Category Archives: Local Government

Hopelessly Undemocratic Indiana

We can’t “save” a democracy we’ve already lost. (See yesterday’s post.) The real question is: can we regain it?

Indiana is a case in point. Extreme gerrymandering ensures a Republican legislative supermajority–not simply because lawmakers have distributed voters to ensure GOP dominance, but because that tactic is far and away the most effective form of voter suppression. There’s a reason Indiana’s turnout is one of the lowest in the country; voters deprived of competitive contests see no reason to cast a ballot. (What’s ironic is that several of these districts would actually be competitive if turnout increased…)

Indiana also lacks an initiative or referendum. Hoosiers thus have absolutely no recourse, no way to counter legislation that ignores the preferences of the majority. And our GOP overlords routinely ignore those preferences–polling regularly shows citizen sentiments at odds with the extremism of those we’ve “elected.”

A friend with Hoosiers 4 Democracy looked at Governor-elect Mike Braun’s recently published policy agenda, and shared examples demonstrating that deviance.

She noted that Braun promises to “faithfully execute SEA 1 (2022).” SEA 1 was the draconian abortion ban passed by our legislature immediately after the decision in Dobbs. Polls of Indiana voters consistently demonstrate that a large majority of Hoosiers support access to abortion through at least the first trimester, and narrower majorities support access beyond. Nevertheless, Braun’s policy agenda includes a promise to  “Ensure SEA 1 (2022) implementation is in accordance with statute in a way that provides transparency and certainty for the public and medical providers.”

How nice of him to advocate for “transparency” of a measure with which most Hoosiers strongly disagree–a measure that has already created “maternity deserts” as Ob-Gyn practitioners flee the state.

Then there’s Braun’s promise to “protect Hoosier girls from biological males who attempt to compete in girls’ sports.” That language joins a provision to “respect the rights of parents”–language we hear from the extreme Right-wing parents who’ve been trying to ban books and require school officials to “out” children. Here’s the language he uses to beat up on trans youth:

In 2022, the Indiana General Assembly passed HEA 1041 to protect the girls on the field of play. The State should continue to ensure that biological males will not compete against our girls on the court, in the pool, or invade the privacy of their locker rooms.

Require schools to respect and uphold the rights of parents as the decision-makers in their children’s lives, education, and upbringing. This includes directly notifying parents about any physical or mental health concerns that arise at school, such as requests to use a name or pronouns that are inconsistent with biological sex.

In 2023, the Indiana General Assembly passed HEA 1608 to protect this fundamental parental right.

In other parts of the document, Braun inadvertently highlights the logical outcome of Indiana’s regressive legislation. He notes that “Indiana continues to struggle in retaining college graduates as nearly 40% of graduates leave within one year of graduation, and more high school students are choosing to attend university elsewhere (8%).” He also notes that too few Indiana students pursue a college education. “Every year, approximately 75,000 Hoosiers graduate from high school. While half of these students enroll in college the other half pursue other opportunities…. ”

That’s even worse than it sounds. As the friend who sent me Braun’s agenda noted, of the 75,000 who graduate, 32,500 enroll in college. But enrollment isn’t the same thing as completion. Indiana’s college degree completion rate is 66%.  Approximately 21,000 students will graduate within 6 years, and of those, 40% leave the state. That means Indiana has approximately 12,500 new college graduates who join the state’s workforce each year (about 140 per county if they were equally spread out–which they aren’t. Most choose to live and work in cities–primarily Indianapolis–where employment opportunities and social amenities are more plentiful.)

The fact that Indiana has fewer educated citizens than other states is a major reason we have trouble luring employers, and the reason that–as Braun’s agenda also notes–“Indiana faces workforce shortages (e.g., additional 5000 nurses needed by 2031), skill mismatches, and struggles to retain college graduates.”

Bottom line: legislators and administrators who gain public office by choosing their voters can–and do–ignore the wishes of their constituents. Citizens stop participating in the political process, believing it’s a waste of time and effort. They tune out. As a result, the only people who cast ballots are the most committed partisans.

We end up “electing” statewide candidates who, like Braun, go along with the current GOP’s extreme, anti-American “agenda,” or the even more extreme (and embarrassing) Christian Nationalists like Beckwith and Banks, or corrupt posturers like Todd Rokita.

Indiana isn’t a democracy, and our overlords want to see to it that we don’t become one.

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Rokita Again…

Among the worst results of the recent election was the local–and sadly predictable–victory of Indiana’s statewide Republican ticket. Mike Braun can be expected to obediently follow the Trumpist/MAGA line. Micah Beckwith and Jim Banks are self-proclaimed Christian Nationalist and an embarrassment to the state (and, actually, to intelligent humans pretty much everywhere.) But Todd Rokita may actually be the worst choice Hoosiers made, if only because he was running for re-election after a term in which he displayed what he is for all to see–an unethical publicity hound consistently pandering to the very worst of the MAGA base.

And he is at it again–(mis)using the resources of his office to pursue ideological, rather than legal, ends. This time, it’s an effort to intimidate Indiana organizations that serve immigrant populations.

One of those organizations is Su Casa, a nonprofit organization that was issued a civil investigative demand by the office of the Indiana Attorney General. The purported reason was an inquiry into human trafficking. Su Casa–along with many other entities in Indiana that serve immigrant communities– are being “questioned” by the AG’s office, probing how they serve migrant communities.

Su Casa was founded in 1999 as a response to the increase of Latin American immigrants arriving in Columbus, Indiana.  The majority of them had limited English proficiency, and Su Casa provided assistance and removed barriers to essential services in that community. It’s mission is to “increase self-sufficiency, health, economic independence, education, and ensure Latino families feel safe and belong here.” Its website says “Su Casa believes that all residents should have equitable access to the tools and support needed to be successful regardless of socio-economic or immigration status, gender identity, sexual orientation, race, or beliefs.”

MAGA cultists like Rokita consider such beliefs unacceptably “woke.”

When I did some research, I discovered that the Attorney General has initiated investigations into several organizations– including nonprofits, government agencies, and businesses– that work to facilitate what the cult deplores as an  “influx of migrants into Indiana communities.” These investigations purport to be about labor trafficking and “the strain on local resources due to increased migrant populations.”

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What Individuals Must Do

Almost everything I’ve read in the wake of the election has fallen into one of two categories: why did it happen? and what can we do? Articles in that first category vastly exceed those in the second, and that is unfortunate. Although it is always important to analyze the source of a problem, too many of the purported analyses have been smug, finger-pointing accusations by self-important know-it-alls–hardly helpful suggestions for action.

Also, many of us want an answer to the question: what can I do? I’m one of those people: tell me I can only solve problem X by climbing that mountain, and I’ll strap on my boots and start climbing. Tell me there’s really nothing I can do about problem X and I just feel helpless and depressed.

A newsletter from Democracy Docket (no link) recently summarized how we got here, and did so in an abbreviated (but reasonably accurate) few paragraphs:

The moral bankruptcy of the Republican Party did not happen overnight. It happened gradually — starting with Newt Gingrich’s attack on the government in the early 1990s. It continued with the Tea Party movement, the birther conspiracy and the nomination of Donald Trump in 2016.

It gained momentum when Trump won the 2016 election despite losing the popular vote. Once in office, it grew worse when his attacks on democratic institutions were met with acquiescence by most of his party.

The mistake many of us made was believing that the aftermath of the 2020 election marked an end to the GOP’s descent into moral collapse. We were wrong. Jan. 6 marked a further descent into the moral abyss.

By 2024, the few principled Republicans had already abandoned their party for the “Never Trump” movement. What was left were Trump dead-enders and those without any core principles at all. A party once built on the promise of Lincoln had become the morally bankrupt party of Trump.

So here we are. We have one party that has become, for all intents and purposes, a cult. It has turned its back on the project of governing in favor of a hysterical retreat into a past that never existed and an agenda of resentment and “othering.” That has left the remaining party the unenviable task of herding cats–representing voters who range from center-Right but too sane to stay in the GOP all the way to Bernie Sanders and AOC and even further Left. 

So that’s where we are. That rather obviously leaves us with the second question: what can we do? Are there promising steps that individuals can take that are likely to make a difference, or are our problems so massive that all we can do is marinate in our distress?

I’ve arrived at an answer that may or may not be correct, but works for me. (I encourage you all to rebut my suggestions and to offer better or additional ones).

As I indicated in a couple of recent posts, I think those of us who recognize that we are individually powerless to affect the dysfunctions and outrages of a national government headed by Trump have to turn to activism at the local level. Even rural occupants of Blue states can work through local government to protect citizens from the Trump assaults; in Red states, cities of over 500,000 are uniformly Blue, and activism is possible at the municipal level. (Rural folks in states like Indiana can at least join statewide organizations working to protect civil liberties or immigrants’ rights or the environment.)

In my case, given my interests and background, I will volunteer with local lawyers’ groups–certainly the ACLU, but perhaps  others as well– to determine the measures that are available in our federalist system, and work to use whatever tools we identify, including but not limited to lawsuits. While we no longer have a Supreme Court that we can rely upon to enforce the Constitution, there are numerous good judges at the local and appellate levels, and justice is famously slow. By the time any appeals reach the Supreme Court, we may be emerging from much of the current darkness. 

Others of you might work with local groups focused on immigrant rights, or on health, reproductive or environmental issues.

Most importantly, local activists need to work with educators and with recently established local media outlets, to educate and inform the voting population. If there was any systemic failure that led to our current disaster, it was widespread civic ignorance and misinformation. Citizens need to understand the Constitution and Bill of Rights, and they need to recognize the ways in which MAGA Republicanism rejects that foundational framework.

We have work to do.

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Resistance And The Environment

If even a small percentage of Project 2025’s proposals–or Trump’s fever dreams– are implemented, Americans will suffer. Times will be very dark, and very unAmerican. So it may seem Panglossian to predict that we can and will emerge from those dark times, not unscathed, but essentially intact.

That said, however, there is one element of the coming assault on reason and evidence that poses a truly existential threat, and that is the denial of climate change– the likely withdrawal from global efforts to combat it, the resumption of reliance on fossil fuels, and the termination of federal green energy incentives. We humans can recover from bad governance. We can (and undoubtedly will) learn from the experience of being governed by corrupt and profoundly ignorant people.

But we are unlikely to survive a failure to take climate change seriously.

I find it hard to understand people who deny the reality of a warming planet–the captains of the fossil fuel industries who place a higher priority on their bottom lines than their grandchildren’s lives, the religious fundamentalists who are sure God will protect us (or perhaps is punishing us for our sins), the people who simply choose not to believe facts that might inconvenience them. In my own lifetime (and yes, I’m old) I’ve seen spring come earlier and earlier, and summer last far longer than it used to. As I write this, we are nearing the end of November, yet temperatures are in the 50s and 60s, flowers are still blooming and the leaves remain on most trees. When I was young, it was much colder at this time of year, and we’d typically already had snowstorms.

The rejection of science and evidence by Washington’s clown show is depressing, but those who have chosen climate as their resistance focus need to recognize how much impact is possible–and for that matter, necessary– at the local level, through actions both by local governments and the private sector.

Time Magazine recently had a story about the ways in which small business enterprises (SME’s) can fight climate change. The author reminded us that there are numerous ways to focus on “tackling climate change from the ground up—from cities cutting their own footprints to grassroots activists making changes in their backyards.”

Approximately 90% of the world’s businesses are SMEs; those firms are responsible for a significant share of global emissions. News headlines at the intersection of business and climate often focus on big companies with household names, but to achieve global climate ambitions, small firms need to be engaged….

For the small companies that engage, decarbonization can be rewarding. It helps them access new markets as Europe and many Asian markets have begun to impose sustainability requirements for imported products. Greener products appeal to consumers who are looking for sustainable products, too. And sustainability efforts make SMEs more resilient to climate risks like extreme weather.

The article noted a report from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) that identified emerging mechanisms—from green loans to supply chain finance—intended to facilitate green practices at small businesses.

Local governments also have a number of initiatives they can employ to combat climate change–everything from installing new technologies to improve their own energy efficiency, to encouraging the construction of energy efficient buildings (including rooftop solar and/or green roofs), moving public transportation systems to clean energy and promoting other kinds of low-carbon transportation, creating pedestrian and bicycle-only zones  and enhancing urban green spaces…the list goes on.

Many of these projects also enhance the quality of urban and suburban life. Planting trees and expanding public parks are environmentally important steps that also provide recreation for citizens, for example.

There is an argument to be made that –if sufficient numbers of local jurisdictions engage in these efforts–the impact would equal or exceed the mechanisms currently employed (and endangered) at the federal level. In any event, most of the actions available to local businesses and governments cannot be stymied by the know-nothings in Washington.

As a recent article from the University of California explained,

Local government can play a unique and critical role addressing the climate crisis. Local governments have immediate impact on the daily lives of community members and personal connections to constituents. We have a clear line of sight to understand how climate change is impacting people on a daily basis. If leveraged correctly, local governments have the power to bring people together across party lines to address local issues with creativity and agility.

The article listed a number of successful efforts already underway. Consider them a “road map” for resisting Project 2025’s prescription for planetary disaster.

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The Arrogance Of Power

As Indiana’s election looms, the enduring truth of one of Jennifer McCormick’s talking points is hard to miss: it’s time for a change.

Indiana has been ruled by Republicans for over twenty years. We’ve had Republican Governors and a Republican legislature–and for the past several years, a Republican super-majority in that legislature. For any political party, a persistent lack of balance–and thanks to gerrymandering, a perceived lack of any real competition–leads to corruption. (“Power corrupts” is as old and hoary an adage as “it’s time for a change.)

The problem with extended one-party rule isn’t simply that extremists can pass rules and push through legislation without considering contending viewpoints or public opinion–it’s that those exercising power come to believe that they can do anything they want, legal or not, without worrying about the consequences. Two recent stories–one from the Indiana Citizen and one from The Capitol Chronicle–are directly on point.

The Indiana Citizen reports on the continuing corruption of the Attorney General’s office headed by Todd Rokita. A Marion County Superior Court has sanctioned two state agencies and the lawyers from the Indiana Attorney General’s Office who represented them, detailing ongoing misconduct and ordering them to pay nearly $375,000. While the agencies involved are certainly not blameless, the responsibility for complying with court orders and responding truthfully to questions from the court and other litigants rests squarely on the shoulders of the lawyers representing them. 

According to the court, 

Respondents and their counsel committed multiple types of unacceptable misconduct on numerous occasions. They acted in an unreasonable manner with disregard for Petitioners, the Court and the orderly process of justice,” Joven wrote in the order granting petition for attorney fees and costs. “Further, Respondents failed to explain why the repeated acts of misconduct occurred and went uncured, failed to accept responsibility for the misconduct, failed to express remorse, and failed to identify steps that have been taken to prevent such unacceptable misconduct from occurring in the future.”

Worse, this evidently wasn’t the first time these lawyers had been sanctioned. Only a year before this case was filed, “the Indiana Department of Correction, its counsel from the attorney general’s office and the attorney general’s office itself were sanctioned in another case for making false representations to the federal judge, making false discovery responses and submitting a brief that contained false information.” In other words, despite that previous ruling, lawyers from the AG’s office persisted in conduct that violated their ethical and legal obligations.

Courts have also smacked down Todd Rokita personally. He hasn’t listened either.

Then there’s the case against Jamie Noel, the southern Indiana political heavyweight who who pleaded guilty earlier this month to 27 felonies. Noel’s corruption, and his cozy ties to numerous state Republicans, have been the subject of considerable reporting, but The Capital Chronicle has focused on the effects of that corruption.

When a life is on the line in the back of an ambulance, first responders are supposed to have the best tools available to give every patient a fighting chance, said former paramedic Crystal Blevins. But for many who worked at New Chapel EMS — the southern Indiana emergency service provider previously ran by now-convicted former Clark County Sheriff Jamey Noel — “the equipment and the medicine, a lot of the time, wasn’t there.”

“There was this lie being presented to the public about what New Chapel was giving — they weren’t fulfilling that promise. Jamey ran the service out of greed … telling us there weren’t funds for what we needed, and then we came to find out the money was there all along,” Blevins told the Indiana Capital Chronicle. …

Court documents indicate that Noel stole more than half of the taxpayer dollars provided to New Chapel by Clark and Floyd counties. In his last four years as leader, he pocketed at least half a million dollars in wages and spent $2 million more on vacations, clothing, Rolex watches, child support payments, his daughter’s college tuition and more, according to state auditors.

Noel served as the Clark County sheriff from 2015 until the end of 2022. He was also the Republican Party chair for both Clark County and Indiana’s 9th Congressional District. That made him the gatekeeper for southern Indiana’s Republican political hopefuls for the last decade.

Noel and Rokita are examples of the hubris that enables corruption. When a political party uses its legislative power to gerrymander the electorate and ensure its continuation of political control, that cronyism invites abuse by greedy and self-interested individuals who are confident that they are beyond the reach of angry constituents.

Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. It is definitely time for a change. 

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