When Daniels and the Republicans in the Statehouse told Hoosier voters they were “protecting taxpayers” by putting tax caps in the state’s constitution, objections by mayors and warnings by fiscal and tax policy experts were pooh-poohed. Politics won. Prudent and informed policy lost.
The most important lesson to be learned by policymakers and plutocrats alike is that fortunate people are secure only when everyone is secure.
Their most consistent behavior, year after year, is their adamant refusal to allow cities and towns—especially Indianapolis—to do much of anything unless and until our overlords in the Legislature deign to give local elected officials their official blessing.
The collapse of the business model that sustained local newspapers is well-known; the consequences, however, are only beginning to be appreciated.
Around the globe, cities are actually having a dramatic impact on climate change. In the absence of federal leadership, what cities do—from recycling to energy sources—becomes critically important.
The bleak transformation of the neighborhood surrounding the ever-expanding Children’s Museum of Indianapolis is one thing; the museum’s total indifference to the significance of Meridian Street and the transit goals of the city is another.
Indianapolis is making impressive strides in modernizing its approach to criminal justice. The mayor and council should continue that progress by examining the negative impact of imposing “user fees” on low-level offenders.
Alabama, Georgia and other states have passed abortion bans, aiming at a Supreme Court they believe has been politicized in their favor. Ironically, sending the issue back to the states, as a decision to overturn Roe would do, falls into the “be careful what you wish for” category. Republicans have benefited greatly from the single-issue […]
The census is supposed to count “heads”—the number of people in a given area. There is no use of census data that requires knowing how many of those residents are citizens.
Few of us who live in Indianapolis recognize the connection between Indiana’s gerrymandered legislative districts and the thousands of potholes we dodge every spring, or the fiscal shortchanging of urban schools, or the Legislature’s refusal to pass comprehensive bias crimes legislation, or our lawmakers’ seeming fixation on women’s reproductive decisions.
This is the fourth year Indiana’s legislators have been asked to enact a bias-crimes bill. As proponents have pointed out, ours is one of only five states without such a law. As the business community has testified, the impression that Indiana is a state unfriendly to minorities—an impression that “went viral” during Gov. Mike Pence’s […]
An important bill has been sent to the Senate Utilities Committee, chaired by Sen. Jim Merritt. Senate Bill 430, introduced by Sen. J.D. Ford, would repeal the provisions of last year’s controversial measure phasing out net metering.
An essayist sees signs of hope that Republicans will return to their roots.
Gerrymandering is a frontal assault on democracy. A pre-midterm electoral analysis from the Cook Report really brought home the extent of that assault: Just one out of 20 Americans lives in a competitive Congressional District.
There’s a limited amount that most of us can do to affect national policy, which is certainly not to say we shouldn’t vote, advocate and do our best to persuade our fellow Americans of the value of our positions. But we really can make a difference locally.
We The People are entitled to have our disputes adjudicated by sober, thoughtful people who can put aside their own prejudices and emotions, and fairly weigh the relevant facts.
The issue isn’t regulation or no regulation—it’s the necessity and appropriateness of particular regulatory efforts.
You can almost hear INDOT personnel muttering, “Those damn city agitators aren’t going to tell us how to move traffic.”
What isn’t reasonable—or honest—is the use of unsubstantiated and clearly untrue accusations to attack an organization that provides essential medical services to women who could not otherwise access them.
Surely, doing it right—learning from mistakes, from the available research and from the experience of cities that have creatively addressed these issues—is worth moving a few stubborn bureaucrats out of their comfort zones.
