Political gadfly Paul Ogden is running for Judge in Marion County. I’m all for individuals participating in democracy but they may want to do a few things first.
That’s all.
As of midnight the contract between AT & T and and the Communications Workers of America will have expired and that means Indiana’s new Right to Work will kick in for the hundred of employees who are union members here in the Hoosier State.
Under RTW, a worker cannot be compelled to pay union fees as a condition of their employment. The law went into effect on March 14 and it impacts contracts either created or modified after that date.
Proponents of RTW have argued that it was about worker freedom and choice. They also say if a union is truly representing its employees they will gladly pay dues because they are getting their money’s worth.
Opponents say it was simply a way to break the unions and it allows non-union employees to freeload because a union has to represent all the employees in a workplace under federal law if it chooses to be the exclusive bargaining unit.
The CWA Local 4900 represents about 3500 workers here in the Midwest, including Indiana. The two sides have apparently been deadlocked over issues such as health care and sick leave. The national union has called for strikes in the event an agreement cannot be reached.
The union’s website says members are closing ranks, however we reported a while back that there was dissension in the local ranks over what some members have believed was inadequate representation. This could leave to a decline in membership under the new RTW law.
This will definitely be something worth following.
Let me start this by saying the state finding this week more than $200 million in local option income taxes is a little embarrassing, but it is not the end of the world, in fact, if you look at it from a bigger picture, it’s actually a positive. Allow me to explain.
Although I write about Indiana government and politics I spend a lot of time paying attention to other state governments, I’m kind of a dork that way. And when I look at the current financial situations in other states, I am willing to bet the $529 million in total revenue the state misplaced and tell you there are a lot of other places that wish they had Indiana’s problems.
In other words, in Indiana, the problem may be missing money, in more than two dozen other states, money isn’t missing, it’s just not there. According to the Center on Budget Policy and Priorities, 30 states have projected shortfalls for next fiscal year and have had to engage in drastic spending cuts or raise taxes over the 2011-2013 budget years. I’ve listed a sample just below…
If you picked up the L.A. Times or Chicago Tribune and read about Indiana’s money problems which are basically accounting errors which still resulted in a nearly $2 billion budget surplus, taxpayer refunds wouldn’t you wish you had these problems, instead, all you get is tax increases, neglected infrastructure, service cuts and more inefficiencies.
And here’s another added benefit of this entire situation, if local governments have gone without this money in for the past couple of years, doesn’t that raise the question of whether it’s really needed in the first place? Just a thought, which I will expound on in another blog post.
So is this embarrassing for the Daniels administration, yes, especially since finances are supposed to be its area of specialty. And this problem is easily fixed by doing a top to bottom audit to make sure dollars collected are put in the proper funds for distribution. But when I look at this from a broader context and more global perspective, if Indiana’s biggest problem is misplacing money and still maintaining a surplus and giving back taxpayer refunds in the worst economy since the Great Depression, I’ll take that any day over the alternative.
In case you hadn’t noticed, I’ve been relatively quiet about the new smoking ban proposal making it’s way through the Indianapolis City-County Council. Part of the reason has been taking care of the Lovely Mrs. Shabazz who was injured a month or so ago in a car accident, she is recovering slowly and painfully, but surely, by the way. But I also wanted to keep my powder dry and cigar unlit until I saw what the final version looked like. And I really didn’t have anything different to say about this ban that I hadn’t in the past.
However, there is one thing that I did notice that was worth mentioning. The Mayor’s staff has indicated he will likely sign this proposal, but for all intent and purposes, this is pretty much the same proposal that the Council had a chance to pass in December of last year, but pigheadedness by individuals like Angela Mansfield and Brian Mahern would not accept reality and didn’t take the deal they were offered. In December they were offered a deal that would ban smoking in most bars and taverns and exempt private clubs. Now fast forward nearly six months and a Mayoral veto later, and all these guys are doing is about to send the Mayor the exact same measure, off-track betting facilities notwithstanding, one that bans smoking in most bars and taverns and exempts private clubs.
I find it rather ironic that the smoke-free crowd which moaned and gnashed its teeth about workers in bars and taverns whose lives are put at risk by exposure to second hand smoke have in a sort of round about way been responsible for exposing those same people to those dangerous carcinogens for the past six months since they didn’t take the deal they were offered. Mahern told the media that while this may be a victory for the Mayor, it’s a loss for children. Someone needs to tell Mahern, if he can stop listening to the sound of his own voice for a few minutes, that he is the one who kept hundreds of bar workers at risk because he wouldn’t take the deal in December that he seems to embrace now in April. And he could be considered almost as big a threat to public health as the second hand smoke he allowed workers to be exposed to. Okay that line may be a bit over the top. He may not be as dangerous as second hand smoke, but the stuff that comes out of his mouth is at least as annoying.
For the record, I still philosophically oppose a government ban on smoking in bars. I think that decision is best left up to the owners and patrons. I do think it will hurt some very small neighborhood mom and pop type places who will end up on the short end of the “there is no net loss in business” statement. So I am sure once they are forced to finally go non-smoking the anti-smoking crowd is going to patronize those establishments so they can stay open and those servers and bartenders that they have been trying to protect will still have a livelihood. But then again, these are also the same people who by their own intransigent behavior put those same workers lives at unnecessary risk for the past five months because they wouldn’t take the deal in December that they so willingly embrace today.
With a little more than a month to go before the U.S. Senate primary in Indiana, one question to throw into the discussion is whether the Hoosiers who voted for Marlin Stutzman back in the 2010 primary will be the voters who decide whether Richard Lugar or Richard Mourdock faces Democrat Joe Donnelly in November?
You may be saying that Stutzman is now a Congressman representing the 3rd Congressional District, so why does he matter now? Go back and look at the 2010 primary results.
Note, this analysis is based on a couple assumptions. First assume the votes for Coats are true establishment Republicans, while votes for Hostettler, Bates and Behney were “anti-establishment/Tea Party” votes. Translate those totals into today’s race. That means incumbent Richard Lugar starts with a baseline of about 40% and State Treasurer Richard Mourdock walks in with about 31%; a 9-point difference, which is not too far off from the polls Mourdock and the Democrats have cited showing a 6-point difference between the two candidates.
So with that assumption, one could argue the fight is for those 29% of primary voters who came out for Stutzman; who you could argue aren’t 100% tea party, but not so much establishment that they will go along 100% of the time. So where are they? According to the 2010 results they are in the 11 counties that Stutzman won…
However, if there is a 50-50 split amongst Stutzman voters, working from these results as a baseline, Lugar wins 54-44, over Mourdock. For Mourdock to win, he would need to pull close to 70% of the Republicans who voted for Stutzman in 2010.
Of course there are several other factors at play as we enter the last month of the primary season; the Presidential primary and is it pretty much a done deal by the time primary comes along? How well do Lugar and Mourdock perform in the April 11 debate? What role will the Super PACs play in the home stretch? Will there be an implosion in either of the campaigns’ political operations? Will residency still matter? And then there is just the unpredictability that comes along with any political season.
However, for the purpose of this analysis, if the campaigns are smart, they have already identified who those “Stutzman” voters are and will work to get them to the polls on May 8, because at this point, no one can take any vote for granted nor leave any stone unturned.
I hate to be the bearer of bad legal news for some of you, but the only way Public Safety Director Frank Straub is going to leave is if the Mayor fires him or he decides he has had enough of Indianapolis and chooses to go somewhere else, and note the latter is a lot more likely than the former.
I saw a recent blog post by Paul Ogden on the statute regarding the appointment process and how it “seems pretty clear that any appointment or reappointment by the Mayor of the Public Safety Director requires the approval of council.” If I were Paul I would spend more time running for judge or at least try to figure out why I keep losing every time I try to sue the State of Indiana over getting fired from my old job at the Department of Insurance.
The statute reads as follows…
Deputies and directors; acting deputies and directors; controller and deputy controllers; corporation counsel
(a) The executive shall, subject to the approval of the city-county legislative body, appoint each of the executive’s deputies and the director of each department of the consolidated city. A deputy or director is appointed for a term of one (1) year and until a successor is appointed and qualified, but serves at the pleasure of the executive.
(b) When making an appointment under subsection (a), the executive shall submit the name of an appointee to an office to the legislative body for its approval as follows:
(1) When the office has an incumbent, not more than forty-five (45) days before the expiration of the incumbent’s one (1) year term.
(2) When the office has been vacated, not more than forty-five (45) days after the vacancy occurs.
(c) The executive may appoint an acting deputy or acting director whenever the incumbent is incapacitated or the office has been vacated. An acting deputy or acting director has all the powers of the office.
Ogden focuses on the subject to the approval of the city-county legislative body, to make his point that the Council approval is necessary to keep Straub. However there is the other part of that sentence, ” A deputy or director is appointed for a term of one (1) year and until a successor is appointed and qualified, but serves at the pleasure of the executive. So in other words, if an individual currently holds a position or any other appointment, they stay there until they decide to leave or the Mayor says otherwise. Plain, simple language folks.
It would be one thing if the position was vacant to start, but it isn’t. It’s occupied and will likely be that way for a while.
Now Ogden can go back to running for judge or whatever it was he was doing because apparently reading the statute (which I thought was some judge’s were supposed to do) wasn’t on his agenda.
When I heard that Indianapolis Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Eugene White was looking for another job, I didn’t know whether to crack open a bottle of scotch or just crack up.
There was one part of me that wanted to run outside and do cartwheels just cheering the fact that worst Superintendent in the State of Indiana was heading south, which is ironic because that’s where he has been taking IPS ever since he took over. And then there was another part of me that felt really bad that he was leaving because now some other poor schmucks were going to have to deal with his ability to miseducate their children as well. Yikes.
Could you just imagine the poor parents and teachers who would have to put up with someone who had threatened to break the law because he doesn’t like charter schools? Or someone who has been losing a thousand students on average a year and blaming everyone but himself? Or for that matter someone whose inability to educate children was so horrific that he lost several schools to a state takeover which could have been avoided had he just taken a look in a mirror and did some really tough self-evaluation as opposed to just seeing a guy who could do no wrong?
And you know what the sad part is in all this? I am willing to bet a thousand bucks that the school districts in South Carolina and Alabama knew all this when they made him a finalist for the jobs but that’s not what killed his chances. What probably killed his chances was Eugene’s inability to keep his mouth shut and when he told one school district in a public meeting that he really didn’t want to work there, but the other school district. Really? That’s like telling one woman the only reason you’re with her is because the other won’t take you and she just happens to find out about it. At the end of the day you end getting nothing, literally.
So I guess at the end of the day, the good news is Eugene won’t have the opportunity to be a total failure in another district and miseducate someone else’s children. Instead he can just continue to remain at the helm of the sinking ship known as IPS Schools. Apparently it is a job he does very well because it’s the only one he knows how to do.
The Marion County Election Board and U.S. Senator Richard Lugar have reached a settlement that would allow the incumbent to vote in the May 8 primary.
Under a settlement reached just moments ago, Lugar and his wife will re-register to vote at their family farm in Decatur Township. The Marion County Election Board ruled 2-1 earlier this month that while the Senator was a resident of Indiana, he could not vote at his old address because he had sold his home, despite several legal opinions which Lugar cited that his actions were proper.
Lugar’s attorneys apparently spelled out enough specific facts to show a viable connection to the family farm and Marion County Election Board attorney Andy Mallon agreed.
The two sides were slated to go trial, even to the point that subpoenas had been issued.
Because of the settlement, Marion County Judge Louis Rosenberg dismissed the case.
I learned a long time ago from a very wise man that the only problem with playing games in politics is sometimes you come across people who can play better than you. I strongly suggest the Indianapolis City-County Council keep that in mind as it navigates the waters of Public Safety Director Frank Straub’s “confirmation” hearings.
It goes without saying that Dr. Straub has been a lightning rod for change and criticism from Democrats and Republicans for recent events at IMPD. Although I have always and will continue to argue that getting mad at the Public Safety Director for the actions of some rogue law enforcement officers is like getting mad at the exterminator you called to solve your infestation problem.
But let’s say for sake of argument, that the Council refuses to re-appoint Straub, here’s the question, now what? That doesn’t mean Straub can’t stay. Under the code the Mayor can keep Straub in the position until he finds someone else and the Council can’t make him hire anyone. Even Straub critic City-County Councilor Vern Brown admitted that during Straub’s reappointment hearing last year.
So what will they do, cut the funding in the budget? Contrary to popular opinion, Indianapolis has a strong-mayor/weak-council form of government. In other words, the Council can pass a budget, the Mayor can veto it and unless they override it with 20 votes, which as we saw during the smoking ban debate isn’t very likely to happen, nothing would change. Under state law if a municipality fails to pass a budget then the budget from the previous year goes into effect and Straub’s budget would practically stay the same subject to changes by the administration.
And here is something else to keep in mind, what’s to stop the General Assembly, which may be even more Republican next year than it is now to stop from amending the UniGov statute so the Mayor doesn’t have to go the Council to get his appointments confirmed? The Governor doesn’t have to deal with that, so why should the Mayor of Indianapolis have to go back to the Council on an annual basis to get his major appointments approved? It’s one thing to do that once, when that person is appointed, or perhaps re-appointed at the beginning of a second term, but annually? If I were the chief executive officer of the city I wouldn’t put up with that.
And if I know Mayor Greg Ballard as well as I think I do, neither will he. Let the political games begin.
The U.S. Supreme Court Tuesday heard what most are calling the most important piece of the President’s health care plan, the individual mandate that citizens must purchase insurance or pay a penalty. The logic being that if everyone has insurance health care costs prices will drop because no one will be running to the emergency room for treatment. The Court heard arguments whether the government can use its power under the Commerce Clause to compel someone to participate in commerce by purchasing insurance.
It’s one thing to regulate how someone consumes a product once they make a choice to participate in an activity. It is another thing completely to force someone to engage in an activity. Proponents of the President’s plan will say that since everyone will consume health care at some point in time, they should be forced to have insurance. The problem with that is that for the first time the government is forcing you do something, and not calling it “tax”.
Yes, you are being forced to pay for roads, the military, and every other federal program when you pay taxes, however there was no way Congress was going to raise taxes to pay for the President’s plan. And by choosing not to levy a tax, which would have been perfectly constitutional, the Democrats chose not to and therefore here we are.
There is actually a very easy way to bring down health care costs without forcing individuals to engage in an activity, end employer-provided health care coverage by eliminating the tax deduction for it. Most of us get coverage through our jobs and if you have no job, odds are you don’t have insurance. And health care costs eat up a significant portion of a business’ budget. If you eliminate the break, there really isn’t a reason for an employer to provide insurance and they will start dropping employees like a rock.
Will this lead to fewer insured? Not really, that free market is an odd thing. You will be amazed at how many companies will pop up providing insurance. And since businesses no longer have the expense they can actually hire more people. As a small business owner I constantly hear stories from people who want to bring people on board full-time but can’t afford to, primarily because of health care costs. And when we are directly responsible for paying for our own health care, we tend to take better care of ourselves. By they way, you already buy your own car insurance, homeowner’s insurance and life insurance.
And for those of you wondering about those who can’t afford insurance, I don’t see any reason why states can’t adopt a moderate plan where the working poor, for a small fee, can purchase a basic, bare bones plan. And there are some other things that can be done like allow insurance to be sold across state lines, however, insurance companies would have to register in states where they sell their product and we could eliminate mandates on what health insurance providers must cover. This makes a lot more sense in the 21st Century than an individual mandate and more government regulation.
More jobs, more insured. What’s not to like? The best single-payer system is you, the individual.
