It’s a little late in the day, but Happy Father’s Day to all the Dads who read Indiana Barrister.  I’ve always maintained that if you don’t think fathers matter, try imagining the world without them.

A look at the voting record for the Democratic candidate for Superintendent of Public Instruction shows that up until 2008 she had only voted in Republican primaries dating back to 1990.

Democrats are expected to nominate 57-year old Glenda Ritz of Carmel.  She is an educator in Washington Township.  However a check of the voter rolls dated May 31 shows she voted in the Republican primary in 2012.   However, that information was changed Thursday afternoon once Indy Politics broke the story that she was listed as taking a GOP ballot in the May primary.

Link to Ritz voting record dated May 31.

Link to Ritz voting record dated June 14.

Democrats say it was a “clerical error” and that Ritz voted in the Democratic primary, however it was transcribed to show she voted in the GOP Primary.  Ritz  did vote in the 2008 and 2010 Democratic primaries.  However records show she voted in virtually every Republican primary from 1990-2006.

Democrats went after Republican Lt. Governor candidate Sue Ellspersmann for voting in the 2008 Democratic primary between Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama.

During her announcement today at the Statehouse, Ritz criticized the GOP for cutting education funding and incumbent Tony Bennett for not speaking up for schools.

The head of the Indy Parks foundation says she doesn’t believe there’s a conflict of interest between one of the Foundation’s grant recipients and an agency that help develops metrics to give out grant dollars, even though the head of that agency sits on the board of this year’s largest award winner.

The Dove Recovery House received a $160,000 crime prevention grant from the Parks Foundation.  One of the members who sits on that board is Lena Hackett of Community Solutions.  Community Solutions assisted the Parks Foundation in developing metrics and developing scoring rubrics for the grants.  For some,  that has raised a red flag.

However, Parks Foundation President Cindy Porteous tells Indy Politics that Community Solutions did not evaluate any proposals and did not help determine who received a grant.  She says the decisions to award the grants were made by volunteers who are appointed by the Mayor’s office, City-County Council and Parks Foundation.

Porteous also says Hackett did have to disclose a conflict of interest statement.  Shortly after the grants were awarded the questions of conflicts of interest began to surface because City-Council President Maggie Lewis works for the Dove House and it received the largest grant of any organization.

Porteuos told the Indianapolis Star that politics had nothing to do with the decision and Lewis abstained from voting on the crime prevention grant funding as to avoid the appearance of impropriety.

Recently someone asked me what I thought about last week’s arrest of District 9 City-County Councilor Joe Simpson’s arrest for allegedly interfering with a police investigation of a burglary on his block.  My response was that it was no big shocker.  In fact, knowing Joe, I’m surprised it hasn’t happened sooner.

According to the police report, the cops asked Simpson to stay away from the crime scene several times.  Each time he reportedly got louder and more obnoxious.  I would argue he was just being true to form.  Finally police had apparently had enough and they arrested him.  I can just see in my mind’s eye, Simpson pulling one of those, “Do you know who I am?” And the officer saying, “Yes, you’re under arrest!”   That didn’t happen, but according to the IMPD report, Simpson did say something to that effect.

Now granted, as an officer of the Court, I am obligated to say that everyone is entitled to due process and is innocent until proven guilty.  However, as a political pundit and muckraker, I am also obligated to say that I am in no way shocked that of all things to get Simpson in trouble would be his mouth.

Anyone who knows Simpson they way I know Simpson knows he has always been notorious for having an over-sized ego, a highly inflated sense of self-importance (and this is coming from me of all people) and an extremely limited grasp of the issues.  He frequently berates city agencies and threatens Department heads.  He also calls in to local talk radio to bash the Mayor and accuse him in not so many words of being “insensitive to his community”.  And while he was on the Washington Township Board he accused a local cameraman of calling him the n-word after Simpson got in the photographers face and tried to intimidate him.  By the way, I know the cameraman and the n-word is not in his vocabulary.

So the fact that Simpson got arrested for sticking his nose where it didn’t belong, after the police asked him several times to get back is not surprising in the least.  Now to be fair to Simpson, he did apologize to the officers.  Of course it was after he was handcuffed, sitting down on the curb and near tears, but he was sorry for his actions.

Now, once again, everyone is innocent until proven guilty and is entitled to his day in Court.  But hearing that Simpson got arrested for allegedly shooting off his mouth to police, not surprising in the least.  What I do find interesting though is that Simpson has been approached by several of my brothers in the media and has refused to talk on advice of his counsel.  If I knew all it took to get Simpson to shut up was getting arrested, I would have had filed charges against him years ago.

Ron Paul supporters get a “victory” at the Indiana State GOP convention. They got an amendment offered to the party platform that would call for more openness, transparency and an audit of the Federal Reserve. There were no objections and the amendment was adopted.  There was some drama in some of the caucuses, but nothing so bad it disrupted the convention.

The Indiana Department of Education on Monday will hold a hearing at John Marshall school that will signal the start of the possible takeover process.

Under state law, any school that has been considered failing for the past six years is eligible for takeover.  The only school on the list this year was John Marshall.  However, official test results have not come in yet, John Marshall is not expected to get off the takeover/turnaround list.

Under state law, the DOE has the following options at its disposal…

• Provide technical assistance to the school.
• Assume total control of school.
• Assign a special team to operate all or part of the school.
• Allow the school to continue to function if it’s making steady progress

The law also allows for community groups to offer up plans to turn around school performance as well as the school district itself, however the final decision rests in the hands of the Indiana State Board of Education.

The meeting is expected to begin at about 6 p.m. at John Marshall.  IPS lost several schools last year to the state: Emma Donnan Middle School and Manual, Howe Community and Arlington Community high schools.

IPS officials have not publicly commented about a possible takeover of John Marshall.

I’ve been waiting all day to use that headline from the really bad Arnold Schwarzenegger film.  As you know by now the voters of Wisconsin exercised some common sense and chose NOT to recall Governor Scott Walker.

I thought it was interesting that Walker won the recall vote by a slightly higher margin than when he got elected Governor in 2012.  In 2010 he won 52-46.  This time around he won 54-46 and voter turnout was only a few percentage points higher than the previous election.

That said, the entire ordeal underlines my belief in voter recalls, I don’t.  They are a bad idea at best.  And at worst, they should only be used for high crimes and misdemeanors. And I am bi-partisan on this one.   I was not a fan of the Gray Davis California recall back in 2003.   Unless someone is caught with a live boy or a dead girl, you’re stuck with them.  Move on and find a better candidate.  Which by the way, it struck me as odd that Democrats and labor would choose the same guy to run against Walker who lost against him the first time.

I view voter recalls with the same disdain that I do term limits, they only enable lazy voters.  I argue we already have recalls and term limits, they’re called elections.  They tend to happen every two, four or six years.  And if you don’t think a long-term incumbent can be beat just ask Richard Lugar and Bart Peterson.  You may have to work at it,  but the sooner you accept that fact the easier  you will sleep.  Recalling someone just because you don’t like their policies is silly.  And apparently, as shaky as some of the exit polling was in the Wisconsin race, 60% of the voters thought recall should only be used when the officeholder is charged or convicted of a serious crime or felony.  None of that was true in the Walker case.  His biggest crime was making public employee unions mad.  He should have gotten a medal for that, if you want my personal opinion.

There’s a reason that there have been less than half a dozen successful gubernatorial recalls in the past 100 years, it’s because they’re stupid.  And at the end of the day recalls only enable stupid, lazy voters to keep making stupid, lazy decisions instead of learning to deal with the consequences of their actions.

In less than three months I will mark my third anniversary with the Lovely Mrs. Shabazz and while the modern anniversary gift is crystal I think the traditional gift of leather sounds more interesting. I bring this up because the  Indianapolis City-County Council is looking at   offering up domestic partner benefits for same-sex and unmarried couples.  This isn’t a new concept.   The private sector has been doing it for years and I have always believed that government should be run as much like a business as possible.  And businesses should do what they can to attract the best and the brightest talent, while being fiscally responsible.  And since same-sex couples cannot legally marry in the state of Indiana, extending domestic partner benefits makes sense to me.

I do have a problem with giving the same treatment to unmarried couples.  And please note, I am not by any stretch the morality police, just ask my wife, the Lovely Mrs. Shabazz.  My problem with giving the same treatment to unmarried couples is that it disincentivizes them to stop shacking up and tie the knot.  Gay couples can’t get married.  Opposite sex couples can.  So if they want the benefits then they should do what my wife and I did three years ago on September 5 at 2:50 p.m., get married.

I have never been a big fan of that living together stuff.  It’s one thing if you’re doing it with the intent to getting married and staying together, but living together because no one wants the real responsibility and commitment that comes along with marriage, I have an issue with.  Also getting married instead of living together avoids the “Judge Judy” factor.  In other words, you ever see married people on those Judge shows fighting over TVs and movie collections?   And I think by extending benefits to non-married opposite sex couples who have the legal recourse of getting married is a bad idea all around.

Now if you will excuse me, although my wedding anniversary is still three months away, I have to start planning now.  I may be an arrogant, conceited, self-serving, borderline narcissistic individual, but I’m not crazy.

Indianapolis City-County Councilor Joe Simpson was arrested Sunday after police say he interfered with their investigation of a residential burglary at 45th and Guilford.

According to IMPD report police were called to 4516 N. Guilford to respond to a burglary in process.  During their investigation Simpson, according to police, approached them asking what was going saying he was a neighbor knew the person who lived there

Police asked him to step away, and Simpson became belligerent.  He told them he was a city-county councilor and yelled at the officers saying they were disrespecting him.

The police told Simpson several times that he needed to leave and if he didn’t he was going to get arrested. Simpson refused to comply and got louder.  He was then arrested.  He’s being charged with disorderly conduct and interfering with law enforcement.

Simpson represents District 9.  A copy of the police report can be found here.  Simpson was elected to the Council in 2011.

There was only one Indiana school slated for possible takeover by the state this year for failing to meet academic standards for a sixth consecutive year; IPS’  John Marshall Community School.  And according to state officials, John Marshall failed to make adequate academic progress and now officials are looking at intervention.

This is not the first time IPS has failed and the state has had to intervene.  Last year the state took over four failing IPS Schools: Emma Donnan Middle School and Manual, Howe Community and Arlington Community high schools.

The Indiana Department of Education is expected to announce later this week when it hold hearings on John Marshall.  Under Public Law 221, any school that has been deemed as failing for the past five years is subject to state intervention.   That intervention can include one of the following options…

• Provide technical assistance to the school.
• Assume total control of school.
• Assign a special team to operate all or part of the school.
• Allow the school to continue to function if it’s making steady progress.

Schools are measured based on student achievement, performance and yearly progress.  A school can avoid takeover if its test scores improve by three percent.  The exact change in John Marshall test scores was not immediately available, but it is apparent it was not enough to avoid takeover.

The state taking over a school is not a new concept.  Since 1999, state law has allowed the DOE to intervene if a school is has been failing for more than five years.  This law was passed two years before No Child Left Behind went into effect.