The Journal Gazette, Fort Wayne. May 4, 2015.
A calculated gamble for the governor
Aside from those friendly bets with another governor over a Colts game, Mike Pence is no fan of gambling.
His former congressional district conveniently split Dearborn County in two, with Lawrenceburg’s casinos delegated to another district.
So a bill approved by the General Assembly presents a predicament for the governor, even though lawmakers thought they were saving him from an awkward position.
The legislation would allow riverboat casinos to rebuild on land, which Pence accepts as a change in “business practice,” but it also lays out the possibility of live dealers at Indiana racinos, which he sees as an expansion of gambling.
Legislators changed language that would have authorized live dealers at the casinos immediately.
Instead, the bill allows the governor to decide in 2021 - after Pence leaves office if elected to a second term - whether racinos should allow live dealers to replace electronic table games.
Pence told reporters last week he hadn’t yet decided whether to sign the gambling bill into law.
“I’m going to take a very serious look at the legislation,” Pence said. “I have a sense there was a good-faith effort to address issues that we had raised. I’m going to give it a fair look.”
The governor has the option to sign the bill, veto it or allow it to become law without his signature.
Coincidentally, Pence spent last weekend in Las Vegas. Along with other GOP presidential hopefuls, he was attending a Republican Jewish Coalition conference hosted by casino magnate and Republican mega-donor Sheldon Adelson.
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Journal & Courier, Lafayette. May 2, 2015.
The frightening necessity of needle exchanges
Congratulations to those in the General Assembly who forced Gov. Mike Pence’s hand in the waning days of the session with a needle exchange bill that is an unfortunate necessity in a particularly troubling time.
This is, as proponents argued, a long way from condoning the rise of heroin or other narcotics, as addiction to prescription painkillers looks for cheaper, faster and more terrifying outlets.
This is a public health crisis just starting to show its face in southern Indiana. Judging from dire warnings from the Tippecanoe County coroner in recent months about the number of heroin overdoses her office is seeing, Greater Lafayette can’t consider itself immune.
This year, 143 people in Scott County or with ties to the southern county 30 miles from Louisville, Kentucky, have tested positive for HIV. State health officials say it’s the worst outbreak in decades for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. They also say that the spread is connected to shared needles used to inject a liquefied version of Opana, a narcotic painkiller.
With Pence’s blessing, Indiana set up a temporary needle exchange in Scott County in March. The Associated Press reports that 7,100 clean needles have been distributed since then.
Pence has been wary about expanding the emergency program statewide for fear that it would send the wrong message about a state complicit in illegal drug use. That’s understandable.
Lawmakers didn’t let it go at that, though. They stopped short of a wholesale program rolled out statewide. But Senate Bill 461 cleared the way for counties to do what Scott County did, provided they can prove they are dealing with increased levels of HIV of hepatitis C.
Pence’s ability to adjust his anti-drug stance in the face of a mounting public health crisis should be noted. The same goes for General Assembly members who found a way to push the governor in the right direction.
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The Star Press, Muncie. May 2, 2015.
Disappointing legislative session ends
Mercifully, the 2015 version of the Indiana Legislature is over. To call it a disappointment would be charitable, since the session was marked by rancor and divisiveness the likes this state has not seen in years.
It also failed to produce substantive programs to help the middle class and those in poverty or grow the economy.
Gov. Mike Pence wanted the 2015 session to be an “education session.”
We’re not sure if by “education” Pence and Republican lawmakers wanted to see themselves schooled over the needless Religious Freedom Restoration Act. We won’t rehash the failings of a bill that nominally preserved religious freedom but came under heavy criticism for allowing discrimination against the LGBT community. But there can be no debate the legislation divided the state and shined a spotlight on Indiana that tarnished our image as Hoosiers.
A quick “fix” lawmakers enacted to repair the damage will not go far enough to protect against discrimination, but it did end the controversy, for now.
The education session also included legislation to thwart the will of voters by stripping state schools Superintendent Glenda Ritz of her chairmanship of the State Board of Education. Ritz will lose her chairmanship in 2017, after her first term has ended. The board also gained control over standardized testing and a new $10 million charter schools grant fund. Ritz managed to retain control over the private school voucher program.
Yet the march to dueling departments of education continues. One has to wonder how the power struggle between Pence and Ritz adversely affects education of our children.
More on education: Pence praised the state budget that includes a 2.3-percent increase in K-12 funding each of the next two years. That’s a total increase of about $464 million.
The downside is many urban and rural school districts - the ones often with declining enrollments - will receive less funds. Muncie Community Schools will get about $2.75 million less.
So the state will spend a record amount on education, yet public schools will still lose funding. Something is wrong, here.
Democrats are predicting the budget will lead to the layoff of hundreds of teachers across the state, many in the poorest communities. The upside is it might spur school systems to consolidate, finally.
Here are some other things we learned from this education session:
Lawmakers won’t let Hoosiers buy alcohol on Sundays. A bill to allow for Sunday sales didn’t get far in the session.
Despite existing constitutional language that makes it all but impossible for Indiana to accumulate debt, a second balanced budget constitutional amendment passed this session. It’s a lengthy amendment that requires a Philadelphia lawyer to explain. It’s also unneeded. Voters will have final say if it passes another legislative session
Finally, Hoosiers learned what can happen when a supermajority controls the House, Senate and the governor’s office, and acts like a supermajority. “If this session was about education, the only thing we learned is the extent of damage one-party rule can inflict,” said Sen. Tim Lanane, Senate minority leader.
If you don’t like what the legislature did, the public can school lawmakers by doing one simple thing: vote.
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South Bend Tribune. April 30, 2015.
Legislators must clarify records law
The Indiana General Assembly should make amending the state’s public records law a priority as it applies to private university police departments when it convenes next year.
The right to inspect reports of a private university’s police department - reports that otherwise would be released by police at public universities - became an issue this year when ESPN and one of its reporters filed a lawsuit in St. Joseph Superior Court after Notre Dame declined to provide campus police records related to student athletes.
The Tribune also has sought information from campus police reports, but has been turned away on several occasions in the past. Most recently The Tribune sought information from a Sept. 6, 2014, incident in which a man was critically injured while falling down a stairwell at the university’s Main Building.
Regarding the ESPN lawsuit, St. Joseph Superior Judge Steven Hostetler ruled Notre Dame does not need to make its police records public, but noted in his ruling that “Perhaps this case will cause the Indiana Legislature to consider this important matter.”
The issue of inspecting the police records of private universities is not unique to Indiana. Similar instances have arisen in other states and on other campuses, including Rice University in Texas and Otterbein University in Westerville, Ohio.
Police departments operating within the authority of state law at a private college should be required to adhere to the same laws as any other public police agency. Those laws require the release of certain basic information from police reports.
Several local legislators told The Tribune that they were open to discussing the issue when the legislature convenes in January. State Rep. B. Patrick Bauer, D-South Bend, said he would work with other legislators on a bill that would specify that records by campus police departments at private colleges and universities must be subject to public disclosure.
“The Indiana Legislature has had many years to expressly provide that Indiana’s private colleges and universities are subject to (Indiana’s Access to Public Records Act),” Hostetler wrote in his decision. “It has never done so.”
We think now is the perfect opportunity for the General Assembly to take this confusing issue out of the hands of the court and write a law that once and for all decides the status of private university police departments when it comes to disclosing certain police reports.
By revisiting the APRA, the General Assembly will create a better public records law that applies equally to every university police department in the state, both private and public. There should be no confusion as to what the public has the right to know.
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