GIFFORD: Fund Indianapolis-area transit as an essential service
We’re redoubling our efforts to pass this plan in the 2013 legislative session.
Ron Gifford
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Ron Gifford’s blog from China
Indy Partnership CEO Ron Gifford is traveling with Gov. Mitch Daniels and a delegation of Hoosier business and community
leaders on a trip to Asia through Sept. 16. Gifford is blogging about his experiences as he works to bring
new jobs and investment to the economic development group’s 10-county Indianapolis region. Bookmark this
page and check back for updates.
THERE OUGHT TO BE A LAW: It’s standing-room only at the seat of justice
Based on a couple of recent Indiana cases, it seems someone has parked a “No standing” zone around the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. The first case involved Indiana Right to Life and its judicial candidate questionnaires. The group claimed two provisions of the Indiana Code of Judicial Conduct violated the First Amendment by preventing judicial candidates from answering questions about topics such as abortion and other social issues. Although a federal district court judge agreed with the group’s arguments,…
THERE OUGHT TO BE A LAW: Hey dude, the boss is parking in my space!
I’ll admit it: Until recently, I thought “My Space” was simply where I stored “my stuff.” My bad, it turns out. Just ask that young staffer down the hall: The new place to see and be seen is MySpace, Facebook or one of the other online social communities. This summer, MySpace announced it had more than 70 million unique users in the United States-meaning nearly one in four Americans used the site, for a total of nearly 50 billion page…
THERE OUGHT TO BE A LAW: Why one vote counts more than all the rest
Personally, I figured the baboonprint wallpaper justified the new law all by itself. Seriously, after the whole “jungle room” decorating uproar at the governor’s residence last year, wasn’t it obvious that unregulated interior designers were a threat to our very way of life? Your General Assembly sure thought so, and this session the Indiana House and Senate overwhelmingly passed new licensing and certification standards for these decorators-including criminal penalties for impersonating a “registered interior designer.” Well, a funny thing happened…
THERE OUGHT TO BE A LAW: (Log) rolling down the legislative river
I usually don’t confuse C-SPAN with ESPN2. But as I flipped channels last month, there was so much logrolling going on in Congress that I thought I’d stumbled upon the birling finals of the North American Lumberjack Games. Although, come to think of it, most lumberjacks don’t spout political inanities when they work. Guess that should have been my first clue. No, friends, the logrolling we’re talking about today is that time-honored legislative practice of taking two or more unrelated…
THERE OUGHT TO BE A LAW: I’m just lounging by the side of the jury pool
I got something in the mail recently. Now, from my friends’ overwrought reactions, you’d have thought it was an invitation to go hunting with Dick Cheney. But no, to my colleagues, this was even more frightening. “This” was my summons for jury duty. As for me, I thought it was kind of cool. OK, so it’s not the prize patrol delivering my earlyretirement check. But the constitutional romantic in me was moved by the fact that I’d been summoned to…
THERE OUGHT TO BE A LAW: Judge not, lest ye have to fill out more surveys
When you voted in the primary May 2, and got to the judicial candidates, did you feel just a little … oh, what’s the right word … clueless? Uninformed? Ignorant about what any of these people actually thought about anything? Now some people might have felt that way about many of the candidates. But not you. Being the well-informed voter that you are, you’d already done your homework. Researched the issues. Asked the tough questions. And so you (and maybe…