Tag Archives: Indiana

I Rest My Case

Okay-I probably won’t really “rest my case” so long as Indiana lawmakers continue to prove my point–but I thought I’d give readers a smattering of information about the government produced by Indiana’s gerrymandering. 

First up: we’ve recently learned that Indiana State Rep. Jim Lucas will offer an amendment to the state budget bill–and it’s a doozy. Lucas wants to provide a $2000 tax credit for any Hoosier citizen who purchases an automatic or semi-automatic gun in the next two years.

You read that right. At a time when the proliferation of weapons more suited to war is facilitating daily mass shootings, Lucas wants to encourage people to add to their arsenals. 

Our daughter occasionally looks at Lucas’ Facebook page, and reports that it’s a fetid swamp of racism, anti-Semitism, pro-Trump conspiracies and–of course–“Second Amendment” devotion. Lucas was quoted defending his proposal by saying

“I am very concerned about the safety of our Hoosier families during this next national election period”, said Rep Lucas. “In a circular logic that makes perfect sense to me, our system of elections is breaking down and every citizen needs to be prepared to defend themself from the angry, armed mobs I anticipate we will see”, Rep Lucas said.

Indiana doesn’t keep all of its wacko extremists in the General Assembly; we send more than our share of theocrats and culture warriors to Washington. I’ve mentioned Jim Banks before; currently representing Hoosiers in the House, Banks now intends to run for the Senate seat being vacated by yet another culture warrior, Mike Braun, who wants to be Governor. 

Banks recently emphasized his anti-choice credentials in a radio interview.

Hoosier congressman seeking to represent Indiana in the U.S. Senate is expressing support for reducing abortion options in other states.

During an interview on Fort Wayne’s WOWO-AM radio, U.S. Rep. Jim Banks, R-Columbia City, responded favorably Thursday to a suggestion by host Pat Miller that more needs to be done to restrict abortion in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 24, 2022, Dobbs decision repealing the right to abortion established in 1973 by Roe v. Wade.

“Our work as a pro-life movement is far from over,” Miller said. “If a young lady can hop in a car in Fort Wayne and in an hour and a half she can be in a place in Michigan, or in just under three hours she can cross the line into Illinois, and achieve what she was (un)able to do with abortion clinics here in Indiana, the fight is far from over.”

Banks subsequently denied that he wants to impose travel restrictions on Indiana citizens (someone who had actually read the Constitution evidently pointed out that such a restriction would likely be struck down), but re-affirmed his support for a national ban modeled on the one passed by Indiana’s legislature, currently embroiled in a challenge pending  before Indiana’s Supreme Court.

Banks has been busy in the House of Representatives.  According to State Affairs,  Banks recently formed the “anti-woke” caucus.

Earlier this month, he formed the “anti-woke caucus,” explaining at the Claremont Institute, “This utterly un-American doctrine would be comical were it not so powerful and it is powerful because it is enforced not only by every major national institution. It is promoted and funded by the federal government itself.”

Shades of Ron DeSantis…

Then of course, there’s the ongoing saga of Todd Rokita, Indiana’s current Attorney General, who is positively frantic to prove that no one can outdo him when it comes to pandering to the deplorables. I’ve previously posted about Rokita’s tenuous connection to ethics, conclusions that have recently been corroborated by a court decision confirming that his constant PR efforts violate Indiana law.

Rokita has been in the news most recently for his vendetta against the Indiana doctor who performed an abortion on the ten-year-old rape victim from Ohio.  He also made news by defending Kanye West,after West’s anti-Semitic comments hit the news, tweeting

“The constant hypocrisy from the media is at an all-time high. They have now gone after Kanye for his new fashion line, his independent thinking, & for having opposing thoughts from the norm of Hollywood.”

I could probably devote several other posts to Rokita, but he is so widely despised (even by members of his own party) that it hardly seems worth the trouble.

I don’t for a minute think these extremists represent the average Hoosier, but thanks to the GOP’s chokehold on Indiana elections, they’re what we get.

I’ll just end with a great quote from comic Jim Gaffigan.  

“I’m from Indiana… In Indiana it’s not like New York where everyone’s like, ‘We’re from New York and we’re the best’ or ‘We’re from Texas and we like things big’ it’s more like ‘We’re from Indiana and we’re gonna move.’”  

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Fish Rot From The Head

Americans who follow politics know that even critics of party A and Congressman B  are likely to defend their own Congressperson. (Sort of like the critics of public education who defend their own school–it’s always those others that are failing. Back in the day in Indianapolis, Republicans who detested Democrats nevertheless repeatedly voted for Andy Jacobs, Jr.)

In this blog, I tend to focus on national politics. That focus may implicitly suggest that the faults and foibles of the people we send to Washington or empower to govern the state are somehow different- from–and worse than–those of the political folks closer to home.

As the song goes, “It ain’t necessarily so.”

Here in Indiana, I was recently made aware of a court case in Adams County, in which the Court invalidated an election for Union Township Trustee. The court found that Alice Weil, the Republican who won that election, was ineligible for public office due to the fact that she had previously been adjudicated a habitual offender. The court found that the Democratic candidate had  garnered the most votes awarded to eligible candidates; that person now holds the position.

The case generated little or no media coverage, and I think that’s very unfortunate, because it is yet another illustration of the way corruption at the top inevitably permeates an organization. Fish rot from the head, but the rot travels quickly to the rest of the body, and the wholesale deterioration of the GOP is a current, prime example.

It isn’t as if this candidate had fooled local party elders, ala George Santos.The Third District GOP Chair knew his candidate was ineligible–he was heard telling someone he’d have to “swap her out” if it was discovered.

Had the Third District Democrats not chosen to sue, Union Township would now have a convicted criminal as its Township Trustee. But the lawsuit cost the district Democrats six thousand dollars, which it is scrambling to cover. (The court declined to award costs–if there’s a generous reader out there, throw them some dollars!)

Third District residents (not just Democrats) have really suffered enough–their Congresscritter is Jim Banks, who now wants to be one of Indiana’s Senators.

In Washington, Banks was one of the founders of the (grotesquely misnamed) Freedom Caucus–the legislative caucus that includes such sterling defenders of the rule of law as Matt Gaetz, and deep thinkers like Marjorie Taylor Green and Lauren Boebert. Banks recently told  a radio host that he wants to find a way to stop “young ladies” from hopping in a car” to get abortion care outside Indiana.

Hoosiers outside the Third District who may be unacquainted with Banks’ interesting approach to “freedom” were recently introduced to his Senate campaign through its attack on prior Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, who is rumored to be considering a run for that same Senate spot. The attack paints Daniels as “too liberal” for Hoosiers.

Please retrieve your jaw from the floor. Granted, Mitch Daniels was not one of the committed culture warriors so beloved by today’s GOP, but calling him liberal is…well, let’s just say it’s quite a stretch.

Banks is a “conservative” in the mold of Ron DeSantis. Think racist, homophobic and “anti-woke,” anti-immigrant, anti-choice, pro-privatization of education…on and on. (I put conservative in quotes, because calling  the radical, theocratic wing of today’s GOP “conservative” is deeply unfair to genuine conservatives.)

Interestingly, people in the Third District tell me that Banks used to be a “traditional Republican”–that once he was in Congress, he “lost his mind” and became steadily more radical and unreasonable. Assuming the accuracy of that description, it mirrors reports of other Republicans who have succumbed to the temptations of power and self-aggrandizement during the past several years.

When the people at the helm of a political party embrace lies Big and little, when the man to whom they pledge their loyalty is a grifter and a con artist, when the party abandons even the pretense of policy positions in favor of “hate your neighbor” culture war/identity politics–is it any wonder that the obedient “troops” follow suit?

Then there’s the saddest lesson of all: When there is no longer local media capable of rooting out local corruption, it doesn’t take long for the rot to travel downward.

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How NOT To Do Economic Development

According to a recent report in the Capital Chronicle, the Indiana Economic Development Corporation wants a massive increase in funding. It justifies that request by insisting that larger expenditures are necessary to keep Indiana competitive in the national job market,  “especially as Indiana pivots from manufacturing to the “economy of the future.” Those industries — electric vehicles, semiconductors, agricultural technology — will need incentives to come to the Hoosier State.”

The article describes the nature of the “incentives” that will be offered: purchases of land, tax credits, a “Deal Closing Fund,” and others.

If you are interested in the details, you can find them at the link. My reason for highlighting the article is that it underlines Indiana’s persistent–and exclusive– focus on an economic development approach that is essentially bribery.

There’s a lot wrong with that focus.

First of all, even when successful, it uses tax dollars generated by Hoosiers to reward/bribe enterprises new to the state, rather than trying to grow businesses and employers who are already here. Second, it is an approach that buys in to the “zero sum” game being played by American states that are encouraged to bid against each other to lure Enterprise X,  which, if successful, simply moves the site of employment to state A from state B, rather than adding positions to the nation’s job market.

But my biggest beef with the bribery approach is that it misconceives and misunderstands what makes a state attractive both to business and to skilled workers.

In a recent interview, the new CEO of Techpoint spoke of that organization’s commitment to working with partners “to bring more people of color and women into the sector.” Indiana is currently 37th in tech employment, and–as I have previously noted– there are reasons for that.

Economic development– the addition of skilled workers and new companies–depends  on a state’s quality of life. That quality may be enhanced by good weather and natural beauty (assets Indiana mostly lacks), but it is a far more capacious concept.

As one economic development firm explains,  improving quality of life raises a destination’s desirability, attracts (and retains) population, adds revenue, and boosts recognition and reputation.

As the Brookings Institution has found,

There is compelling new data that these traditional economic development tools may be ineffective compared to investments in quality of life and place. Our research on smaller communities has found that community amenities such as recreation opportunities, cultural activities, and excellent services (e.g., good schools, transportation options) are likely bigger contributors to healthy local economies than traditional “business-friendly” measures. Smaller places with a higher quality of life experience both higher employment and population growth than similarly situated communities, including those that rank high by traditional economic competitiveness measures.

Research has shown that people are willing to pay higher housing prices and even accept lower wages to live in places offering a higher quality of life, and that businesses are willing to pay higher real estate prices and offer higher wages to locate in places with more productive workers.

After estimating quality of life (what makes a place attractive to households) and quality of business environment (what makes a place especially productive and attractive to businesses) in communities across the Midwest, we found quality of life matters more for population growth, employment growth, and lower poverty rates than quality of business environment. 

As the article notes, policymakers can’t build a Great Lake, mountain, or other natural feature. But they can focus on enhancing other quality of life aspects and providing solid public services for their current residents.

The Brookings analysis found that one of the strongest factors associated with higher quality of life was spending on public schools, “with public school quality and the availability of early childhood education being two of the most important factors for working parents.”

Bottom line?

The findings reinforce that local leaders and economic developers should prioritize quality of life strategies over tax incentives and lax regulation. The long-standing Midwestern community economic development strategy of low taxes, business incentives, and loose environmental regulations usually doesn’t work, and has often proven disappointing to communities that have given away tax dollars and reduced business standards without seeing substantial returns. Low business taxes often hide a hidden opportunity cost by reducing available funding for local schools and other public amenities. 

If our legislative overlords really wanted to attract skilled workers–including female workers and workers of color– they would fund child care and pre-K programs. They would work to create great public schools and excellent transit systems. (They would also leave medical decisions to the professionals who understand the complexities of those decisions, rather than imposing the beliefs of fundamentalist Christians on all Hoosiers.)

Pledging billions for bribery while ignoring quality of life isn’t a viable economic development strategy.

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Choices

I recently came across a Facebook post that perfectly summed up America’s continuing failure to make sane public policy consistent with the country’s founding premises. It pointed to the absurdity of far-right definitions of “freedom”:

You can regulate a human body, but not a coal plant. You can regulate the speech of a teacher, but not the money-as-speech of a corporation. You can coerce a child to pray in school, but not keep guns out of the classroom.

“You” are American lawmakers.

The post attributed these truly insane results to the Supreme Court, and the Court certainly deserves a considerable part of the blame, but so do the lawmakers who play to–or are part of–  the Rightwing fringe.

The Indiana legislature is a good example. In the wake of the Dobbs decision, our legislative overlords took hardly any time to ban abortion, but has struggled–and frequently failed– to regulate environmental hazards. The state has the most miles of rivers and streams too polluted to swim in, and we also lead the country in toxic emissions, among other deficiencies. The legislature’s focus on culture war issues routinely takes precedence over concerns for  public health, and lawmakers’ concern for the rights of farmers and utilities just as routinely outweighs concerns about the environment.

Our Hoosier lawmakers have a long history of telling teachers what to do–from older efforts aimed at prescribing how they should teach reading to periodic instructions about “character” education, to the more recent efforts to keep them from teaching about the less laudatory parts of our history or recognizing the existence of LGBTQ citizens. These persistent efforts have not been matched by efforts to restrain the influence of corporate dollars.

And don’t even start me on the Indiana General Assembly and guns. The pious hypocrites who continually try to shoehorn God into public school classrooms–and  failing that (due to that pesky First Amendment Establishment Clause) support the vouchers that siphon money from Indiana’s public schools and send them to private religious schools–continue to make firearms more easily available, most recently by ignoring law enforcement testimony and public opinion and eliminating the need to obtain a permit.

The hypocrisy is overwhelming.

The same “freedom fighters” who were outraged by mask mandates during the pandemic see no inconsistency with mandates to carry a pregnancy to term. They claim the “God-given right” to be free of a minor inconvenience that would protect their friends and neighbors, but are perfectly willing to interfere with medical science and the bodily autonomy of women.

Lawmakers who are solicitous about protecting factory farms from “onerous” regulation show considerably less concern about protecting the environment and the health of their constituents, despite evidence that those farms are massive polluters.To focus on just one element of that pollution, researchers tell us that industrial livestock farms produce up to 1.37 billion tons of manure annually—and that that’s 20 times more fecal waste than the entire U.S. human population, posing serious pollution risks to water and air.

The Indiana lawmakers who insist upon protecting the untrammeled, unimpeded right to own guns–including weapons more appropriate for war than personal protection–are blithely unconcerned with the havoc and death those weapons cause.

IN AN AVERAGE YEAR, 931 PEOPLE DIE BY GUNS IN INDIANA. WITH A RATE OF 14 DEATHS PER 100,000 PEOPLE, INDIANA HAS THE 19TH-HIGHEST RATE OF GUN DEATHS IN THE US.

In Indiana, 61% of gun deaths are suicides and 36% are homicides. This is compared to 61% and 36% respectively, nationwide.

The rate of gun deaths in Indiana increased 30%↑ from 2009 to 2018, compared to an 18%↑ increase over this same time period nationwide. In Indiana, the rate of gun suicide increased 24%↑ and gun homicide increased 49%↑ from 2009 to 2018, compared to a 19%↑ increase and an 18%↑ increase nationwide, respectively.

Across the nation, deadly attacks on schoolchildren are accelerating. The same legislators who are willing to tell education professionals how to teach and what to say remain unwilling to require even minimal background checks as a condition of buying the lethal weapons increasingly used to mow down the children in those classrooms.

There are, obviously, many other examples of misplaced legislative zeal.

The basic question citizens need to confront is: what is government for? What sorts of rules should government have the authority to impose, and what matters are properly left to each individual?

Our system was founded on the principle that Individuals should be free to pursue their own ends–their own life goals–so long as they did not thereby harm the person or property of someone else, and so long as they were willing to accord an equal liberty to their fellow citizens.

Hoosier lawmakers continue to get it backwards.

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Fewer Teachers, Fewer People Running For School Board..

Can you stand one more lament about the Right-wing assaults harming public education?

In a recent column for the Washington Post, Jennifer Rubin reported on an alarming academic study. Researchers found

that the “virulent stream of hyperpartisan political conflict” has had “a chilling effect on high school education.” Teachers are seeking to avoid controversy by “pulling back on teaching lessons in civics, politics, and the history and experiences of America’s minority communities;” incidents of verbal harassment of LGBTQ students are on the rise; and many teachers and administrator are planning to leave their jobs.

The authors of the report surveyed 682 public high school principals, who confirmed that organized campaigns have attempted to intimidate public schools and force changes to align with right-wing ideology. The researchers write, “Our survey data make clear that political conflict over a set of hot button issues occurred at more than two-thirds (69%) of public schools across the nation during the 2021-2022 school year.” Moreover, “Half of all principals report that parents or other community members sought to limit or challenge teaching and learning about issues of race and racism. Nearly half report challenges to school policies and practices related to LGBTQ student rights.” And a third of principals said “parents or community members raised challenges to school library books they deemed inappropriate.”

Researchers have found that “a relatively small group of hostile parents and community members are leading the charge,” despite the preferences of a clear majority of parents  who want kids to have an accurate education.( One recent national survey found that over 95% of Americans want high school students to learn about slavery, and 85% want them to learn about racial inequality.)

Perhaps the most troubling finding was the effect of this assault on students’ ability to identify misinformation. Apparently, students in classrooms with educators intimidated by these tactics show a diminished capacity to distinguish between credible and falsified information. At a time when misinformation, disinformation and propaganda are a huge problem, an ability to evaluate the likely accuracy of information is incredibly important, and the best way to help students make those judgements is by arming them with verifiable facts.

Interestingly, these assaults have been most numerous in so-called “purple” communities–areas that were previously reliably Republican but are changing– becoming more Democratic in the wake of Trump and the demise of Roe.

Many principals noted the “mass hysteria” over critical race theory, fueled by disinformation about schools’ curricula. This has impacted schools in purple communities the most, with almost a quarter of principals in such areas reporting that their school board or district leaders limited teaching on race or racism. Only 17 percent of schools in red communities, by comparison, and 8 percent of blue communities did the same.

Purple communities were also more likely to experience MAGA partisans’ attempts to ostracize or stigmatize LGBTQ individuals, Thirty-two percent of principals in purple districts report incidents of “hostile or demeaning remarks toward LGBTQ classmates,” compared with 22 percent in red or blue communities. Across all schools, the percentage of principals reporting multiple attacks on LGBTQ students increased from 15 percent in 2018 to 24 percent this year.

These political assaults aren’t limited to attacks on teachers and principals. Culture warriors trying to protect their political turf are making life miserable for school board members, too.

Here in Indiana, Hamilton County–adjacent to Marion County/indianapolis– is one of those areas that has been turning purple, and Moms for Liberty, a  national crackpot organization, ran “anti-woke” slates in several Hamilton County school districts .

As Chalkbeat reports,

The winning candidates in Hamilton Southeastern, Tiffany Pascoe (District 1), Juanita Albright (District 2), Dawn Lang (District 3), and Ben Orr (District 4), were supported by the Hamilton County chapter of Moms for Liberty, a powerful and controversial conservative group that rose to prominence by opposing mask mandates, critical race theory and social emotional learning. The group aims to install like-minded people in school board seats across the country.

Amber Huff Willis (At Large), William Anderson (District 2) and Rebecca Ogle (District 4) won seats on the Westfield Washington school board; they were also supported by Moms for Liberty Hamilton County.

The Carmel Clay  school board governs one of the larger districts in Hamilton County, and the effort to take over that board was less successful. Incumbents supporting diversity, equity and inclusion efforts were re-elected; however, one candidate who claimed that “radical liberal teachers” were “indoctrinating” Carmel students won in a very close race.

Our daughter served on the Indianapolis school board for 20 years, and I watched her spend countless hours for very little pay working with colleagues, parents and teachers to improve local public schools.

Given today’s dishonest, ugly assaults, how many citizens will willingly run for school board? Teachers aren’t the only ones deciding it just isn’t worth it.

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