Category Archives: Local Government

A Very Good Step

I get positively giddy when I actually get to blog about something positive, and these days, those opportunities are rare. But what do you know–Indianapolis’ new Mayor, Joe Hogsett, has provided me with that opportunity!

According to the Indianapolis Star, the Mayor is moving aggressively to close the gaping loopholes in the City’s ethics ordinance.

Today when a lobbyist wines and dines a City-County Council member, he or she has to disclose the cost of the meal, but not who ate it.

This is among a number of loopholes in the city ethics code that Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett is attempting to close with a package of reforms introduced at this week’s council meeting.

Co-sponsored by Democratic Councilmen Blake Johnson and Leroy Robinson, the ordinance would strengthen reporting requirements, impose stronger penalties for violations and create a web portal for easier public access to ethics disclosures. It would also establish a cooling-off period similar to that for state employees.

Many of the provisions contained in the ethics overhaul were introduced last year by then-Councilor Kip Tew. For reasons I have never understood, the Council declined to pass Tew’s version, which was very similar to the one introduced on behalf of Mayor Hogsett. Now, they will have another chance.

Under the pending proposal, lobbyists who repeatedly break the rules could find themselves and their firms subjected to lifetime bans. Contractors who violate the ordinance could be banned for a single offense.

These changes are long overdue. In the six years the current ordinance has been in effect, there has not been a single effort to enforce it, despite multiple accusations of “cozy” relationships between elected officials and those doing business with the city.

Giving the rules real teeth, making them clearer, and making access to documentation easier, will go a long way toward restoring trust in local government.

Now if we could just do something about ethical standards at the General Assembly….

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Pence’s ‘Rap Sheet’

Yesterday’s quiz was evidently a big hit, so I thought I’d try another one. For this one, however, Hoosiers will have a big advantage.

The fact that I am no fan of Indiana Governor Mike Pence will hardly come as a surprise to readers of this blog. (I have this old-fashioned notion that people running for political office should have an interest in governing and an acquaintance with the Constitution….).

If my Facebook feed is any indication, I have a lot of company. The other day, I came across several posts identifying the various reasons Pence does not deserve re-election, and I thought it might be interesting to compile them into what I will call the Governor’s “rap sheet.”

Here, in no particular order, are the grievances I noted:

  •  In 2012, Glenda Ritz was elected Superintendent of Public Instruction with more votes than Pence received. Subsequently, the Governor has done everything in his power to obstruct Ritz, to eviscerate her authority, and (not so incidentally), to make war on public education in Indiana, by–among other things–diverting desperately needed resources to the most extensive voucher program in the country.
  • When citizens posted objections to the Governor’s priorities to his Facebook site, the negative comments mysteriously disappeared.
  •  RFRA (need I elaborate?) This bit of homophobia has cost the Indiana economy millions and has made “Hoosier Hospitality” a punch line.
  • Pence and his legislative super-majority have waged a sustained attack on women’s right to choose, and on Planned Parenthood. Tax dollars have been diverted to “pro-life” organizations, and Indiana recently passed the most draconian and offensive anti-abortion bill in the country.
  • There was the ill-fated effort to create Indiana’s very own Pravda. 
  • The Pence administration has been an enthusiastic supporter of  “privatized prisons.”
  • The Governor ignored the drug and HIV/AIDS epidemic in Scott County until it was a full-blown crisis, and even then was unwilling to respond with a comprehensive approach.
  • He refused to apply for a federal grant that would have supported pre-school expansion for low-income children.
  • He refused to expand Medicaid under the terms of the Affordable Care Act, despite the fact that the federal government would have paid the entire cost for 3 years and 90% thereafter; his substitute program–which became effective after a significant  delay–provides more limited healthcare to fewer Hoosiers than would otherwise have been the case.
  • He has directed Indiana’s Attorney General to spend time and money on a number of lost-cause cases: anti-LGBT efforts, resistance to environmental regulations; to rejecting refugees.

So here’s the quiz question: What have I missed?

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Um…About Those “Laboratories of Democracy”….

Federalism is one of the most important elements of America’s constitutional architecture (although my students’ lack of acquaintance with that term might suggest otherwise).

Federalism refers to the division of authority between federal, state and local levels of government; it rests on the premise (sometimes called subsidiarity) that problems are best addressed by the smallest unit of government able to deal with them. Americans have long had a strong bias toward “local control.”

In a phrase that has resonated, former Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis referred to the states as “laboratories of democracy.” The idea is that states would initiate experiments with new programs, new ways of doing things, and if those new ideas were successful, other states would replicate those “pilot programs.”

It’s a nice theory, and it works in some contexts. But it assumes the ability of other states to learn from the successes and especially from the failures of others. And that hasn’t been happening.

I’ve written before about the very different policies being applied in Wisconsin and Minnesota–but more states are following Wisconsin, which is in a world of hurt, than are following Minnesota, which is thriving. Kansas and Louisiana are economic disasters, yet Republican governors (including, of course, Indiana’s Mike Pence) are blindly following the policies that led them down that road.

Speaking of Mike Pence, his photograph recently “graced” a blistering article detailing the growth of right-wing radicalism at the state level. The article asserts that while Americans are transfixed by a federal presidential campaign that sometimes seems to have been copied from a grade B movie, state-level lawmakers are busily rolling back hard-won advances in equality and freedom of choice.

While the nation’s eyes are riveted to the national stage, Republicans continue the multi-decade project of turning our nation into a right-wing wasteland by focusing their efforts where they can have the most impact with the least attention: state legislatures.

The article lists–among other travesties–bills in Indiana and Florida intended to cut off access to abortion and even birth control; Oklahoma’s efforts to strip any doctor who performs an abortion of his license to practice medicine, and an Iowa state senator’s proposal to make abortion a hate crime.

A whole raft of GOP-led states–including “moderate” John Kasich’s Ohio– is busily defunding Planned Parenthood.

But it isn’t just the war on women. Wisconsin (!) is proposing to fine so-called “sanctuary cities.” Iowa wants to authorize handgun possession and use for children under 14, while Arizona is moving a bill that would forbid state and local officials from enforcing federal firearms laws. Arizona is also loosening the already-weak regulation of “dark money” in politics.

Several states are prohibiting the use of “sharia law.” (It’s a safe bet that none of the wackos pushing this particular bit of nonsense have the faintest idea what sharia law is. They just don’t like Muslims.)

And of course, the frantic effort to push LGBT citizens back into the closet–and thus mollify the homophobes and theocrats who form such a prominent part of their base–is going full-steam ahead.

Thanks to gerrymandering, voting out these state-level legislative embarrassments ranges from difficult to virtually impossible. But you can’t gerrymandering a statewide office, and here in Indiana, getting rid of Mike Pence would be a very good place to start.

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Bagging Home Rule

The IBJ reports on a measure approved by the Indiana Senate that would prevent local government units from taxing or restricting the use of disposable plastic bags by retailers, including grocery stores.

Sen. Brent Steele, R-Bedford, said businesses, industry groups and many consumers oppose regulation of bag use.

Many consumers are also citizens who believe the cities they live in should have the right to determine their own policies–on plastic bags, on public transportation, and on the myriad other issues pre-empted by state legislators who believe that they know better than local officials what rules Indiana residents should follow, and what programs and/or initiatives those residents should be allowed to implement.

Whatever your opinion about plastic bags or public transportation, the high-handedness of our statehouse overlords on those and other issues ought to infuriate you.

It is particularly offensive that decisions affecting residents of urban areas are routinely made by representatives of suburban and especially rural populations, whose grasp of the challenges and realities faced by elected officials in metropolitan areas is limited, at best, and whose hostility to the needs of Indianapolis and Central Indiana is a perennial statehouse reality.

This disinclination to allow Indianapolis to govern itself, to make decisions about its own affairs, is particularly galling because the city is the economic driver of the state.

Talk about your “makers” and “takers”!

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Stop the World–Mike Pence Wants Off

Religion News Service reports on an interesting recent survey in which people were asked about the purported conflict between religious liberty and civil rights for LGBT Americans.

The short version? Most Americans oppose religious exemptions to LGBT non-discrimination laws.

The details?

  • 71 percent– including majorities in all 50 states and 30 major metropolitan areas — support laws that would protect gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people from discrimination in jobs, housing and public accommodations.
  • 59 percent oppose allowing small-business owners in their state to refuse service to gay and lesbian people, if doing so conflicts with their religious beliefs.
  • 53 percent of Americans support same-sex marriage, compared with 37 percent (including most evangelical Protestants and Mormons) who oppose it.

Even among groups opposed to same-sex marriage, support for protection from discrimination crosses all “partisan, religious, geographic, and demographic lines,” according to Public Religion Research Institute CEO Robert P. Jones.

The survey results demonstrate something that many of us have suspected: opposition to civic equality for LGBT folks is not coming primarily from religious denominations or organizations. (Click through to see the breakdown.) Anti-gay bias is primarily a political position, not a religious one, and the difference between the political parties is stark: the survey found that 74 percent of Democrats but only 40 percent of Republicans support civil rights protections for LGBT citizens.

Of course, that’s little comfort for those of us who live in blue cities located in bright red states like Indiana.

In our gerrymandered state, it would take a lot of organization, a lot of energy, and a truly superior “get out the vote” effort even to reduce the legislative super-majority enjoyed by the GOP. But those of us who disapprove of the legislature’s failure to add four words and a comma to the state’s civil rights law—and those of us embarrassed by our Governor’s homophobic and theocratic impulses—do have the opportunity to send a very clear message to the political establishment by decisively defeating Governor Pence this November.

Unlike the majority of religious folks, Mike Pence hasn’t come to terms with social progress. It isn’t just LGBT Hoosiers; his views on education, the environment and women are wildly at odds with the views of most of our citizens. His disinterest in the nitty-gritty of governing, and the damage he’s done to the state’s business climate, make him eminently beatable.

Maybe we can’t stop the world to let him off—but we can retire him and get on with the business of making Indiana a state that welcomes everyone.

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