A Citizen's Guide to Indiana

With the introduction of SB 73, Sen. Leising keeps up her fight to mandate cursive for elementary schools. Generally, I think educators and not the Indiana General Assembly should tend to the details of required school curriculum. On a personal level, as I’ve noted before, I’m very open to the idea that — given that instructional time is not infinite — schools might prioritize subjects other than cursive. Cursive writing is an anachronism. I have seen people arguing the mental benefits of writing over keyboarding, but I don’t think I’ve seen much in the way of advocacy separating out benefits from cursive that one does not also get from printing.

Mainly — I’ll confess — my bad attitude comes from the fact that I always hated writing in cursive, do not believe it has improved my life in any substantial way, and I stopped doing it as soon as I was permitted.

My entry from last year:

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.

If teachers and schools decide to spend limited class time on this mode of manufacturing letters, it’s not the end of the world, but making it mandatory is not a useful or necessary use of the General Assembly’s power.

On the subject of cursive versus printing and the lack of data concerning benefits from cursive that aren’t present with printing — and Sen. Leising’s statements on the matter — I’d recommend this comment to my previous blog entry by Kate Gladstone.

IC 35-47-2 regulates the carrying of handguns and provides a procedure for obtaining a license to carry a handgun. Part of the procedure is that the Superintendent of the Indiana State Police Department makes a determination that the applicant is a “proper person” within the meaning of IC 35-47-1-7. There are a number of criteria for being a “proper person” — mostly referencing the nature of one’s prior criminal history and mental stability. One of the criteria under the current law is that the applicant must not have a record of being an “alcohol abuser” which is defined under IC 35-47-1-2 as “an individual who has had two (2) or more alcohol related offenses, any one (1) of which resulted in conviction by a court or treatment in an alcohol abuse facility within
three (3) years prior to the date of the application.”

SB 36, introduced by Sen. Tomes, would make alcohol abusers eligible as “proper persons” to obtain a handgun license. (Drug abusers would still be ineligible.) Additionally, the licensing process includes a review of the application by the law enforcement officer receiving the application. Sen. Tomes’ bill would forbid the application itself or a subsequent interview by the investigator from questioning the applicant about “any criminal convictions the applicant may have for operating a vehicle under the influence of alcohol in violation of the law concerning operating a vehicle while intoxicated.”

Nothing mixes quite like handguns and alcohol.

Sen. Breaux introduced SB 86 which would require a person who applies for a license to carry a handgun to complete an eight hour handgun safety and training program. It creates an exemption for current or retired law enforcement officers and active or honorably discharged members of the armed forces. The training program and instructor must be certified by the NRA.

Five of the hours must include training in:

(A) The safe storage, use, and handling of a handgun, including safe storage, use, and handling to protect child safety.
(B) Knowledge of ammunition.
(C) Handgun firing positions.
(D) Firearms and the law, including civil liability issues and the use of deadly force. The instruction in the subject described in this clause must be provided by an attorney or a person trained in the use of deadly force.
(E) Avoiding a criminal attack and controlling a violent confrontation.
(F) All laws that apply to carrying a concealed handgun in Indiana

There must also be three hours of range training including the firing of at least 45 rounds.

Frankly, all of this training sounds useful whether you have a handgun license or not.

Sen. Randolph introduced SB 122 which would mandate certain minimum standards for a patrol car camera policy that a law enforcement agency would be required to adopt if it chooses to install video cameras in its patrol cars. The policy must “(1) require all traffic stops to be recorded; (2) establish a procedure to follow if the recording system malfunctions; and (3) require a law enforcement officer to document the reason why a traffic stop was not recorded or was not recorded in its entirety.”

At least for our local agencies, I think cameras would help police officers more than they hurt them. I’ve come across a number of accusations of wrongful acts by police officers, and very often those accusations are a function of someone who is unhappy that they were caught committing a crime. However, the fact that the state is leaving the cameras optional but then imposing a level of bureaucracy if the local agencies purchase the cameras creates a disincentive for their use. In my mind, if the State is going to dictate how the cameras must be used, then the State should pay for them.

A narrower concern I have is that the statute should define “traffic stop.” It defines “law enforcement agency” and “recording system” but not “traffic stop.” If the officer gets out of his car to help a motorist already stopped by the side of the road, is it a traffic stop? If the officer chases a bank robber who abandons his getaway car and the officer gets out of his car to pursue the robber, is it a traffic stop? If the officer stops a pedestrian walking alongside the road, is it a traffic stop?

The smallest room seems poised to be the biggest issue for the Indiana General Assembly this year. I already posted about Sen. Mrvan’s bill seeking to make certain private bathrooms in retail establishments available to people who suffer from Crohn’s Disease and the like.

Sen. Holdman’s SB 100 concerning sexual orientation, gender identity and religious freedom (see my write up here) contains provisions which I described as:

7. The chapter permits separate restrooms, shower facilities, dressing facilities based on sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity. The attorney general will defend charter schools, public schools, local governments (and the State) against lawsuits based on allegations that their policies with respect to restrooms, shower facilities, and dressing facilities are discriminatory.

And, now, I see Sen. Tomes has introduced SB 35 entitled “single sex facilities” which seems primarily targeted at transgender people. But, in practice, its larger impact may be to turn women at college bars into criminals when they use the men’s bathroom because of the shorter line. The bill has two main provisions – one for schools, and another for public facilities.

In schools, Sen. Tomes’ bill requires that any “student facility” (being a locker room, restroom, or shower room designed for use by multiple students at the same time) be designated as either male or female and requires that a student facility for females be used by only students of “female biological gender” and one for males be used by only students of “male biological gender.” Non-student visitors get to use an outhouse in the back, perhaps?

As I understand it, the use of “biological gender” may be a bit of a problem. The bill defines the term as referring to the person’s chromosomes and physical characteristics. I’m no expert in the field, but I think the biology relates to sex and gender relates to more to a person’s social role or personal identification. “Biological sex” might be the better terminology. (See Wikipedia entry).

Outside of school, Sen. Tomes’ bill creates a crime called “single sex public facility trespass.” It applies to public accommodations with locker rooms, restrooms, and shower rooms in places of public accommodation accessible by multiple people at the same time and designated for use by only males or females. It then defines females as someone “who was born female at birth” or someone having “at least one x chromosome and no y chromosomes.” (So, for the first option, he makes the drafting mistake of defining a thing by referencing the thing itself — a “female” means someone who was born “female” — a defined term.) A male is someone who was born male at birth or who has at least one x chromosome and at least one y chromosome. So, for all that verbiage, it appears that if you have a Y chromosome, you go to the men’s room and if you don’t have a Y chromosome, you go to the ladies’ room. It’s a Class A misdemeanor if a female knowingly or intentionally enters a men’s room (or vice versa.) However, she is permitted to clean the toilets in there — exceptions are made for maintenance, for assisting in a medical emergency, and for accompanying a child less than 8 years of age. (The chapter also doesn’t apply to children under 18.)

The main problem is that sex and gender just aren’t as simple as Sen. Tomes’ wishes they were. And this, frankly, underlies a lot of what seems to come out of social conservatism. Gender occupies a spectrum and isn’t binary. There are challenges to accommodating that spectrum if we’re going to keep our bathrooms binary. Making matters worse, most of us get more wound up about nakedness and excretory functions than is probably necessary. The added emotional charge just makes dealing with the issues even more challenging. You have a person who feels like a man but looks like a woman who, like everyone else, needs to go to the bathroom from time to time. You have these binary bathrooms and people in them who are uncomfortable with the presence of someone who, outwardly anyway, looks like a person of the opposite gender. And, you have pooping and peeing and visible genitals. These are not the ingredients for a logical conversation about sound policy.

Dominic Holden, writing for Buzzfeed, has a column entitled “Why America’s Top LGBT Group Is Losing An Argument Over Bathrooms” where he observes that, despite the recent political successes for advocates of LGBT rights, they have been losing ground when bathrooms get involved. Describing the reason for the failure of an equal rights ordinance in Houston, he writes:

Their defeat can be attributed primarily to one ubiquitous, bumper-sticker-ready slogan: “No men in women’s bathrooms.” Anti-LGBT activists ran that message with visceral TV and radio commercials that claimed Houston’s nondiscrimination law would lead to men sexually assaulting young girls in public restrooms. This attack has been raised by conservative opponents virtually everywhere laws like this have been debated in recent years.

The argument is based on an underlying premise that transgender women are actually dangerous men — a claim that has no factual foothold. It’s never been an issue in the 200 cities and 17 states with laws like these on the books. But it’s kryptonite to LGBT nondiscrimination laws.

Based on that insight, I think we can expect to hear a lot more about bathrooms this session.

Sen. Boots has introduced SB 19 which would apparently distinguish between “veterinary dentistry” and “equine dentistry.” The former could be performed only by a vet, but equine dentistry would not be so limited.

“Equine dentistry” is not comprehensively defined, but it includes the “diagnosis, treatment, correction, or prevention of any dental disease, defect, injury, deformity, pain, or condition of a horse.” (Also of note – under existing law, “equine massage therapy” is a thing and it can be performed by non-veterinarians.)

These things don’t tend to come from nowhere. Presumably there is someone working on horse’s teeth without a veterinarian’s license and has persuaded Sen. Boots that horses are somehow different than other domestic animals (because under current law, “veterinary dentistry” is specifically mentioned as requiring a vet’s license.)

Sen. Miller has introduced SB 30 which contains a proposal recommended by the interim study committee on public health, behavioral health, and human services.

It would require the Dept. of Insurance to post on the department’s website information concerning internal and external grievances for accident and sickness insurance policies and HMO contracts. The Insurers and HMOs would have to provide information about the DOI website and the policy grievance procedures to their insureds when the policy is issued or renewed and also along with each notice of denial.

Insurers and HMOS would also be required to file quarterly reports with the Commissioner of Insurance on the number of denied claims during the quarter. The quarterly reports are required to contain information about how many claims were denied because they were experimental, investigational, and/or not medically necessary.

Seems like a good idea to me. Part of the insurance game seems to involve discouraging claims with bureaucracy. My personal experience involved denial of a claim following a medically necessary C-Section for one of my kids. Because I’m a lawyer and one of my best friends is a doctor, I was able to read the policy, determine what types of C-sections were covered and what types were not, and articulate why our case was best regarded as being in the former category. Even though, economically, I was in a better position than a lot of the people receiving medical services, it was still a pretty scary situation for us. I can only imagine what it must be like for people with fewer resources, both in terms of navigating the bureaucracy, and paying for the amounts that eventually come due.

Hopefully this bill would be helpful in discouraging arbitrary denials by insurers.