The Lafayette Journal & Courier wants the debate over time zones to stop.
Prior to [2005], most of Indiana remained on Eastern Standard Time all year, which meant that from November through March, most of Indiana was on the same time as New York City. From April through October, most Hoosiers’ watches were in sync with Chicago.
Legally, the entire state was on the same time as Chicago for seven months of the year. There were a handful of counties around Louisville and Cincinnati that observed Eastern Daylight Time, but they did so illegally.
The counties in the state chose which time zone — Eastern or Central — to be in.
This is a disingenuous description of how the process worked. First, Gov. Daniels campaigned on the premise that Indiana would be united on Central Daylight Time. Then the issue of time zones was ignored or misrepresented as DST was rammed through the legislature only to pass DST by one vote on the 4th or 5th try with that vote being a betrayal of ex-Representative Troy Woodruff’s promise to his constituents. Then the Governor didn’t submit to the Department of Transportation as required the materials necessary to allow the Department to put Indiana on one time zone. Then, he punted the thing to an ad hoc county-by-county decision making process that stacked the deck by giving counties away from the time line almost no incentive to change because they lacked information on what counties between them and the time line would do.
You can make the case that leaving a flawed system in place is preferable to the costs of changing it around. But, then, you could have made that case before Daniels started monkeying with our clocks. What you can’t do with any credibility is make the case that our current time system, particularly the time zone half of the debate, was the result of a full and fair debate on what ought to be done.
Doug,
With all due respect, don’t you think this issue has been drug into the ground on this forum?? I respect (although I don’t agree) with your opionion on DST, it just seems that every time there is any news on this issue, the same spin is spelled out on why EDT shouldn’t have been put in place in Indiana……….
Just seems to me that the state has far bigger fish to fry than revisiting this issue……
Which was precisely why I voted for Daniels the last time-and will not vote for him this time!
The problem is that I have yet to hear an explanation of why it’s time to leave the issue alone *now* when it wasn’t time to leave it alone for the 30 years prior to the switch; particularly given the procedure by which the switch was accomplished: DST dying 3 times or so before Woodruff cast his fateful vote – the screwy, ad hoc time zone procedure.
It’s time to leave the issue alone now for the same reason the refs eventually let the 1972 Olympic men’s basketball gold medal game end: Because finally, after enough do-overs, the other team scored.
wl3048,
I think I know where you are coming from… regardless of whether or not the horse is dead, we do all know Doug’s opinion on what color it is. If we only have time to read a couple of blogs a day, we are happier if they are covering new material. However, in Doug’s defense:
1) It’s Doug’s blog and he can blog about anything he wants to
2) Doug didn’t just wake up this morning and decide to go off on DST again – it was in response to someone else going off on it
3) It’s Doug’s blog
4) It actually is (forgive me) timely to rehash this as Mr. “I will put the entire state on Central Time” Daniels is running for re-election.
5) It’s Doug’s blog
…and Doug flogs this horse frequently!
[as an ultra-Hoosier, I just wish politicians would leave our time alone. It takes us time to get adjusted to anything new so that constantly revising time just makes us cranky!]
I had only 2 serious policy disputes with my dear friend Julia Carson:
1. Her ill-considered vote on fast-track trade with Chine.
2. Her support of Eastern Daylight Time.
I have to wonder out loud what kind of rates is Daniels getting on his non-stop commercial and infomercial blitz that I beleve most people are getting quite sick of. I believe the Indiana Broadcast Association was one of the biggest proponents of Eastern time.
I truly believe there is a money trail here. But I don’t know where to find the documents to prove it ie campaign contributions or even outright bribes.