If a local church in your community were to catch fire, should your local fire department let it burn to the ground? If a local priest, minister or rabbi were being robbed, should the cops just drive by and tell him he’s out of luck? Or should the government make it illegal for you to use your tax refund to donate to a religious organization?

You probably think I am sounding more insane than usual, but trust me, there is a method to my madness.

These questions stem from watching last week’s Indiana Supreme Court hearing on whether school vouchers violate the Indiana Constitution. I am more convinced than ever that vouchers are not only constitutional but that the state should expand its voucher program and make it truly universal.

Once again, a little full disclose before we get started: I do occasionally work with the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice. But I also have been a voucher supporter for a decade or so.

Just a quick recap, last week’s argument centered on Article 1, Section 6 of the Indiana Constitution which says, “No money shall be drawn from the treasury, for the benefit of any religious or theological institution.”

Voucher opponents said the language is clear and no money can be spent which directly benefits any private religious schools. Voucher proponents said the beneficiary is the student and the parents, not the school. And the issue boiled down to how to determine who “benefits” from the vouchers?

I tend to side with the state that the “beneficiaries” of the vouchers are the students, the families and the state as a whole. Any “benefit” to the religious institution is incidental.

This is the equivalent of a city plowing the streets, and there just happens to be a church on the same block as my house. Should the city not plow my street because the church would get the “benefit” of a road that was cleared with tax dollars? Of course not.

The benefits to private religious schools under the voucher system are incidental at best. It would be one thing if these schools were making a profit under the voucher system, but I have yet to meet one private school administrator who was using money from vouchers to plan his or her next staff trip to the Cayman Islands.

Parents are choosing vouchers – in record numbers by the way – because they believe the traditional public schools in their communities are not doing the job. And instead of public schools continuing their perpetual whining about private and charter schools for that matter, they should do some serious self-examination.

I would argue that they should embrace vouchers and then work to improve their schools so parents are leaving the private and charter schools and coming back to them.

Stifling competition and engaging in protectionism is no way to educate children. It is a way to keep failing schools operating and lazy teachers and uninspiring bureaucrats employed at taxpayers’ expense.

Maybe there should be a constitutional amendment banning that.

Indianapolis City-County Council Democrats Monday night unveiled their version of new district maps, despite the promise of a veto by Mayor Greg Ballard.

Although Republicans drew maps in 2011 and Ballard signed them in 2012, Democrats say the law required the maps to be drawn this year.  Ballard had previously vetoed Democrats’ requests for appropriations for the new maps.

Attorney Bill Groth, who drew the maps, say these maps are closer to the ones drawn by the Indiana Supreme Court back in the early 2000s when then Mayor Bart Peterson and the Republican-controlled Council could not agree on District maps.

Groth says the big difference between this map and the one drawn by Republican attorney David Brooks is that these maps protect incumbents whereas Brooks’ maps had incumbents running against each other in a couple districts.

Groth spoke with Indy Politics and you can hear his comments below.  They run about four minutes total.

Leon-Tailored Audio: Attorney Bill Groth on Proposed Council Maps.

A committee vote is scheduled for the maps Tuesday and another public hearing is set for Wednesday of this week.

In the spirit of the Holiday Season, I’m putting out a complimentary “Cheat Sheet.”   It’s my political gossip column I publish over at Indy Politics.    It’s from last week, but don’t worry our gossip is still way ahead of most people’s news.  If you like it, subscribe today!   It’s saved using  Slideshare which may be incompatible with some Apple devices, but when you subscribe, the PDF file goes right to your e-mail.  Happy Reading!

Happy Thanksgiving!  Enjoy your turkey day!

The Indiana Supreme Court is hearing arguments this morning regarding the constitutionality of the state voucher program.  In that spirit, I decided to re-post a column I wrote back in April for the StatehouseFile.Com.  Happy Reading!

Full disclosure: In one of my many capacities I work with the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice doing some consultant work. However, I have been a proponent of school choice and vouchers for years.

This may shock both friend and foe alike, but I used to oppose vouchers for private schools.

I was never crazy about public money going to private schools, whether religious or non-sectarian. However, a few years back my positioned changed.

The big thing that did it was that I got tired of public schools whining about how they always needed more money when they were already getting more money per student than their private school counterparts. Secondly, one day I realized that public money was already going to private schools at the college level in the form of student financial aid.

I had to ask myself: Does it really make sense to give what is basically a “voucher” at the college level but not do it at the K-12 level, which will determine whether the kid gets into college in the first place?

I bring this up because of the Indiana Supreme Court will soon hear the Indiana State Teacher’s Association-backed lawsuit that argues the state’s voucher law is unconstitutional.

Now I could argue this is just another example of typical teachers unions putting themselves and their jobs before students. I could also argue that if the teachers unions spent as much time trying to improve schools as they did fighting school reform they would be much better off.

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But then again, these are the same people who not only spent $1 million in the last election to end up with a 60-40 Republican-controlled House of Representatives, but when asked why not start up their own charter school and show everyone how real school reform is done they clammed up like Snookie at a spelling bee.

One of the main arguments in the lawsuit is based on Article 1, Section 6 of the Indiana Constitution, which reads as follows…

No money shall be drawn from the treasury, for the benefit of any  religious or theological institution.

Voucher opponents argue that any public money that goes to private, religious institutions is a benefit to the school and therefore violate the Indiana Constitution.

Not so fast.

First of all, the beneficiary of the dollars is not the school; it’s the students and their families. I might be willing to concede the benefit argument if the school was making money on the deal, but it isn’t. You will find that well-run K-12 schools are not-for-profit ventures that break even as opposed to running huge deficits.

But an even broader argument is that if the state school voucher program violates the Indiana Constitution, then so does the Frank O’Bannon scholarship program. That program is designed to help Hoosiers get access to higher education.

Want to know some of the eligible schools on the list? Here are a few…

• Anderson University
• Crossroads Bible College
• Holy Cross College
• Saint Joseph’s College
• Saint Mary’s College
• University of Notre Dame

The last time I checked, these were schools that had a major religious component to them. And if there was a debate as to whether these scholarships violated the Indiana Constitution, it must have been before my time, because I sure don’t recall opponents bringing this up during the last legislative session.

Now some opponents will say that there is a difference between K-12 education and college because college is optional and primary and secondary education are not. I have no idea what that has to do with anything.

I read that as saying that if the education is mandatory, parents should not have a choice, but if the education is optional (and I argue a post-secondary education isn’t in the 21st century) then the choice is OK. What kind of idiotic, backwards thinking is that? Oh yeah, it’s the type of thinking that manifested itself in the form of opposition to meaningful school reform.

And, one last item. I also think it’s funny that as the state is getting ready to potentially take over 18 schools that have been failing for the past five years, opponents of education reform managed to find time to file a lawsuit, but never found time to help gets these schools off academic probation.

Isn’t it ironic that the people who profess to support urban education the most are usually the ones who do the most damage to it.

Be sure to tune to AM 1310,  WTLC on Monday from 1 – 3 p.m.   I’ll be guest hosting the Afternoons with Amos Show.

It will be open phones the whole time, but we will have an excerpt from an interview I did with former head of DCS Judge James Payne.

Hope you’ll tune in.

A close look at election results in the donut counties shows Republican candidate Richard Mourdock grossly underperforming which enabled Democrat Joe Donnelly to become the next U.S. Senator from Indiana.

In the overall election Donnelly beat Mourdock 49.4% to 44.3%.  Libertarian Andy Horning came in at 5.8%.  In Marion County, Donnelly beat Mourdock 64-30.  While Donnelly did not do as well as Evan Bayh in 2004, Mourdock did worse than Marvin Scott in the Circle City, who lost 66-33.

Here is a breakdown by donut county.

• Hamilton County, 54.5/36.1/9.5
• Hendricks County – 54.6/38.7/6.7
• Hancock County – 54.5/36.1/9.5
• Boone County – 54.9/37.5/7.6
• Morgan County – 56.9/35.0/8.1
• Johnson County – 55.2/37.3/7.5
• Shelby County – 51.1/39.7/9.2

Mourdock won every donut county, but he only did slightly better than Scott in 2004, and came nowhere near Dan Coats’ performance in 2010.

There are a number of factors that can be attributed for these results in the donut counties, however a line from Hendricks County GOP Chairman tends to say it best.

In general, this wasn’t the wave election Republicans expected. Looking at local and statewide election results, it’s clear that voters were willing to split ticket or bypass races altogether.  As they do, voters reminded Republicans that we have to earn their votes, not just assume we’ll be the beneficiary of economic angst and opposition to the other party.

On average Mourdock received 54.4 percent of the donut county vote while Dan Coats received 65.5 percent.

It is no big secret that the Indiana State Teachers Association and their members launched a successful social media campaign to defeat Republican Superintendent of Public Instruction Dr. Tony Bennett.  I’ve come across some of their correspondence and decided to reprint one e-mail in particular.   Frankly, I think the Hitler video is a little over the top.

From: J Bagwell <jbagwell@scsd2.k12.in.us>

Date: November 8, 2012 9:26:40 AM EST

To: Everyone SCSD2 <everyonescsd2@scsd2.k12.in.us

Subject: New and Notes…

If there’s one thing we can take away from the 2012 Election in Indiana, is that there are 12 things we can take away from the 2012 Election in Indiana.

1. Primaries and General Elections are two totally different creatures.  Although Richard Mourdock won his primary handily over outgoing Senator Richard Lugar by a 60-40 margin, his campaign never made the transition to appeal to a broader general electorate.  Thus, it was easy for Joe Donnelly to occupy the middle.
2. Make peace with your party.  If you win a primary by a 90-10, 80-20, 70-30 vote you can afford to blow off the people who didn’t vote for you.  Not so much when it’s 60-40.
3. Stay on message.   A lot of credit goes to Governor-elect Mike Pence’s campaign staff for staying on message.  Democrat John Gregg wanted to make it about Pence’s positions on social issues, but Pence stayed on the economy and job creation; which by the way, are social issues.
4. Leave the crazies where you found them.  Although this is another column for another forum, the Tea Party did nothing to help Mourdock but spew hatred and nonsense.
5. Don’t underestimate social media.  When Mourdock made his comments regarding rape, abortion and God, the social media universe exploded.  Tony Bennett, who had a well-funded and well-organized campaign, fell victim to an underground social media campaign by teachers who didn’t like the reforms he was bringing to Indiana education.
6. Get organized and stay organized.  Pence and Joe Donnelly ran well-executed campaigns that stayed on message and even when they were thrown a curve ball or two, managed to stay on message.
7. Never underestimate moderate voters.  As both parties tend to nominate candidate further to the right and left of the general electorate, remember, most Hoosiers while conservative are practical and don’t take too kind to crazy.  And for those of you who don’t like “RINOs” try winning without them.
8. Supermajorities can be dangerous.  It looks like Republicans will supermajorities in both the Indiana House and Senate.  They make a lot of people’s lives miserable and do it without overreaching.  For example passing legislation that prohibits school districts from collecting union dues.  Hint! Hint!
9. The Governor’s Office still matters.  Although Democrats are joyful, and rightly so, of having captured Dick Lugar’s Senate seat, all things being equal, a Governor has a lot more appointments and more control over where a lot of money goes than a U.S. Senator.
10. Margins matter.  If you’re a Republican and running statewide, you need to win the donut counties by about 65-70% to beat the Democratic turnout in Marion and Lake counties.  If you can’t hit that mark, we have a problem.  As we write this Mourdock failed to get more than 60% of the vote in any donut county.
11. Politics is about addition.  America is changing.  It is a lot more black and brown and less white.  And if you don’t get people on the ticket who look like America, you are going to have problems.
12. Rape.  If you’re a man and you get asked this question, say it’s bad and shut up! And if you say something stupid about it, don’t get mad if your friends throw you under the bus.

It’s Election Day!  You know what happens, if you haven’t already, go vote.

I will keep you up to speed throughout the day.  You can follow us on Facebook and Twitter, either @IndyBarrister, @IndyPoliticsOrg or @AttyAbdul.

We’ll also be on the air tonight providing coverage along with our friends at RTV 6 and analysis in tomorrow’s Indianapolis Star as well.

If you want to see my predictions,  click here.

It’s almost over.