Guns, Gays and Greenhouse Gases…Welcome to Indiana’s Legislature

I don’t know about the rest of you, but when Indiana’s (mercifully part-time) legislature is in session, I tend to break out in hives. Thanks to our massively gerrymandered election map, a number of people who get elected to that august body tend to advocate measures that don’t reflect the opinions of most Hoosiers.

It’s hard to escape the conclusion that, in many cases, Indiana’s lawmakers’ actual constituencies are the special interests–the NRA and gun manufacturers, the Christian Right, Big Agriculture….

A quick look at some of the bills being considered this year may illustrate the point:

Let’s start with guns. Every year, guns kill some 33,000 Americans. The Indiana General Assembly isn’t deterred by that number, or by repeated massacres of children and innocents. No siree. This year, bills have been introduced 1) to get rid of Indiana’s requirement of a license to carry a handgun, 2) to allow guns at public universities and state office buildings, and 3) to make it easier for repeat alcohol offenders to get a handgun license.

What could possibly go wrong?

I’ve posted previously about the reluctance of our lawmakers to just bite the bullet and admit that LGBT folks are citizens and taxpayers entitled to the same civil rights protections that apply to women, racial minorities and religious folks. (Although it has been sort of enjoyable to watch the discomfort of legislators who are used to doing the bidding of both the Religious Right and business interests—constituencies that are on opposite sides of this issue.)

Survey research has uniformly found a solid majority of Hoosiers favor adding “four words and a comma” to the state civil rights statute. Employers large and small are lobbying for that approach, and significant numbers of clergy and other representatives of faith communities have come out to support it–but our lawmakers have thus far been reluctant to incur the wrath of the small (but shrill and intensely homophobic) Christian Right.

Then there’s HB 1082, authored by Representative David Wolkins. Dubbed the “no more stringent than” bill, it would forbid Indiana agencies from making or enforcing any environmental rule that is more stringent than those established by the federal government. As the Palladium-Item noted

Indiana consistently ranks near the bottom of the states regarding environmental quality. If State Rep. David Wolkins, R-Winona Lake, has his way, Indiana will stay there.

As the Hoosier Environmental Council points out, the situation in Flint illustrates precisely those gaps in federal regulation that Indiana would be prevented from addressing under HB 1082: For example, under federal regulations, drinking water systems can continue to deliver lead-tainted water to households and businesses for up to 24 months while a variety of fixes are attempted. In 24 months, children’s health and cognitive abilities can be permanently damaged.

In fact, there are a number of areas where EPA regulations are considered weak, among them pollution from fracking, factory farm manure pits, and outdoor wood boilers. There are probably others.

Why would we want to prevent Indiana from addressing areas where federal regulations may prove to be inadequate for our needs? It isn’t as if the absence of a “no more stringent” bill would require the state to act. Why tie the hands of those charged with citizens’ public health and safety?

I’m sure a closer examination of the bills that have been introduced would uncover still others belonging to the category that I call “good god, what were they thinking?”

Maybe I should just drink until they go home….

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Will We Learn the Right Lessons from Flint?

Inquiries triggered by the Flint, Michigan water crisis have turned up several unpleasant reminders that ideology is no substitute for managerial competence or public ethics.

The most offensive recent discovery was evidence that—at the same time state officials were assuring Flint residents that their water was safe—they were providing clean water to state workers. As the Detroit Free Press reports,

In January of 2015, when state officials were telling worried Flint residents their water was safe to drink, they also were arranging for coolers of purified water in Flint’s State Office Building so employees wouldn’t have to drink from the taps, according to state government e-mails released Thursday by the liberal group Progress Michigan.

A Jan. 7, 2015, notice from the state Department of Technology, Management and Budget, which oversees state office buildings, references a notice about a violation of drinking water standards that had recently been sent out by the City of Flint.

“While the City of Flint states that corrective actions are not necessary, DTMB is in the process of providing a water cooler on each occupied floor, positioned near the water fountain, so you can choose which water to drink,” said the notice.

Needless to say, residents of Flint did not get a similar choice.

Then there’s this…

In The Public Interest is a think-tank monitoring privatization in the U.S. The organization warns the public when poorly-conceived public-private “partnerships” threaten to enrich private contractors without serving the public interest, or when such arrangements lack sufficient oversight or accountability. According to its recent newsletter,

In February 2015, almost a full year before the news of widespread lead poisoning gained headlines, the world’s largest private water corporation, Veolia, deemed Flint’s water safe. They were hired by the city to assess water that many residents had been complaining about—a General Motors plant had even stopped using Flint’s water because it was rusting car parts.

Veolia, a French transnational corporation, deemed Flint’s water to be “in compliance with State and Federal regulations.” While they recommended small changes to improve water color and quality, their report didn’t mention lead.

The city paid Veola 40,000 for that advice. Apparently, state government lacked the expertise to assess either the water quality or Veola’s competence to test it.

Whether the Governor and/or his aides were criminally negligent is a determination for the courts. That they are responsible for incalculable damage is inarguable.

Let me be clear: I have a bias here. I teach in a school of public affairs, a school that operates on the belief that competent public management requires knowledge of public finance, an understanding of the policy process, and respect for democratic institutions, public law and public ethics. We offer rigorous courses in those and related subjects.

Contrary to what appears to be popular opinion, the average businessman or CEO cannot just waltz into a government office and do a credible job; very different constraints—both managerial and ethical— apply to public service. You cannot do what Governor Snyder did, and simply abort the democratic process, install your preferred puppet to manage political subdivisions in accordance with your preferred ideology, and “hire out” essential responsibilities.

When we elect people who don’t understand the difference between the public and private sectors, and don’t care to learn, we get Flint.

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How Gerrymandering Gave us Donald Trump (And Bernie, too)

Last night was another Republican debate, this time minus “The Donald.” It’s difficult to believe that this assortment of wannabes is the best a once-serious political party can muster.

How have we come to this?

David Brooks, the conservative columnist for the New York Times, is a thoughtful observer of the American scene, and while (in my opinion) he often misses with his analysis, he also often contributes to our understanding of the America we inhabit.

In a recent column, Brooks honed in on the public’s pervasive feelings of powerlessness:

The Republican establishment thinks the grass roots have the power but the grass roots think the reverse. The unions think the corporations have the power but the corporations think the start-ups do. Regulators think Wall Street has the power but Wall Street thinks the regulators do. The Pew Research Center asked Americans, “Would you say your side has been winning or losing more?” Sixty-four percent of Americans, with majorities of both parties, believe their side has been losing more.

These days people seem to underestimate their own power or suffer from what Giridharadas calls the “anxiety of impotence.”…

There are, as Brooks points out, many reasons for these perceptions of powerlessness, and certainly not all of them are political. That said, however, a case can be made that one of the great frustrations fueling the palpable anger in today’s electorate is the realization by so many citizens that their votes don’t count.

The American message has always been that we have political choice. If we don’t approve of the behavior of our political representatives, we can vote them out. Increasingly, that’s not true; gerrymandering has produced Congressional districts that would re-elect dead people if they ran with the correct political label.

At the federal level, the House of Representatives is unrepresentative of the American public, and likely to remain that way. In the last Congressional cycle, Democrats garnered a million more votes than the Republicans who nevertheless remain firmly in control—and, thanks to checks and balances—able to obstruct and defeat policies favored by a popularly-elected President.

I’ve written previously about the lack of competitiveness that gerrymandering produces, and about other deleterious consequences of the practice. Brooks points to one I omitted: the frustration experienced by citizens who feel—with considerable justification—that they have no voice.

Plagued by the anxiety of impotence many voters are drawn to leaders who pretend that our problems could be solved by defeating some villain. Donald Trump says stupid elites are the problem. Ted Cruz says it’s the Washington cartel. Bernie Sanders says it’s Wall Street.

When voters feel powerless, they are vulnerable to simple messages, identifiable villains, and candidates who channel their anger.

If history is any guide, that has never turned out well.

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Civil Rights and the Religious Right

Yesterday at the Indiana statehouse, hearings were held on three bills taking different approaches to GLBT civil rights. None of those bills as originally written actually extended civil rights protections to the gay community—at their best (which wasn’t particularly good), they were efforts to look like the state is protecting the rights of LGBT Hoosiers without actually doing so— efforts to avoid the wrath of both a business community that supports real civil rights protections, and the Christian Right, which most definitely does not.

Of course, some of our legislators aren’t even pretending.

When I went to bed last night (we’re old and I go to bed early), the worst of the measures, a bill that had been dubbed “super RFRA,” was dead (at least for the moment), and a hearing on the others was still going on. This morning, I learned that SB344–which will now move to the Senate floor, would repeal RFRA and replace it with”protections” neutered by religious exemptions.

Genuine extension of civil rights to the LGBT community would be simple: four words and a comma added to the Indiana law that currently protects people from being discriminated against on the basis of race, religion, gender, and national origin. (Interestingly, there aren’t religious exemptions to those categories: if your religion preaches separation of the races or subordination of women, tough. You still can’t fire black people or refuse to serve women.)The convoluted measure that emerged is pretty strong evidence that Indiana legislators really don’t want gays and lesbians (and definitely not transgender Hoosiers) to be treated as citizens entitled to equal treatment.

These legislators are in thrall to the diminishing number of fundamentalist religious activists who want to be able to pick on gay people without worrying about some law requiring owners of public accommodations to actually accommodate all members of the public.

Ironically, all these howls of religious righteousness, all this deference to the delicate religious sensibilities of Christian literalists, is taking place at the same time that leaders of those groups are displaying the highly selective nature of their religiosity. Yesterday, Jerry Falwell, Jr.—one of those who finds homosexuality to be an “abomination”— endorsed Donald Trump for President.

So let me get this straight (pun intended). Gay people—even the most exemplary gay people in long-term, loving relationships—are sinners not to be accorded civic equality or human dignity. But a three-time married megalomaniac who has repeatedly used bankruptcy laws to screw over his creditors, who has flaunted his sex life in the tabloids, who has separated poor people from their money in his casinos, lies constantly and has repeatedly exhibited the crudest racism, sexism and xenophobia—that man is entitled to your “Christian” approval and endorsement.

If there was ever any doubt, Falwell’s endorsement makes one thing clear: This pious insistence that religious objectors should be accorded “special rights” to discriminate isn’t theology. It isn’t based upon their (selective and convenient) reading of their bibles.

It’s bigotry. And our lawmakers should not accommodate it.

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I Know I’m a Broken Record…

Every so often, a Facebook friend posts an article about colleges that aren’t “worth” the investment of tuition. Usually, these lists are compiled by magazines or pundits out to prove a point, and I just grit my teeth and scroll on.

But recently, the usually responsible Brookings Institution got into the act.  An article titled “More data can make college less risky” began with the assertion that the “vast majority” of students go to college because they believe that it will improve their “employment opportunities and financial wellbeing.” The authors recommended that students do what other “investors” do—research their prospective investments.

And what sort of “research” did they suggest?

For decades, economists discussed the average benefits of a college education compared to a high school education with no regard to either field of study or institution. Finally, in 2009, the Census Bureau started collecting data that could be used to assess which majors pay the most,[iii] and then just a few months ago, the Department of Education released data on the earnings of alumni by institution, for all students who receive federal grants or loans. These data can be further analyzed, as we have done, to estimate the economic contribution of schools (or value-added) as distinct from the outcomes attributable to student characteristics (like test scores).

This approach is perfectly fine, if one plans on attending a vocational school.

The assumption that college is a place you go to get job training (and if you can afford it, a social life on a pretty campus) explains so much of what is wrong not just with higher education, but with American institutions in general.

Let me be very clear: there is nothing wrong with job training. There is nothing wrong with colleges helping students acquire marketable skills. But that is not their mission. Their mission is education. 

We live in an age where a candidate for President feels free to sneer at philosophers because they make less than plumbers. (Actually, Mr. Rubio, they don’t, but that’s beside the point.) We live in an age where politicians and pundits can and do make ridiculous, factually inaccurate statements secure in the knowledge that only a few “pointy-headed intellectuals” (i.e., people who read and think) will notice or care, an age where ideologues can distort history with impunity because no one has studied it, and cite the Constitution for propositions that would make the Founders turn over in their graves, because their only acquaintance with it is a vague memory of a week in high school government class.

Only in a country that has lost respect for the life of the mind and for intellectual integrity would the Senate vote to deny man’s contribution to climate change. (Perhaps they can vote on the value of Pi next. The Indiana legislature once did that. Or on whether the earth orbits the sun.)

In saner times, we valued knowledge of the arts, literature and philosophy, knowledge of other cultures, science. We valued knowledge for its own sake—and we studied the world in order to understand it, not just in order to make money.

A college that turns out excellent philosophers, artists, musicians, anthropologists and public administrators is probably not going to have alumni earning the highest median wages. That tells prospective students absolutely nothing about the quality of the institution.

I agree that prospective students should research colleges, but not to determine how much their graduates earn.

Here are some questions students should ask:  How good are the professors? How selective is the admissions process and how diverse the student body—will you be studying with people whose conversations will enrich your own understanding and broaden your horizons? How large are the classes? Will you be able to interact with your professors, or will you be in oversized lecture halls tended largely by TAs? Will you emerge with a better understanding of the world you inhabit, and an enhanced ability to be a contributing and thoughtful citizen? 

I’ve said it before: If your only concern is job training, go to trade school.

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