping money under the fiscal mattress.

Oh, to have such problems again. Right now, Indiana faces a $600 million deficit and has become heavily reliant on single-shot funding gimmicks to pay its ongoing bills. It has short-changed its Public Deposit Insurance fund to the tune of $30 million, and been forced to withdraw $380 million from the Pension Stabilization fund. Meanwhile, the one major fiscal problem Indiana suffered from a few years ago — a dramatically underfunded Teachers Retirement Plan — is no closer to solution than it ever was.

Indiana got in trouble in much the same way other states did when the recession hit in 2001. As the economy plunged, so did tax revenues, and even the rainy day fund could last only so long. What made Indiana different, however, was a decision to continue spending as though the recession hadn’t happened. When legislators voted on their 2003-04 budget, they knew that there were deep holes that would eventually require as much as a billion dollars to fill. They approved the plan anyway. Even a laudable revision of the state’s tax system, under the late Governor Frank O’Bannon, did not keep pace with escalating costs. So state programs and services have struggled through a 7 percent across-the-board cut, followed by a 5 percent cut. And this has just been playing catch-up.

Some other tidbits:

Population (rank): 6,080,485 (14)

Average per capita income (rank): $28,783 (35)

Total state spending (rank): $22,205,168,000 (18)

Spending per capita (rank): $3,606 (44)

Governor: Mitch Daniels (R)

Senate: 50 members: 17 D, 33 R

House: 100 members: 48 D, 52 R

Ranking for other states available at http://www.governing.com/gpp/2005/intro.htm