Next week the Indiana Recount Commission will hear testimony in the voter fraud case involving embattled Secretary of State Charlie White*. Tuesday, the Commission heard arguments from both White and the media as to whether cameras should be allowed in the hearing. White’s attorneys argued unsuccessfully that cameras should be excluded because they would intimidate witnesses. However attorneys for the press argued the public has a right to know and no cameras have ever been banned from a recount hearing before. I agree.
This is one of those moments where the lawyer in me occasionally butts heads with the journalist/media commentator in me. The lawyer in me believes in the rights of due process and the media person in me strongly believes in the public’s right to know. I can see where White’s lawyers would have concerns about cameras at the hearing, however, there are more than enough safeguards in place to protect White’s rights.
If testimony gets out of hand or starts going down a road that’s irrelevant, the Chairman of the Commission can bring things to a halt and get them back under control. However, these are serious public matters and the public has a right to see these hearings. Potentially embarrassing testimony does not trump the public’s right to know and the rights of an open press.
Now maybe one day there will be cameras allowed in local courts. But that’s another blog post for another time. On this one, the First Amendment wins, easily.
*For those of you upset that I did not use this space to recommend Charlie White step down I refer you to this earlier blog post.
The nice thing about being back from a tough road trip is the political gossip, rumor, innuendo and other political tidbits that are either waiting for you when you get back or you picked up over the last few days at political events and just didn’t get a chance to blog about. So with all that said, here we go. And as always take it for what it’s worth…
5th District Congressman Dan Burton might get a potential primary challenger in Republican State Senator Luke Kenley who I hear may be mulling over a possible run.
It looks like State Representative Peggy Welch of Bloomington is gearing up for a Congressional possible run against Republican incumbent Todd Young.
State Treasurer and Republican Senate Candidate Richard Mourdock has reportedly apologized for the actions of one his campaign staff who called a blogger a “douchebag” during a campaign rally in Kokomo this past weekend. The original youtube clip is here.
The City of Indianapolis could loses up to $3 million in grant money due to dropping police staffing levels. Tight money has meant staffing levels are at about 1,600 officers which is below staffing needed to keep a federal grant. The city may look at bringing back retired officers or civilian employees. I frankly think they should look at hiring officers from other jurisdictions who have been laid off.
Democratic Mayoral candidate Melina Kennedy held a “listening” session Monday night on education reform. I’m told she had to listen pretty closely because there weren’t a lot of substantive suggestions being offered.
If you think it’s tough out there to find a job, just ask Marion County Democratic Executive Director Adam Kirsch. Kirsch has been looking for a new job for a while but no one wants to hire him. I’m not sure if it’s resume or his personality which is the bigger problem.
I know there was some consternation over the weekend regarding the Mayor and Indy Pride. Some people were complaining that Greg Ballard did not march in the parade. I know the Mayor did make an appearance, and I don’t recall any Indianapolis Mayor ever marching. If you know something different, let me know.
I’m in Chicago today taking care of some family matters; however I wanted to make sure I jotted down a few thoughts about political activities this past weekend. I managed to attend both the Indiana Democratic Party’s Jefferson-Jackson Day Dinner Friday night and the Indiana Young Republicans Convention this weekend. Both functions were well attended, particularly by statewide candidates and a lot of people had 2012 on their minds.
Speakers at the Jefferson-Jackson Day Dinner spent a lot of time playing to their base. There was a lot of talk about attacks on unions, school teachers, working families and hate legislation targeted at women and other Hoosiers (i.e. gays). I was not a big fan of the marriage amendment or the legislation that defunded Planned Parenthood, however both those measures passed with a good chunk of Democratic legislative support, so to blame the Republicans for those measures were a little disingenuous. I did find gubernatorial candidate John Gregg’s speech most interesting. Particularly when said that education and good paying jobs were also social issues. Gregg’s energy and personality will make him a very formidable opponent if Democrats can get him the resources to compete.
On the Republican side of things, Young Republicans were just as energetic and enthusiastic about 2012 as their Democratic counterparts, however privately many of them express concerns about the direction of their party on social issues. While many of them are pro-life, they aren’t rabid about it. And a clear majority of them either don’t care or support gay marriage; following the trend suggested by national polling data. They are big supporters of Indiana Congressman and gubernatorial candidate Mike Pence, but they really want him to focus on jobs and the economy. They seemed split on the Dick Lugar/Richard Mourdock U.S. Senate primary. Some of them think Lugar has been in office to long, others think his experience is invaluable.
The one person who impressed me the least this weekend was Democratic National Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who was the keynote at the JJ Dinner. I expected the partisan rhetoric, but some of her statements were either half-truths or just plain wrong. She said it was Democrats who passed the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act in the 1960s. Actually, it neither of those measures would have passed without Republican support as they were opposed by southern Democrats. In addition she also talked about the 2 million jobs created under the Obama administration. However 2.2 million jobs have been lost under the administration as well. The best thing about her speech was that it was not as long as it could have been.
After watching both parties, I’m looking forward to seeing what develops over the next few months. Leaders in both emphasized the need to focus on the Mayoral and city-council races this fall, which will help lay the groundwork for 2012. I don’t think anyone is going out on a limb to say Republicans have an inherent advantage since they hold all the statewide offices and since Mitch Daniels is not running for President, a lot of people who might have left Indiana to play on the national stage will still be here to work on campaigns. The pitfall will be for the GOP to not get hung up on social issues but really focus on job creation and the economy.
The other race to look at it will be to see who Democrats nominate for Superintendent of Public Instruction. Democrats and teachers unions appear to have a personal grudge against Dr. Tony Bennett who to them personifies what they describe as the war against public schools. Although he hasn’t said yes, I don’t see any reason why Bennett would not run for re-election, so keep an eye out for that race as well.
This should be fun to watch. I’m back in town tomorrow.
Have you ever heard of Morgan Johnson? Probably not. He’s 27-years old and has been missing since May 18th. He was last seen at the Value Place Hotel on Gateway Drive in Plainfield. He has a history of seizures and his family doesn’t think he has his medication with him. And by the way, he’s also African-American.
There have only been a handful of stories in the local news about Johnson’s disappearance. However stories regarding missing IU-Bloomington student Lauren Spierer have blanketed the news. I feel for the families of both Spierer and Johnson because there is nothing worse than a loved one who has gone missing. But what about all the other people who have disappeared?
According to the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department, 18 people have been reported missing this month. On any given day there are about 190 open missing persons cases, some of which have dated back to the 1980s. There are six detectives who work on these cases which include runaways and non-custodial parental abductions, which ironically is up this year. The unit has a 94% clearance rate. But did any of these missing people get coverage?
And if you think about it, take a look at some of the national stories over the past few years you will see the same pattern. Remember Laci Peterson who was murdered by her husband back in 2002. Well at the same time, LaToyia Figueroa, a black woman from Philadelphia was also murdered by her husband and got no media attention. Polly Klaas, Chandra Levy, Elizabeth Smart, Natalee Hollway; the list just goes on and on.
My thoughts and prayers go out to the Spierer family that their daughter will be found safe and sound, but it would be nice if someone had tweeted a $10,000 reward for Morgan Johnson, but for now all we can hope for is his safe return to his family, because it doesn’t look like he’s going to get as much outside assistance.
Editor’s note: Plainfield Police have asked that anyone with information on Johnson’s disappearance contact them at 317-839-2566.
As I follow the public testimony regarding the possible state takeover/turnaround of several failing Indianapolis Public Schools, I am shaking my head at the people who are expressing anger and outrage and directing it toward the State. For some reason people the State is the bad guy in all this for following the law and more importantly, following through on its word to intervene . This is like the slave who gets mad at the abolitionist instead of the slave master.
If you want to get mad at someone, get mad at Superintendent Eugene White and the IPS administration. They have known this day was coming. Anyone who has been paying attention saw this day coming. Hell, Stevie Wonder saw this coming; all you had to do was pay attention. I don’t know why anyone would not take the State seriously.
These last minute efforts by the IPS administration to offer up plans to stave off a takeover are laughable. Dr. White’s proposals are two-fold, either tinker around the edges or fire everyone and tinker around the edges. I’ve read through all of them and all I can conclude is that they give credence to the adage that if you give a chimpanzee a typewriter and an infinite amount of time eventually he will come up with Shakespeare, but it’s still a chimp with a typewriter.
It would have been nice if all these people who are mad and upset would have expressed themselves five years ago when these schools were first listed as failing. Or for that matter, expressed themselves this year to help IPS with testing and tutoring so test scores and student performance could reach the 3-percent mark and takeover/turnaround could be avoided. But now it’s too late. These schools just graduated their fifth group of seniors whose diplomas come from a failing school. And anyone who started there as a freshman has spent their entire secondary educational life in a failing school.
So if you want to get mad and blame the people most responsible for the situation were are in today, go get Dr. White and the two of you go stand in front of a mirror.
Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard says he will ask the State to transfer control of any failing Indianapolis Public Schools it takes over this year and he will convert them into a modified version of charter schools.
In his address this morning to the Greater Indianapolis Progress Committee the Mayor said his plan would be a compromise between leaving those schools in the hands of IPS and the state assuming complete control.
Ballard said he has been working on this plan for a while and cited the following change in state law which he says his administration helped put into the budget bill this past session. It amends IC 20-31-9.5…
Sec. 5. (a) The executive of a city or county in which one (1) or more turnaround academies are located may petition the state board to oversee the special management team. The petition must include the following:
(1) The names of one (1) or more turnaround academies located within the executive’s jurisdiction for which the executive wishes to conduct oversight.
(2) The functions the executive wishes to perform.
(3) Information on how and by whom those functions will be carried out.
(b) The state board may approve or not approve a petition under this section in whole or part.
I’ve embedded the Mayor’s comments and the change in state law in my slideshare account off to the right of your screen. And the State Department of Education helped draft the language.
Normally I take time after each session and read the budget bill cover to cover to catch stuff like this. This year I dropped the ball. And you would also think with all eyes, ears and people paid to lobby at the statehouse someone would have seen something, especially with all the talk about the Department of Education taking over failing schools and with language this broad an open ended. This language not only impacts Indianapolis, but gives power to every mayor and county executive in the state. But I digress.
The Mayor also told GIPC this morning that talk about giving the city control over IPS schools was premature and that time was needed to let the education reforms passed at the Statehouse time to work. The Mayor said that discussion should take place after the failing schools have turned around.
The education debate in this town just got a lot more interesting.
Originally I planned to blog about Monday’s Planned Parenthood hearing, however, somethings are just too much fun to ignore. By now you’ve heard that NY Congressman Anthony Weiner admitted to sending lewd photos of himself via Twitter, of course he denied it at first. So with that said, I figured it was time for another list of free advice for politicians who do stupid things and then lie about them.
1. Don’t lie.
2. Wait five seconds before you hit send and remember once it hits the Internet, that’s it.
3. Be straightforward.
4. Sex is not always an issue, but lying about it is.
5. If you’re going to preach family values, try to live them.
6. Fess up early on and say you’re sorry.
7. The longer you drag things out the worse they will get.
8. The media is not the enemy. They didn’t create the story, you did.
9. The only person you have to blame for your actions is you.
10. There is a price to pay for being a dumb ass.
Today a federal judge will hear arguments regarding an injunction against the state law that defunds Planned Parenthood. I plan to be in court today observing, so here’s the latest political gossip, rumor and innuendo for your reading pleasure…
Now that Mitch Daniels is out of the race for President, the word is he is gravitating toward former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman as his choice for the GOP nomination.
Some of the recent controversy surrounding Indiana Black Expo may come down to politics. A number of employees have expressed their concerns about the management style of IBE CEO Tanya Bell. However, I’m told some of that criticism is rooted in the fact that Bell has a productive relationship with Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard and there are number of employees upset the Mayor received Expo’s highest award last year. They felt it should not have gone to him because his is white, a Republican and this year is an election year.
Outgoing Washington Township Superintendent James Mervilde told a crowd this past week that he will do everything in his power to make sure charter schools never open up in his school district. If his schools are performing, he shouldn’t have much to worry about. Merrvilde is leaving at the end of June.
I hear there could be some changes coming soon to the Marion County Democratic Party. Ed Treacy is rumored to be stepping down by the end of the year. Possible replacements include, Kip Tew, Melina Kennedy and David Suess.
Speaking of Melina, there’s talk she plans a big transparency push later this summer. Once the details get worked out, she plans to release the names of clients she’s worked for at while Baker Daniels and what she did. She also reportedly plans to promise to make sure none of those clients get “undue” access, should she become Mayor. Stay tuned.
I expect it to be a busy weekend in Indianapolis. Indiana Democrats are holding their annual Jefferson-Jackson Day Dinner at the JW Marriott. The keynote speaker is DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz. Indiana Young Republicans are holding their state convention downtown as well at the Crowne Plaza. And in the middle of all that is Indy Pride and Saturday Mike Pence has a kick off rally for his candidacy for Governor in Columbus.
