Lugar Backs Democratic Candidate For Georgia Senate Seat

This comes as no surprise to those of us who figured out long ago that Dick Lugar was a Republican in Name Only. It seems the GOP establishment's favorite Republican is backing a Democratic candidate to fill the Georgia Senate seat being vacated by retiring Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss. Lugar's political action committee has donated $5,000 to Michelle Nunn's campaign. It's a seat Republicans must hold if they hold any hope of winning back control of the Senate in 2014. Lugar is likely backing Nunn for the seat in an effort to elect yet another CIA-controlled asset like himself to Congress. Nunn is the daughter of former Georgia Sen. Sam Nunn, a close friend of Lugar who is married to Colleen O'Brien, a CIA agent who Nunn met early in his career while visiting the U.S. embassy in Paris where she was pretending to be a State Department employee. Michelle is the CEO of the Points of Light Foundation established by another CIA-lifer, former President George H.W. Bush, a nonprofit foundation chaired by Bush's son, Neil, another CIA asset. She's never run for elective office before, but she plans to rely on her daddy's name to get elected. Speaking of Lugar's endorsement, Nunn said:

"I am immensely honored and grateful for Senator Lugar's generous support in this race. His tenure in U.S. Senate embodied the type of pragmatism and problem-solving Georgians are yearning for in Washington. Both in the Senate and in the international community, Senator Lugar's collaborative approach made us safer and moved our country forward. We need more leaders like Senator Lugar –- not less, and I will strive to follow this legacy in the U.S. Senate."

Fire Critically Injures Resident Of Health & Hospital-Owned Nursing Home

An 82-year old resident of the Bethany Village nursing home on Indianapolis' south side was taken to Eskenazi Hospital in critical condition last night after a fire broke out in her room. According to news reports, staff members were able to extinguish the fire with handheld extinguishers and rescue the resident from the room but she later went into cardiac arrest. The report does not indicate the origin of the fire. Bethany Village is listed on the Marion County Health & Hospital Corporation's website as one of 59 nursing homes it operates in Indiana with its private-sector partner, American Senior Communities. Last year, HHC and ASC were named in a wrongful death lawsuit that accused them of negligently causing the death of a resident at one of the nursing homes they operate in Fort Wayne who died from blunt force trauma she sustained during an altercation with another resident.

Things Aren't Always As They Appear

The recent arrest of a former Indiana State Police detective, Ryan Harmon, and the bizarre circumstances of his arrest, have not gone unnoticed by me. A number of readers have asked me to look into this incident more closely and get to the bottom of it. The moment I first read a New Year's Eve report by WRTV's Rafael Sanchez about Harmon's arrest at the Indianapolis International Airport on Saturday, December 28, I suspected there was much more to the story than the drive-by hit piece contained in Sanchez' report.

According to Sanchez, Harmon was stopped by airport police for speeding 62 mph in a 25-mile per hour zone on the lower level of the airport. It seems improbable to me that a driver could possibly operate a vehicle at a speed that high in that particular area, speed bumps and all, without losing control of the vehicle. The arresting police officer claimed that Harmon told him he was rushing to the airport to pick up a flight ticket purchased for him by President Obama, and that he was also a U.S. marshal. Sanchez, quoting from a police report, says that Harmon also threatened the police officer. The report stated that Harmon was later transported to Eskenazi Hospital for a mental evaluation after police claimed Harmon's mother told them that he suffered from bipolar disorder. Police claimed they found marijuana in Harmon's car. For reasons that are unclear, the Morgan County Sheriff's Department executed a search warrant on Harmon's home on December 30, where they claim they recovered property belonging to the Indiana State Police and the U.S. Marshal's Office. Sanchez reported that Harmon could face charges for possession of marijuana, reckless driving, impersonating a police officer and possession of stolen property.

To put all of this into perspective, it's necessary to learn more about who Harmon is and what has transpired in his life over the past several years. Harmon was a highly-decorated detective at the Indiana State Police for a number of years before losing his job following a traffic incident in downtown Indianapolis in 2010 after he was charged with criminal mischief for leaving the scene of an accident after backing into a parked motorcycle while driving an unmarked police vehicle after leaving a bar on South Meridian Street. Harmon had a top security clearance at the State Police where he served as the agency's liaison to the Indianapolis FBI office where he was assigned to work for a period of time. Harmon had access to some of the police agency's most sensitive investigations, including public corruption cases. In a manner of speaking, Harmon knew where all the bodies were buried, a fact known all the way up the ranks to Gov. Mitch Daniels. Harmon's attorney at the time, Jim Voyles, offered an eerie warning to him at the time that "they're coming after you."

After leaving the ISP, Harmon began working as a private investigator out of his home town in Martinsville and developed an expertise in electronic surveillance. Harmon says his expert testimony as an electronics surveillance expert has helped 23 defendants in 13 different states facing federal charges win acquittals. Among the defendants retaining Harmon's services was former Secretary of State Charlie White. Harmon analyzed White's cell phone GPS data and determined that the evidenced definitively proved that he primarily spent the nights at the home of his ex-wife during the period state prosecutors claimed that he was actually residing at a condominium in which he intended to reside when he married his second wife. Believing that prosecutors had failed to prove the vote fraud and other charges against White, his trial attorney, former Marion Co. Prosecutor Carl Brizzi, refused to put on a defense, including offering the testimony of Harmon. White was later found guilty by a jury of six of the seven felony charges brought against him.

After leaving the ISP, Harmon became aware of the fact that former Martinsville basketball coach Tim Wolf was having a sexual relationship with a female student at the high school. Harmon's mother, a former counselor at the school, learned that Morgan Co. Prosecutor Steve Sonnega's son, Tyler, had taken a cell phone video of Wolf and the female student walking on the football field late one night holding hands. Sonnega later admitted that he had viewed his son's cell phone video but concluded that it proved nothing. Wolf had told school officials that he was merely counseling the student and had no sexual relationship with her. Harmon pushed an investigation of Wolf's involvement with the student to school officials and law enforcement in Martinsville, a move he believes resulted in an effort by other powerful individuals, including local law enforcement, to retaliate against him. Harmon pressed for an investigation nearly a full year before Wolf was eventually arrested in February, 2012 in Indianapolis' Eagle Creek Park after police found him in a car with the 17-year old girl with his pants down. An investigation following Wolf's arrest led to the discovery that the school's tennis coach, Jeff McGown, also had a sexual relationship with the student. Both coaches gave up their jobs, pleaded guilty to child seduction charges and were given 9 months probation.

Harmon also later provided information to Martinsville Mayor Phil Deckard and local police about allegations of a high-ranking city employee sexually assaulting a woman. The matter was referred to Sonnega, who asked Harmon's former employer, ISP, to investigate the allegations. After ISP concluded that no crime had occurred, Sonnega in an extraordinary move charged Harmon with three counts of false reporting for each person to whom he had reported the sexual assault allegation, including the mayor. The 39-year old Harmon was arrested by police publicly on the courthouse square in Martinsville in April, 2012 to maximize damage to his reputation in the community. He was later found guilty on all three counts after the judge hearing the case, Christopher Burnham, refused to allow Harmon's attorney to offer evidence related to his client's role in pushing the investigation of Wolf that was swept under the rug by Sonnega, local police and school officials until Wolf's arrest in 2012 left them with no other choice than to open a serious investigation. Harmon's attorney believed the evidence would help prove that charges were brought against his client as a retaliatory move on the part of the prosecutor and police. Sonnega later appointed a special prosecutor to handle the Wolf and McGown cases because of his son's role in providing evidence in the case that he concluded was of no value. (See this report by Fox 59's Russ McQuaid for more background on the Wolf/McGown cases).

More recently, former Secretary of State Charlie White's attorney called Harmon as a witness during his petition for post-conviction relief in Hamilton County. White's attorney contends that his trial attorney, Carl Brizzi, provided ineffective counsel by, among other things, refusing to put on a defense. Prior to Brizzi's testimony at the hearing, a verbal altercation occurred between Brizzi and Harmon during which Brizzi warned Harmon that he had better watch his back. Judge Daniel Pfleging later provided a court room admonishment to witnesses and courtroom observers after attorneys for both sides conferenced with him behind closed doors about the matter. Brizzi testified at the hearing that he had no part in retaining Harmon's services and would have never agreed to let him testify as a witness at White's trial because of the criminal mischief case his office handled while Harmon was at the ISP and the false reporting case down in Martinsville. Despite the substantive value of Harmon's evidence and the fact that Brizzi listed him as one of White's witnesses, Brizzi made no effort to procure a substitute expert witness and never bothered to tell White or Harmon that he would not be called as a witness.

As to Harmon's latest arrest, he insists that he was set up. Twitter posts made contemporaneously with the arrest on his Twitter account show that an acquaintance of Harmon, a writer for a late night talk show in Los Angeles, had tweeted him with instructions to pick up airline tickets he had acquired for him at the airport to make a flight out to LA where he could spend a few days. The next thing Harmon knew he was in police custody and taken to Eskenazi Hospital where he was detained for six days for psychological evaluation. Harmon, who seemed completely sober and clear-minded when I spoke to him about the incident, is as perplexed by some of the allegations contained in the police report cited in Sanchez' report as others. He flat out rejected the claim that he had any stolen police equipment at his home. Harmon does not rule out the possibility that he was unwittingly drugged before he made the trip to the airport, which could explain his lack of recollection and awareness of all that transpired before he found himself being detained at the hospital for psychological evaluation rather than sitting in a jail cell charged for actual crimes that he allegedly committed. At this point, I'm inclined to give Harmon the benefit of the doubt. It appears to me that there are just too many important people in this state who are acting very uneasy about information he learned in his former job at the State Police.

Star Reporter's Hiring By Carmel Mayor Part Of A Disturbing Trend

When I worked for the Illinois legislature before moving to Indianapolis to attend law school, I noticed a disturbing trend of State House reporters leaving their jobs to take jobs in state government. After I moved to Indianapolis, I observed the same thing happening with increased frequency here in Indiana. So I suppose it should come as no surprise to read in the latest edition of the IBJ that Carmel's controversial mayor, James Brainard, hired Dan McFeely, an Indianapolis Star reporter assigned the job of covering the northern suburbs, as an economic development consultant earning up to $99,000 a year. The IBJ's Chris O'Malley observes that a story written by McFeely prior to his hiring, "25 things I love about Carmel," was featured prominently on the City of Carmel's website for months.

At least one Carmel city council member, Lucy Snyder, is questioning the wisdom of adding yet another consultant to the list of 17 economic development consultants being paid by the city, who collectively are paid more than $800,000 annually. In addition to the numerous consultants, Carmel employs four full-time employees and two part-timers for economic development work, including Nancy Heck, the city's director of communications and economic development. O'Malley describes the first invoice McFeely submitted in November only days after leaving his job with the Star in which he invoiced $2,750 for his services to promote economic development opportunities in Carmel via Twitter and Facebook, and to write press releases about road projects and bond sales. Isn't that Heck's job?

McFeely has absolutely no background in economic development, a fact picked up on by Snyder. He "isn't an economic development person," Snyder told O'Malley. According to O'Malley, he studied theology at Marian University and earned an ecclesiastical lay ministry degree from St. Joseph's College. Since 2007, he's headed an adult ministry program for St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic Church, in addition to working as a reporter for the Star. Heck tells O'Malley that the city sought no proposals from potential consultants before hiring McFeely. "Dan was our pick," she said. "He's covered Carmel for several years, so we are familiar with his work and the quality of his work."

I'm wondering if McFeely had actually performed any in-depth investigative reporting of the many questionable things taking place in Brainard's administration while working for the Star if he would have been offered such a lucrative contract. Increasingly, news reporters seem to do little more than act as mouthpieces for the people in government and elsewhere who they are supposed to be objectively covering for their audience. Former Washington Post editor Philip Graham once told a CIA operative that "You could get a journalist cheaper than a good call girl, for a couple hundred dollars a month." Former CIA Director William Colby once boasted that his agency "owns everyone of any significance in the major media." It looks like it's not only the CIA that owns the media we rely upon for objective news coverage.

Union Vote To Slash Benefits Ends Indiana's Hope Of Landing New Boeing Plant

Members of the International Association of Machinists, the union representing Boeing's union workers in the Seattle, Washington area, reversed course and narrowly voted this past weekend to cut benefits and future wage increases as part of a deal to secure manufacturing jobs to produce the company's new 777-X plane. The vote ends Indiana's hope of landing a new manufacturing plant that promised billions of dollars in investments and thousands of high-paying jobs.

Under the deal, union members agreed to give up their current pension plan in favor of a traditional 401(k) savings plan, pay for more of their health insurance costs and accept smaller future pay increases. The deal was bitterly opposed by the union's local leadership and received a bare majority vote by the members who last year rejected the deal, setting off a competition among two dozen states bidding to win the new manufacturing plant. Reaction to the union's vote in Seattle varied sharply according to the Seattle Times.

While Boeing executives chose to remain silent the day after the Machinists’ contract vote secured the work of building the 777X jet for Washington state, top officials at the Machinists national headquarters and in Gov. Jay Inslee’s office were almost giddy.

“It’s going to be sunny in Seattle for another 40 or 50 years,” gushed Rich Michalski, who represented the International Association of Machinists (IAM) national headquarters in the 777X negotiations. “Boeing is going to be here forever now.” . . .

The bitter acrimony within the union was clear Saturday on the Facebook page for Rosie’s Machinists 751, a rallying point for Vote No union activists.

“ANYONE who voted yes is a traitor, a coward, and a scab. They should be blackballed,” one angry Machinist posted.

Trying to calm such sentiment, Wilson Ferguson, president of the Local A unit of the district and a prominent leader of the Vote No campaign, posted a message calling for respect.

“Those people are not scabs. They are not sheep,” Ferguson said in an interview. “The members have spoken. We have to move forward and heal the damage.” . . .

Observers described the machinists' union concessions to Boeing's demands as highly unusual because it comes at a time when Boeing's financial performance has been soaring. "Against Boeing’s threat to move work elsewhere, the union could do little but “slow the tide” of concessions, Grunberg said. It is left split and weakened as never before," the Times reported. "Boeing developed maximum leverage by negotiating outside the normal schedule of contract talks — when it could threaten to locate a new airplane elsewhere and the union couldn’t strike."

Saying Goodbye To My Father

My father, Ray Allen Welsh, peacefully past away last night at his home in Marshall, Illinois with our family surrounding him. He was 83. I am so thankful that I was able to be at his side, along with my mother, brothers and sisters, even if my last moments with him were relatively brief, just to say goodbye one last time. The harsh affects of cancer that he had successfully beaten several years earlier were really starting to take their toll on him. He died quickly as he wished, not wanting to be dependent on others for his care or wasting away in a nursing home.

My father was one of the hardest working persons you would ever meet, but he always had time for his family. He was the youngest of six children and his father died when he was only two years old. His mother did an extraordinary job raising six children and holding the family farm together during the Great Depression. He studied agriculture at the University of Illinois for awhile before being drafted into the U.S. Army where he served during the Korean War. He met and married my mom a few years after he began farming with his brothers and raised five children with her.

He retired from farming a few years ago and enjoyed sharing coffee with old friends every morning and hanging out at the local VFW post and playing cards. He was an avid sports fan who particularly enjoyed attending all of his grandchildren's sporting events. It's hard to believe that he was able to attend his last ISU basketball game only last weekend where my nephew is playing his last season.

He will always be remembered for his consistent positive outlook on life, unswerving loyalty to his wife and family and charitable giving to others less fortunate than him. We're all going to miss him a great deal, but we are content knowing that he lived his life as fully, happily and honestly as can be expected of any human being in the eyes of our Lord and always treated others with the greatest respect.

Sell-Off Of Angie's List Stock After Top Trial Firm Announces Investigation Pushes Price Down Sharply

One of the nation's top trial firms, Cohen Placitella & Roth, announced today that it has launched an investigation to determine if Angie's List's officers and directors violated securities laws involving misrepresentations about its core subscription business. That news, along with a spate of class action shareholder suits in recent days, led to a sell-off of the company's stock that sent stock prices downward more than 10% today. A press release issued by Cohen Placitella & Roth details the focus of its investigation:

Specifically, CPR is investigating whether the Company and its officers and/or directors failed to disclose the following information that: (i) Angie's List was increasingly relying on providing free memberships in order to artificially boost its subscriber figures; (ii) contrary to the Company's claim that it provides its members with unbiased, online reviews, disallowing service providers from buying ratings, the Company consistently derived more than half its revenues from the service providers; (iii) that because Angie's List charged service providers hundreds of dollars for "hot leads", service providers were faced with the choice of charging above market prices for basic, run-of-the-mill services (that could be procured by consumers for cheaper prices) in order to absorb the high referral fees Angie's list was charging -- or simply abandoning Angie's list; (iv) that the legitimacy of the service provider side of Angie's List business model was dubious, as service providers were forced to pay the Company thousands of dollars a year in order to be listed as a highly rated service providers, and if they did not, they would not get customer referrals from Angie's List; and (v) that Angie's List did not vet the service providers listed and recommended on its website, either for qualifications or for safety, leading many consumers to question the value of its recommendations, causing them to be unwilling to pay outsized membership fees. As a result of these omissions, the Company and its officers and directors lacked a reasonable basis for their positive statements about the Company and its business, earnings and financial prospects.

Angie's List was co-founded by its namesake, Angie Hicks Bowman, the company's chief marketing officer, and its CEO, William Oesterle. Oesterle has close political ties to former Gov. Mitch Daniels and now Purdue University President, having served as his one-time campaign manager during Daniels' first run for governor in 2004. Oesterle and other key officers are accused of selling off more than $13 million worth of shares in the company during the period of time they allegedly made material misrepresentations about the company's performance. Prominent Indianapolis businessman Michael "Mickey" Maurer, the owner of the company that publishes the Indianapolis Business Journal and Indiana Lawyer, serves on the company's board of directors. Maurer formerly served as head of the Indiana Economic Development Corporation during the Daniels' administration. Angie's List has received more than tens millions dollars' worth of state and local economic development incentives for its base of operations in downtown Indianapolis.

The price of the company's shares closed today at $13.57, down $1.58 a share, or 10.43% on a day when more than 2.5 million of the company's shares were traded, much higher than its average trading day volume of about 1.8 million shares. The stock traded as low as $13.29 per share today after opening today's trading at $15.00 on a previous closing day price of $15.15.

Hearing Officer Recommends One Year Suspension Without Automatic Right To Reinstatement For Attorney's Criticism Of Judge

The hearing officer presiding in the matter of the attorney disciplinary action of fellow attorney and blogger Paul Ogden has recommended to the Indiana Supreme Court that he be suspended from the practice of law for one year without right to automatic reinstatement for critical comments he made in a private e-mail communication about Hendricks Superior Court Judge Daniel Coleman's handling of a probate case in which Ogden represented one of the heirs of the estate. Hearing officer Robert York concluded that the comments made by Ogden were untrue and made without regard for the truth in violation of Rule 8.2(a) of the Indiana Rules of Professional Conduct, which provides that “A lawyer shall not make a statement that the lawyer knows to be false or with reckless disregard as to its truth or falsity concerning the qualifications or integrity of a judge.” York rejected Ogden's defense that his statements about Judge Coleman's handling of the estate case were protected by the First Amendment. Here are the pertinent free speech standards York says applies to attorney statements regarding a judge (i.e., the Dixon standards):

• Lawyers are completely free to criticize the decisions of judges. As licensed professionals, they are not free to make recklessly false claims about a judge's integrity.  
• The limits on professional speech by attorneys are not coextensive with the limits of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. The First Amendment protects the societal interest of enabling robust public discourse on issues of public concern, and its protections are therefore necessarily very broad. However, this interest must be balanced against the societal interest in the public's confidence in an impartial adjudicatory process, which unwarranted public accusations by an attorney against a judicial officer do nothing but weaken and erode.  
• Attorneys are expected to exercise reasonable objectivity in their statements about judicial officers. We expect those who have been granted the special privilege of admission to the bar to bring reasonable objectivity to their statements about judicial officers; to rise above the raw emotions and accusations that impede rather than enhance the judicial process. This, we note, also has the incidental benefit of fostering effective advocacy for their clients. 
• In determining whether an attorney violated the rule of professional conduct prohibiting knowingly false statements, or statements made with reckless disregard to falsity, concerning the qualifications or integrity of a judge, adjudicatory officer or public legal officer, or of a candidate for election or appointment to judicial or legal office, a court must determine whether the attorney lacked any objectively reasonable basis for making the statement at issue, considering its nature and the context in which the statement was made The extent to which the attorney discloses accurate facts to support the statement is relevant to the determination of whether the attorney acted in reckless disregard as to its truth or falsity.

The comments made by Ogden in private e-mails to other parties involved in the case that Judge Coleman, the commission and York believed violated the rules of professional conduct boiled down to the following statements made by Ogden:

I’m not going to apologize for getting Judge Coleman off the case. The man should be   turned in to the disciplinary commission for how he handled this case. If this man had been in Marion County, with a real probate judge, the stuff that went on with this case . . .

No, Mary, what the “huge joke” is how a court allowed an estate worth millions of dollars to be opened as an unsupervised estate with an executor who wasn’t to inherit from the residue of the estate. Randy Carr was exactly correct to question whether the judge had a conflict. He should be brought up on disciplinary charges for how he handled this case.

It’s not exactly surprising that after five years Robert P. Carr’s estate is found to have gone from several hundred thousands of dollars (which was a gross underestimate) to nothing. Crown Plaza is part of the estate.

There’s no “witch hunt.” Just a desire that the estate be handled honestly and fairly, which it hasn’t been.  Unfortunately the time I got on the case, there was hardly anything left. The judge is the one who should get the lion share of the blame. 

If there were no shenanigans going on, then why oppose an outside accounting?

York's order states that the disciplinary standards for Ogden's violation "minimally provide for a public reprimand for Respondent's conduct," absent aggravating and mitigating factors. York found that despite having no previous disciplinary record Ogden had aggravated the circumstances of his case by "his multiple attacks on Judge Coleman and the personal representative, Robert, for which he remains unrepentant; his disrespectful letter to Judge Coleman; his ex parte communication with Judge McCarty, asserting he had a right to do so; and, his behavior during the disciplinary process." The ex parte communication involved a letter Ogden sent to all civil court judges in Marion County, as well as the county prosecutor and the state's attorney general pointing out a recent ruling in a Supreme Court case involving civil forfeitures providing that forfeited sums are to be paid into the common school fund. York acknowledged that Ogden had no civil forfeiture case pending before the courts but should have known that a member of the law firm where he worked had a pending case. Ogden had not copied the other parties on the letter he sent and did not believe the rules required him to do so since the manner in which funds are allocated once a forfeiture action is ordered is of no consequence to them. Nonetheless, York concluded his communication violated the rule against ex parte communications, although he recommended a sanction limited to a public reprimand for the violation.

York found no mitigating factors to support a lesser sanction other than his lack of prior disciplinary actions. York said he "struggled with determining Respondent's motive to act" in considering whether there was an absence of a dishonest or selfish motive." "Concluding that none of his misconduct would benefit Respondent’s client, Randy, or his future clients appearing before Judge Coleman, the only reasonable explanation is that Respondent was acting in what he perceives as his own personal interests," York wrote. "In short, Respondent believes he is a warrior tasked with righting wrongs within the legal system, and asserts without reasonable foundation that the Complaint is an attempt to stifle such activities," York concluded. "While Respondent’s goals may be admirable, there are reasonable alternatives available to him other than to conduct his mission activities in violation of the disciplinary rules," he added. York chastised Ogden for refusing to "recognize his wrongful conduct" or to "make good effort to rectify the consequences of his misconduct." York described Ogden's behavior during the disciplinary action as "obstreperous." York found that "other than his own self-serving statements" there was "no evidence" presented in mitigation based on his character or reputation.

Please click here to view a PDF copy of the order.

UPDATE: The Indiana Lawyer's Dave Stafford has posted a story on York's recommended sanctions against Ogden here.

Seven Questions My Legislator Wants Me To Answer

It's that time of year when state lawmakers send out those colorful legislative surveys with their beautiful smiling picture staring at you and their name emblazoned in bold letters you can't miss and hopefully won't forget the next time you enter the voting booth, if you are among the minority of Americans who still participate in the "democratic" process. The lawmaker assures you that he wants to be your voice at the State House, and that your opinions are very important in guiding her votes on bills that are heard during the legislative session. It's all a bunch of baloney if you haven't already figured that out on your own, and it's hardly worth the expenditure of taxpayer dollars that are used to send out campaign literature masquerading as official government business.

I'm represented by Rep. Dan Forestal. I've met him, and he's a very friendly and nice guy. He's a Democrat and I'm a Republican. He's Catholic, and I'm Protestant. He's also a career government employee from a family of career government employees, the exact opposite of my family upbringing, so it's no surprise that he and I don't agree on many issues. Before Rep. Forestal got around to the questions he wanted me to answer, he took time to share his broad agenda for the session: "rebuild the middle class" by "creating stable, good-paying jobs" to reduce unemployment; increase the medial household income; and "focus on issues that matter to all Hoosiers." Alright, those are noble, lofty goals, but how does he plan to achieve them? The survey questions might shed some light on that.

Question 1. Would you support allowing local governments the ability to increase the minimum wage/benefits for workers in their area?

Both the federal and state minimum hourly wage rate is $7.25. Presumably, Rep. Forestal is suggesting a state law that would give local units of government the right to raise the minimum wage within their geographic boundaries to a rate that is higher than the applicable federal and state minimum wage rate. Rep. Forestal seems to like the home rule approach on a host of issues as you'll see from later questions in his survey. My answer to this question is an emphatic no. Raising minimum wage rates will not create more jobs or succeed in raising real wages. As long as we continue to enact federal trade policies supported by Democratic and Republican administrations alike that promote the transfer of American jobs to countries that pay slave wages to their workers through one-sided trade agreements, little is accomplished by raising minimum wage rates other than to eliminate jobs for those who most badly need them. If you want to affect wage rates, then talk to your congressman about enacting fair trade policies that don't punish American workers.

Question 2. Would you support a college tuition freeze at public universities in Indiana that would lock in a student's tuition rate over a four-year period?

That depends. I abhor the way public universities are currently funded. Public university administrators and educators are grossly overpaid in my opinion. If the legislature doesn't appropriate the amount of money the universities request, they just make up the difference through higher tuition rates. They need to live in the real world like the rest of us and learn to get by with less. The fact is that the cost of obtaining a higher education has been increasing well above the rate of inflation for decades, and most graduates can't find jobs that pay well enough to repay their student loans. A tuition freeze without reforms designed to force our public universities to provide higher education more economically and efficiently would be self-defeating. Tuition freeze is a good catch phrase, but the problem is complex and requires more than simple solutions that sound good at election time.

Question 3. Do you believe the operation of state employee pensions should be privatized, even if that means the unpredictability of the stock market could eliminate guaranteed returns?

If you're asking if I believe that defined pension benefits that allow government employees like yourself to retire 15 to 20 years before the rest of us with a generous life-time benefit should be phased out, the answer is an emphatic yes. I have no problem with the government matching contributions made by the employees to their retirement plans based on rules similar to those the rest of us must rely upon for our retirement benefits. In case Rep. Forestal doesn't know it, government pension benefits for state and local employees are already invested in the stock market. It's just that, unlike the rest of us, their retirement benefit is guaranteed regardless of the return on invested pension funds. If there's not enough in their retirement fund to pay their defined benefits, then all the rest of us are socked with higher taxes to pay for their retirement benefits. Join the rest of us in worrying about how we're going to pay for our retirement.

Question 4. Indiana law currently defines marriage as between one man and one woman. Should this definition be permanently added to our state's constitution?

Absolutely not. The current law banning same-sex marriages has already been upheld as constitutional by our state's Court of Appeals, and our state's Supreme Court has rarely struck down a law enacted by the General Assembly, no matter how unwise, on state constitutional grounds. A majority of the members of the U.S. Supreme Court have already strongly hinted in the U.S. v. Windsor case that state laws like Indiana's Defense of Marriage Act will have a difficult time passing federal constitutional muster in the future. A state constitutional amendment will not stop the state's law from being struck down on federal constitutional grounds and it strikes many as being motivated by mean-spiritedness and intolerance.

Question 5. Do you support allowing residents in central Indiana to determine for themselves through a referendum if they want to pay to expand mass transit?

Absolutely not. Your constituents have been paying a dedicated tax to support a mass transit system in Marion County (subsidized with additional federal and state tax dollars) for decades to which suburban residents have contributed nothing directly. Now you want your constituents to pay a second tax to expand the reach of mass transit into the surrounding suburban counties. If those suburban counties want to expand and connect mass transit in our county with their communities, then let them pay for it. If IndyGo needs more funding to operate a better mass transit system within Marion County, then tell Indianapolis' mayor and city-county council to stop giving away hundreds of millions of dollars to private developers to build luxury hotels, new housing and commercial development for downtown and handing out property tax abatements to their campaign contributors like candy.

Question 6. Several commercial buildings in our district are old, outdated and waste a great deal of energy. Do you support state incentives to create jobs by retrofitting old buildings to make them energy efficient, lowering energy bills and reducing our dependence on foreign oil?

No. The federal government has already wasted hundreds of billions of tax dollars on these green energy boondoggles that are nothing more than thinly-veiled efforts to give tax dollars away to businesses owned by connected political insiders who are stuffing money in the politicians' pockets in consideration for their support of these government handouts. We should allow market forces to drive energy efficiency.

Question 7. Would you support a local tax increase to put more law enforcement officers on the streets in our local neighborhoods?

Absolutely not. Been there, done that. Our local income taxes were raised 65% in 2007 to put more police officers on the street. We have fewer police officers today than we had before our taxes were raised. Your survey only gives me the options of selecting "yes" to "support a local tax increase to hire more officers," or "no" if "I believe there are enough officers currently on the streets." Those are false choices. Assuming there are insufficient funds to pay for public safety, it's not because we're being taxed too little. To the contrary, we're taxed plenty already. It's just that those responsible for allocating our tax dollars have chosen to divert more and more of the revenues to slush funds used to finance the private development projects of the politicians' favored campaign contributors, while many other favored businesses are afforded generous tax abatements, necessitating the need for the rest of us to pay higher taxes. So the correct answer to your survey is neither yes or no. It's called straightening out your priorities rather than blaming ordinary taxpayers for the problem.