Doubling Down

The Chair of the National Republican Party pooh-poohs the notion that his party is waging a war on women–next, he says, the Democrats will accuse the GOP of a war on caterpillars. How silly, how over-the-top! Just another one of those politically-motivated charges that are thrown around during a campaign season.

At virtually the same time Priebus (or whatever his name is) was comparing women to caterpillars (okay–maybe that wasn’t his intent), Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker (yes, that Scott Walker) was signing a new law –passed on a straight party-line vote–repealing his state’s 2009 Equal Pay Enforcement Act.

The Equal Pay Enforcement Act  made it easier for victims of wage discrimination to have their day in court, by allowing plaintiffs to bring suit in state courts. Without it, federal courts are the only proper venue for such complaints. State courts, as lawyers all know, are less costly and more accessible, and typically resolve cases more quickly.

This little skirmish is typical of the tactics being used to circumscribe women’s rights. There was no outright reversal of a right–just a measure making it much more difficult to assert that right. This is the same approach being used by most of the anti-abortion measures that have sprouted like dandelions since the 2010 elections swept Republicans into office: the Supreme Court may say they can’t impose an outright ban, but they can bury clinics in a blizzard of medically unnecessary regulations that make it impossible to operate. They can “protect” poor women who clearly don’t know what they want by enacting “informed consent” provisions more burdensome than those required for major, life-threatening surgeries.

Contraception? Well, God’s Own Party has tried to permit your employer to decide whether your insurance should cover birth control, and the party has made it very clear that given the power, it would get rid of Planned Parenthood.

No war?

The troops are marching down the Trans-vaginal Highway as we speak…..

Law and Order

Well, I certainly feel safer now that the Supreme Court has handed down its decision in Florence v. Burlington.

The issue in this case was whether jail officials have the right to strip-search anyone and everyone who is arrested, no matter what the charge and no matter the presence or lack of probable cause to believe the “strip-ee” possesses contraband or a weapon. The plaintiff in the case had been arrested for non-payment of a traffic ticket; it later turned out that he had paid his ticket, but due to a computer error, the payment wasn’t documented. (Governor Daniels can surely relate–those pesky computer errors have been cropping up with annoying frequency in his administration lately!)

According to the case syllabus,

“petitioner, like other arriving detainees, had to remove his clothing while an officer looked for body markings, wounds, and contraband; had an officer look at his ears, nose, mouth, hair, scalp, fingers, hands, arm- pits, and other body openings; had a mandatory shower; and had his clothes examined. Petitioner claims that he was also required to lift his genitals, turn around, and cough while squatting.”

The Court ruled 5-4 that authorities could lawfully require a person accused only of an unpaid traffic citation to submit to this process.

You can bet I won’t be jaywalking any time soon!

As Justice Breyer wrote in his dissent,

“In my view, such a search of an individual arrested for a minor offense that does not involve drugs or violence—say a traffic offense, a regulatory offense, an essentially civil matter, or any other such misdemeanor—is an “unreasonable search” forbidden by the Fourth Amendment, unless prison authorities have reasonable suspicion to believe that the individual possesses drugs or other contraband. And I dissent from the Court’s contrary determination.”

The majority placed a lot of emphasis on–and expressed sympathy for–the difficulties involved in running a penal institution. As a result, the Justices were unwilling to require those in charge to make initial distinctions–that is, to determine the presence or absence of probable cause sufficient to justify a bodily search of this magnitude.

But that is precisely what the 4th Amendment requires of government.

The prohibition against unreasonable searches doesn’t include a caveat for inconvenience or difficulty. And really, how threatening is a guy who’s been hauled in for an unpaid traffic ticket? If jail authorities can’t distinguish between an arrest for a traffic violation and one for theft or armed robbery, we have a lot bigger problem than strip searches.

A quick look at the breakdown of the Justices in the majority and minority certainly confirms the old saying that elections have consequences. We all need to “remember in November.”

And meanwhile, whatever you do, don’t cross against the light!

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It’s Only Money

As P.J. O’Rourke famously observed, “The Democrats are the party that says government will make you smarter, taller, richer, and remove the crabgrass on your lawn. The Republicans are the party that says government doesn’t work and then they get elected and prove it.”

P.J., you were prescient!

The headline in the Star tells the story: “For the second time in only four months, the state is admitting it made a massive revenue error.”

“This one cost counties $206 million in revenue that they have been owed from January 2011 to now and which will be repaid with interest as of April 5. The first, announced last December, resulted in a $320 million windfall to the state’s general fund.”

After the news of this latest “programming error” broke, a couple of heads rolled–appropriately, in my view. But the folks taking the fall are hardly the only incompetents in this situation.

As a disgusted (Republican) businessman friend of mine emailed me earlier today,

“So much for fiscal discipline and competent management.  If you recall, late last year the State “found” $320 million just sitting in a bank account, having not been “swept” into the general fund as all other tax revenues have/had; now they “find” – oops – that they failed to pay local units of government hundreds of millions of dollars they were owed.
Riddle me this: How can policy makers and legislators pass good/sound budgets when the governor/administration provides such wildly incorrect information on the state of the budget?  As just one example, Mitch pushed for the “automatic taxpayer refund” because our fiscal house is in such great shape – the State even calculated that taxpayers will get a whopping $70/person (whoopeee)… Will the state still pay that out and further starve govt and localities of needed revenue for essential services like crime control? And how do we know that calculation was even close to correct?”
The scorn heaped on the “lets run government like a business” Daniels Administration is well deserved; no real business would survive fiscal mismanagement on this scale.  But local governments aren’t exactly being run by  the sharpest knives in the drawer, either.  Didn’t the Ballard Administration notice the city had been shorted $41 million dollars? It’s not like Indianapolis was so awash in money that a missing $41 million simply escaped the notice of those charged with managing the City budget.
When the Daniels Administration “found” 320 million dollars it had overlooked a couple of months ago, the Governor brushed away calls for an independent audit. This latest “whoops!” suggests such an audit is considerably overdue.
State Senator Vi Simpson summed up this whole sorry mess in an email sent out today:

Today, we found out that Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels has mishandled more than half a billion dollars of our money.

While he was out of the country, the Governor’s Office said the state has deprived counties of $206 million in revenue between January 2011 and now. That money will be repaid with interest, and several top officials are resigning in the wake of the scandal.

Last year, Daniels jokingly told reporters that “finding” more than $300 million in missing revenue was like getting an early Christmas gift.

It was no joking matter then, and now that the problem has grown $200 million more serious, it’s starting to feel like Hoosier taxpayers have been the victims of a cruel April Fool’s prank.

I was one of several Democrats who publicly called for an outside audit after the first round of missing money was discovered. At the time, Daniels dismissed it as a partisan plea.

He was wrong then, and now we know his frequent cries for “fiscal responsibility” have never applied to his own administration.

The worst part of this story isn’t the horrendous mismanagement of hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars – it’s the fact that local governments have had to lay off police officers and firefighters and reduce services to make ends meet because Daniels was hording their money.

It’s hard to argue with that assessment.


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In Other News, the Sun Rose this Morning….

According to reports in the IBJ and elsewhere, the trial pitting IBM against the State of the Indiana is winding down. At issue are cross-claims about the reasons for and propriety of the termination of IBM’s contract to provide welfare intake services.

According to the IBJ, IBM’s lawyer argued that the real reason for the termination was state budgetary woes. The State’s lawyers defended the termination by complaining that “IBM was more concerned about profit than getting assistance to needy people.”

And the sun rises in the east….

Those of us who study outsourcing have repeatedly made the point that–while contracting can be a useful tool in many circumstances–it is not appropriate in areas where government is providing essential services to vulnerable populations. Despite lots of irresponsible rhetoric to the contrary, government is not a business. It’s purposes and aims are different. Private, for-profit organizations have a duty to shareholders; government agencies have obligations to citizens.

Evidently, this essential distinction escaped the notice of the Daniels Administration, which is now shocked–shocked to discover that a business would prioritize the pursuit of profit.

In other breaking news, it appears that rain is wet.

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Incomprehensible

The United States is rooted in the Enlightenment–an era that gave us empiricism and the scientific method. Our approach to government was forged by philosophers who extolled reason and evidence. We have always looked up to scientists, and scientists–who are best able to pursue their ideas in an open culture–have historically flocked to our shores.

“Yankee ingenuity” produced a constant flow of important inventions. Fulton gave us the steamboat; Samuel Morse the telegraph, Eli Whitney the cotton gin. Thomas Edison was credited with more than 1000 inventions. The Wright brothers gave us the airplane. The list goes on and on.

Americans were first to set foot on the moon.

Technology–from the telegraph to the IPhone, from the automobile to your television set– builds upon basic scientific principles. The  inventions and advances we take for granted would not have been possible had the country remained rooted in the superstition that characterized pre-Enlightenment Europe.  Just as the early colonists rejected the proposition that monarchs were divinely ordained, they were open to the example of men like Benjamin Franklin who engaged in empirical experimentation and scientific investigation.

Okay, I hear you saying. Well and good. What has prompted this particular rant?

I just read a recent survey of the American attitudes and beliefs.  It found that 39% of us believe in evolution.

At a time when we are spending billions of dollars on medical and biological research–all of which is based upon evolution–only 39% of Americans accept a settled scientific theory. Indeed, if political rhetoric is any indication, very few Americans even understand the difference between scientific theory–an explanatory framework constructed after painstaking empirical testing–and a wild-ass guess, which is the conversational use of the term.

Thirty-nine percent of Americans are scientifically literate–or at least scientifically literate enough to understand and accept the operation and importance of evolution.

There are many indicators of a nation in decline. The Creation Museum–where Adam and Eve saddle up their dinosaurs to romp through  a world created in its current form less than 10,000 years ago–may be the most significant such indicator.

And the most tragic.

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