Dorothy Schneider has an article in the Journal & Courier with an overview of state government following Republican pick ups in the most recent election. What has changed most is that the Republicans went from a minority in the House to a solid majority. That might make Gov. Daniels last two years more active than they otherwise would have been.
As noted in the article, voters think Indiana has had a balanced budget without raising taxes in the past. This, among other things, ignores the 17% sales tax increase and the gobs of money Indiana is borrowing because of its insolvent unemployment insurance fund. In any event, if Daniels has future ambitions to run for President or some such, he’ll have to do what he can to burnish his reputation, in the face of some inconvenient reality, as a non-tax raising budget balancer.
Going forward, he and the Republicans in the General Assembly will have to address the unemployment insurance problem. They had a deal in 2009, managed to get the deal suspended in 2010, and will likely renege on it and restructure things in 2011 to balance the shortfall with a heavier burden on workers than on employers. They will also get to replace the current election map with a new one based on the 2010 census. Gov. Daniels promises a “fair” map, but with one party in control, that seems unlikely. Not that I’d expect a fair map even if the Democrats controlled one chamber – just a more elaborate gerrymandering. Redistricting is always going to be political, so I wouldn’t lose a lot of sleep over it.
Expect a lot of “education reform” efforts. With this crowd, education reform usually begins and ends with busting the teacher’s union. In the middle, you might get a bit of “follow the student” funding which favors those areas with lower fixed costs and easier to educate children.
Government consolidation will probably get another run, but it’s tough telling whether that passes. Township government is probably the lowest hanging fruit in terms of potential consolidation or elimination; but that’s not necessarily a partisan issue. Whatever the parties’ respective philosophy on government is, as a practical matter, they all potentially rely on the support of their counterparts at lower levels of government.
Given the solid control, I’d be surprised if Gov. Daniels could (or would be inclined to) resist the temptation to create opportunities for well-connected friends and well-wishers to cash in; particularly if that good will might come back to him in the form of campaign contributions. So, look at some “privatization” efforts that feature long contract terms, little in the way of competitive bidding, and less in the way of transparency and oversight.
And don’t take my bellyaching here as an endorsement of a Bauer-led Democratic House. He was useful as a brake to Daniels’ throttle, and I do favor Bauer to Bosma. (The House could really stand some fresh blood generally, Bauer v. Bosma has jumped the shark.) Given the composition of the upcoming government, I anticipate that Sen. Long’s Senate is going to be (relatively) the most responsible chamber in the legislative process.
Interesting prognostication.
I hope that you keep bringing this post back from the archives every so often so we can watch the “progress” that’s now going to overtake Indiana. You may be a short-term futurist who will at least give some of us the opportunity to say “we told you so”.
Next year will be interesting, considering Indiana will somehow, some way have to come-up with $80-$100 million to help pay the federal government for bailing Indiana out with its unemployment trust fund deficit. Every Indiana employer will also have to pay an extra $21 per employee starting next year, as Indiana was only the second state in the country to have its fund go bankrupt. According to the US Department of Labor, Indiana overpaid claimants more than every state but California and Illinois the last four years, and only Indiana’s (and thus, Mitch Daniels’) Department of Workforce Development has overpaid claimants more than any other state in the union ($859 MILLION). Considering Indiana owes the federal government over $1.864 BILLION right now, that figure, over half of what we owe, is significant.
It will be fascinating to see how the Governor continues to spin his fiscally-sound stewardship when he is not as fiscally-sound as he and his propaganda machine say he is, and it will be interesting to see how he spins the unemployment tax increases on businesses that start next year when his own unemployment agency has let hundreds of millions of dollars leak-out. How would the governor explain why his allowing incompetence in one of his executive agencies (and he is aware, too) has led to tax increases on businesses who supposedly adore him for making Indiana an “island of prosperity”?
Obvious :) – wash, rinse, repeat.
The noneffective, lazy state workers that he so kindly has tied the hands of and that he will try again to ditch. Hope that the US DOL stands up again and says, “yeah, we don’t think so”.
Here’s the thing about the “fair” map: it favors Republicans. REALLY favors Republicans.
Just in Lake County, following Rokita’s maps, we get at least 3 more Republican Reps and one Senator. And we could possibly get one or two more in a good year.
I suspect the same would be true in Marion County, and perhaps some of the other urban areas. Isolate the hard core Democrats in their own districts, and suddenly a lot of other areas become competitive.
Regarding Congressional Districts, Rokita’s plan makes CD1 slightly more Democrat, and CD2 slightly less so. Since Jackie only lost by 2000 votes, it totally puts CD2 in play (and CD1 is a basket case, never gonna go Republican).
As insane as it may seem, Indiana is a lot redder than you might think. A redistricted House along the Rokita plan’s lines may make the House as Republican as the Senate is now, and the Senate might get a little moreso. And it would give the Republicans one more Congressional seat. And that’s BEFORE everything is adjusted for the Census, which I believe will show massive population loss in the blue portions of the state (Gary and the rest of North Lake County especially), and massive populations gains in the red areas (parts of South Lake County are the fastest growing in the state).