A Citizen's Guide to Indiana

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Interim Study Committee Can’t Agree on Needle Exchange Program

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The AP has an article reporting on the progress of the Public Health Policy Committee’s studies during the legislative interim says that the committee could not come to an agreement on needle exchange policy. In the wake of an HIV outbreak in southern Indiana, the General Assembly gave the Indiana State Department of Health authority to approve local needle exchange programs. Such approval has been given to Scott, Fayette, and Madison Counties.

Rep. Charlie Brown, a Gary Democrat who’s a committee member, said he plans to sponsor legislation that would allow any Indiana community to start a needle-exchange program without the state health commissioner’s approval.

My questions on this — and maybe the committee addressed these issues — are:

1) What is the downside to allowing the local health officer to authorize a needle exchange program where needed? In other words, what does the public lose if clean needles are more readily available under circumstances that the state health commissioner wouldn’t have approved?

2) Is the state health department being unnecessarily restrictive? Is there evidence that there are counties in Indiana where this would help but the State won’t allow it?

At the end of the day, we shouldn’t let absolutist moral gestures stand in the way of practical solutions where the cost/benefit of such gestures doesn’t make sense. I think the history of these needle exchanges is that there is a fear that approving them is condoning the illegal and/or immoral behavior associated with needle use. You see echoes of that kind of fear in the resistance to getting HPV vaccinations for fear that it will lead to more girls having sex. But, even if you don’t approve of sex and drugs, it’s disproportionate to allow those activities to be a death sentence where there are fairly simple steps that can be taken to mitigate the adverse consequences.

Sneak Attack!

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Niki Kelly, writing for the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, has a political notebook piece about Eric Miller’s “Sneak Attack” Youtube video. According to the breathless narration, shadowy forces will push through unspecified legislation having to do with sex and kids. From the Advance America blog:

A sneak attack could take place on Tuesday, November 17th at the State House to pass a bill that will harm the families and children of Indiana – your children and grandchildren!

This sneak attack is being orchestrated by the political establishment at the State House and powerful special interest groups and corporations that have millions of dollars to spend to control the legislative process! This sneak attack must be stopped!

(There is more information about the sneak attack that you need to know)

Be watching for more information in the coming days about this sneak attack and the bill that could be introduced at the State House on Organization Day – November 17th.

Legislative leaders deny that they are up to anything sneaky having to do with sex & kids or otherwise — that this rumor could have been cleared up with a phone call. Just the sort of thing you’d expect them to say if they were organizing a Sneak Attack! ™.

Unrelated: I once read where the grifters of the Nigerian prince genre purposefully made the text of their pitches ridiculous. Sure, most people aren’t going to take such awful writing seriously. But – and here is the key – the people who do respond to the poorly written, unbelievable e-mail are necessarily going to be pre-screened for you as among the most gullible members of the population; much more easily parted from their money.

Sneak Attack!

Columbus Day

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I have been seeing a lot of posts about how Columbus was a horrible person who did terrible things generally and, in particular, that his voyage to the Americas triggered the beginnings of some truly awful times for the indigenous people who were already there. I think some of the vitriol is a little over the top for someone who has been dead for half a millennium. That level of emotional response strongly suggests that a person is using Columbus as a proxy for things they dislike about the present. The time was ripe for some European voyage of exploration to bump into the Americas. So, Columbus or not, I doubt the Americas would have been undiscovered by Europeans for more than another 50 years or so.

The experience of the people indigenous to the Americas wouldn’t have been great no matter who arrived first. Among other things, even with the most egalitarian intentions (which wasn’t going to happen), first contact by anyone from Eurasia or Africa was going to mean the introduction of ravaging diseases. It’s my understanding that the mistreatment by the Spaniards, egregious as it was, paled in significance compared to the deaths caused by disease.

Causing Columbus to carry the baggage for the horrors of European society seems like a heavier load than he deserves. But, even if he was a decent fellow — a claim I don’t make — his feats of exploration don’t seem all that impressive, relative to some others you could point to. My knowledge of exploration is heavily white and European, so I apologize for my lack of familiarity outside of that narrow circle. But, Prince Henry the Navigator had Portuguese exploration accomplishing quite a bit prior to Columbus. Magellan’s voyage sailed around the world (though he did not — Enrique of Malacca may have been the first person to go around the world. Juan Sebastian Elcano should probably be credited with the first circumnavigation.) Sir Francis Drake completed the second circumnavigation and did so while in command the whole time and after capturing a bunch of Spanish gold in the process. (He also came back with over 1/3 of his crew, which wasn’t bad by the standards of the time.) And, if we’re talking about sheer feats of navigation, it’s tough to beat James Cook.

So, I’d happily dump Columbus Day as something we celebrate. But, I doubt it will have a significant impact on the social ills associated with Columbus and continuing observation of the day named for him. On the other hand, it might help a little, and I doubt it would hurt anything.

Modest Proposal: Mandatory Firearm Liability Insurance (Re-Posted and Updated)

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(This is a re-post of an entry I put up in December 2012 on what I’m afraid is an evergreen topic.)

In the wake of these tragic mass murders, firearm advocates, reacting to calls for gun bans, point out that lots of things kill people. Cars, for example, kill lots of people.

We mandate liability insurance for cars. Why not for firearms? Bring market forces to bear on this issue. More firearms make things safer? Insurance rates will go down (if true).

Anyway, what I envision is a requirement that a firearm owner obtain liability insurance that covers injuries caused by that particular firearm. (Runs with the weapon – provides an incentive for people to secure the weapon in a way that ensures, for example, kids don’t have access to the weapon.) I would also envision a policy surcharge used to subsidize coverage for uninsured losses, treatment of mental illness, enforcement of existing regulations, and safety education efforts.

Firearm advocates promote guns as critical for liberty and personal safety. Seems like the price of an insurance policy is a small price to pay for life and liberty. If, on the other hand, your attachment to your guns is more of a cultural affectation, the cost may make you re-evaluate your priorities.

It won’t happen, but it struck me as a compromise position that avoids confiscating weapons on the one hand or continuing, on the other hand, to sit on our hands while mass murderers with firearms gun down the innocent as we idly wonder why this keeps happening to us.

(An additional idea, not in the 2012 entry, is some kind of dealer’s experience account where the dealer has to pay in a certain percentage of the sale. The percentage goes into a firearm victim compensation fund which would pay out some capped amount for individuals injured by firearms. The amount of the percentage for any particular dealer would go up when the dealer’s firearm is found to have injured someone and go down when they have a below average incident-to-transaction ratio. The idea being to create a market incentive for dealers to sell responsibly and penalize those dealers whose transactions are most likely to lead to firearm injuries.)

Rep. McMillin Abruptly Resigns

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The big news for the Indiana General Assembly yesterday was majority floor leader, Rep. Jud McMillin’s abrupt resignation. I have not been as careful a watcher of the legislature lately as I have been in years past, but a quick search of my blog shows a few hits for Rep. McMillin, probably most notorious of which was one of those proposals to require poor people to get drug tests before being eligible for welfare benefits and restricts the types of foods available through food stamps. On that, I posted at the time:

Other states have tried the drug testing for welfare recipients and have found it to be a waste of taxpayer money. The idea is, I suppose, that their poverty is the result of their poor moral choices, e.g., doing drugs. If they weren’t so drug addled, obviously they would be productive citizens. But, it turns out, not so much. The welfare population doesn’t seem to do illegal drugs at a higher rate than the population at large. The experience of other states is that it costs as much or more to test people than it saves by denying benefits to those few who test positive.

Speaking of poor moral choices, Rep. McMillin’s resignation does not appear to be due to, as the original press release indicated, his ardent desire to spend more time with his family. Rather, as Lesley Weidenbener reported for the IBJ, and Tony Cook and Chelsea Schneider reported for the Indy Star, there is something to do with sex and a phone. And Canada. From the Weidenbener article:

Sources close to the Republican caucus said someone obtained McMillin’s phone and discovered at least one video that showed the lawmaker involved in sexual contact. The sources did not detail who else was involved.

But before his resignation, McMillin sent a message alerting contacts that his phone had been stolen and to disregard any messages they had recently received from him. “I am truly sorry for anything offensive you may have received,” the text said.

From the Cook/Schneider article:

McMillin said in a text message last week, “My phone was stolen in Canada and out of my control for about 24 hours. I have just been able to reactivate it under my control. Please disregard any messages you received recently. I am truly sorry for anything offensive you may have received.”

The inference has to be that there is something about the sex video that goes beyond just sex that happened to be recorded. It’s not for everybody, but there is nothing particularly scandalous about couples choosing to record themselves. If McMillin and his wife had a video distributed without their consent, then they’d very much be the victims and there would be no reason for him to resign. So, I assume an extra detail or two will be forthcoming before too long.

Vote Fraud Charges in Sullivan County

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Lisa Trigg, writing for the Trib Star, reports that federal charges have been filed against Max Judson, a 70 year old member of the Sullivan County Council.

The complaint states that between March 22, 2014, and May 6, 2014, investigators believe that Judson solicited a voter to complete an absentee ballot application, knowing that the voter was ineligible to register to vote. The second count alleges that between March 22 and July 8, Judson hindered, delayed or prevented communication by the voter to a law enforcement officer with information relating to the possible commission of a federal offense.
. . .
According to the affidavit, one voter resided in Greene County but Judson allegedly gave that voter a ballot with another person’s address on it and directed the person how to vote. Some of the voters told the FBI that they were disabled while others said they were not disabled, yet Judson assisted in filling out their absentee ballot application and ballot. The investigation also determined that Judson was not eligible to assist absentee voters or possess absentee ballots.

One voter interviewed, according to the affidavit, told the FBI that the voter wanted to receive a Republican primary absentee ballot but was given a Democratic ballot by Judson and was directed to vote for Democratic candidates.
. . .
FBI agents also report in the affidavit that some of the voters interviewed were allegedly told by Judson that they would “go to jail” if they told the police about Judson assisting them with their absentee ballots.

Apparently there were some close races in that primary. Judson beat his primary opponent by 18 votes and the Sheriff and a judge’s race were decided by less than 30 votes.

INDOT Casts First Stone in Crumbling Asphalt Matter

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The Associated Press is reporting that INDOT is making demands on Fort Wayne based Brooks Construction with respect to problems in the recent highway projects having to do with prematurely crumbling asphalt.

In a letter sent Friday, INDOT gave Brooks Construction one week to commit to returning the money or replacing three miles of the Hoosier Heartland Highway near Logansport that was completed in 2012, the Indianapolis Star reported.

The letter represents INDOT’s first action against a contractor since acknowledging last week that it suspects as much as $71 million in faulty asphalt was used in 188 projects across the state.

For its part, Brooks said they followed the state’s specifications and that the asphalt repeatedly passed state testing. INDOT says the asphalt Brooks used on the Hoosier Heartland was not the same as asphalt it submitted for testing.

This is one of apparently 188 projects INDOT currently suspects of having asphalt problems. So, there is likely more of this to come.

Repealing “Rat Day”: The Quest for Obsolete Statutes

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The Interim Committee on Local Government has been charged with seeking out and destroying obsolete statutes. In that capacity, John Stieff, director of the Legislative Service’s Agency’s Office of Code Revision (and officiant at my wedding), wrote a memorandum to the Committee (which mentioned nothing about my wedding).

It’s not uncommon to hear people complain that we have too many laws. You look at the Indiana Code and see 36 titles (really 33 – Titles 17, 18, and 19, have been repealed). It seems like too many. Really, we should get by with less is the sense. And, there is some cruft. We’ve been a state for just shy of 200 years. Some residue builds up over the years. So, you get charges like this one to identify statutes that are obsolete, superseded, or no longer apply (“obsolete” statutes).

The memorandum described a prior approach to seeking out “obsolete” statutes when John and deputy director, Craig Mortell, undertook a similar effort in 1988:

The standard we applied in determining whether a particular statute was appropriate for inclusion in the obsolete statutes bill was that we had to be convinced that the statute had no further viability. Since we were faced with the impossibility of proving the negative that a statute could never be applied in the future, we took the stand that a statute would be removed from the bill if anyone disagreed with our conclusion that the statute was obsolete. If a court case declared a statute unconstitutional or a federal law pre-empted a statute, that fact alone did not require the statute’s inclusion in the obsolete statutes bill. The thought was that the court or the Congress could change its mind at any time, thus making the statute viable.

Of necessity, this is a very conservative standard. When labeling legislation “technical” in nature, the Legislative Services Agency tries very hard to avoid including anything with a policy impact. Policy decisions are up to legislators. The example John gives, and I can just imagine how much fun he was having when he wrote this, is the curious case of “Rat Day.”

[I]n 1949, the General Assembly enacted a statute that was recodified at IC 16-41-34-1. The statute authorized the Governor to designate by proclamation a day in the spring as “Rat Day”, a day to be observed throughout Indiana as a day for destroying rats in homes, public buildings, and other places. It is not clear that any Governor ever officially proclaimed a day as “Rat Day”.When the Code Revision Commission considered the obsolescence of this statute in 1988, the determination was made to leave the statute on the books, since the next Governor might take the opportunity to make such a proclamation.

He goes on to say that a legislator authored P.L. 142-1995 which apparently stripped the Governor of his authority to declare Rat Day. So, no whacking day for Hoosiers. The memorandum goes on to suggest that the committee might want to use a more aggressive approach to identifying obsolete statutes. But, that is going to be a legislative decision, not one that LSA is going to assign to itself.

R.I.P. Rep. Bill Crawford

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Hayleigh Colombo, writing for the Indianapolis Business Journal, has an article reporting on yesterday’s passing of long-time state representative, Bill Crawford. Crawford served in the General Assembly from 1973 to 2012.

Crawford, who was in the crowd gathered at 17th and Broadway Streets on April 4, 1968, when Bobby Kennedy announced King’s death, was inspired then to live a life of community activism. He was later inspired to run for the legislature by former U.S. Rep. Julia Carson.

Among other things, Crawford was chairman of the House Ways & Means committee from, I believe, 2002-2004 and again from 2006-2010. Additionally:

Indiana House Democrats said his legislative accomplishments include funding minority health issues, co-authoring the Second Chance Act that gave people with criminal records a path back into society, changing the makeup of the Indianapolis Public School Board, and creating the Low-Income Housing Trust Fund and the Minority Teacher’s Scholarship Fund.

Looks like a life well-lived which, ultimately, is what we should all strive for.