HJR-3 Proponents Ponder Lawsuit To Place Amendment On 2014 Ballot

A political action committee pushing approval of HJR-3 may go to court to force lawmakers to place the amended version of HJR-3 on the ballot this November according to WRTV. The National Organization for Marriage tells WRTV that they have met with House Speaker Brian Bosma concerning the possibility of a court challenge.

"We are building a coalition of the willing and looking for legislators who are willing to join in this task," said Chris Plante, regional director of NOM.

"We understand it will be heavy lifting, but if we all work together, we believe we have the law on our side. And we believe HJR-3 should go to the people in November 2014 as was promised by legislature on multiple occasions," said Plante.

The issue revolves around the amendment that removed the second part of HJR-3 this year before its passage, which would have extended Indiana's ban on same-sex marriages to include civil unions and other forms of legal recognition that equate to marriage-like benefits for same-sex couples. The Indiana Constitution requires that a proposed amendment be approved by two consecutive sessions of the General Assembly before being placed on the ballot. The prevailing legal view is that the amendment must be approved in the same form both times; otherwise, the process begins anew, which is what the legislature purported to do with passage of HJR-3 this year. The version passed by both the House and Senate this year expressly states that it is to be "referred to the next General Assembly for reconsideration and agreement."

There is apparently precedent for constitutional amendments being placed on the ballot after minor, non-substantive changes were made when the proposed amendment was approved by the second General Assembly. The question becomes whether the substantive change from the removal of the second sentence was enough to be considered more substantive in nature rather than a technical change. My guess is that a court would defer to the legislative determination that removal of the second sentence significantly changed the proposal so that it requires approval by the next General Assembly, but anything is possible I suppose. The view is that Gov. Mike Pence doesn't want HJR-3 to be on the ballot in 2016 when he runs for re-election. Perhaps he's supportive of this effort to get it on the ballot this year instead.  

City Council Members Want Ex-Felons To Work For Government But Not As Club Promoters

Members of the Indianapolis City-County Council are itching to pass a resolution that would ban the box on employee application forms for government job-seekers from asking about a person's past criminal convictions. They believe the question stigmatizes ex-offenders applying for government jobs and hinders their chances of getting a job with a city or county agency, even though the express policy of the city-county government is not to discriminate against someone on the basis of criminal convictions in their past. Council members are less enthusiastic about ex-offenders working as promoters for clubs that sell alcohol. In fact, they want state law changed to bar ex-felons from working as promoters. WRTV's Jack Rinehart cranks out another spoon fed story:

Police and members of the City-County Council say some downtown bars are exploiting loopholes in the alcohol statutes that allow convicted felons to reap profits from liquor sales.

Baron Mays is a self-described promoter who organizes special events at downtown bars. Officers with the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department said Mays is a twice-convicted felon still on probation and house arrest.

Police said his criminal past disqualifies him from any employment in any establishment that serves alcohol.

"Mr. Mays wouldn't qualify for a liquor license. But he's getting all the benefits of having a liquor license. He's able to host events. Obviously, he's collecting some revenue for the sales of people entering these events and from sales of alcohol," IMPD Sgt. Bill Carter said.

In addition to the Club 36 East Pub & Grill, police said that Mays has promoted events at other downtown liquor establishments.

Shawn Williams, the manager at 36 East, said Mays is not associated with the night club.

City-County Councillor Marilyn Pfisterer said that Indianapolis and every other city lacks the requisite authority to take action against liquor establishments that violate or exploit loopholes in the law.

"They should be able to shut that door and shut that business down until they get into compliance. And we can't do that," Pfisterer said.

Here's a news flash for Councilor Pfisterer and Sgt. Carter. Mr. Mays, as an independent contractor, is not responsible for the problems that have occurred at this establishment. There is an owner who holds that alcohol permit who is 100% responsible for what goes on inside his or her establishment. If the permit holder is operating a problem establishment, then don't renew the permit. Anyone who has paid any attention to what happens at the Marion County Alcoholic Beverage Board knows which establishments have repeated problems complying with state alcohol laws and local ordinances. Most of the time the local board just shakes their finger at the owner and tells them to straighten up their act. If the owner of an establishment utilizes the services of club promoters who draw problem clientele and doesn't have adequate security to deal with issues as they arise, then don't renew their permit. It's that simple. Just ask Bar Rescue's Jon Taffer.

Democrats Come Up Short In Mayor's Race

Lobbyist Frank Short, who is also the Washington Township Trustee, announced that he will seek the Democratic nomination for mayor in 2015. Short has filed paperwork to form an exploratory committee to begin raising campaign funds. From the Star:

Short, who owns the lobbying firm Short Strategy Group, Inc., said as mayor he would focus on “crime, jobs and education.”

“If we want to stay a world-class city, these are the issues were need to work on and work together on,” Short said. “I have a proven record of being able to work with Democrats and Republicans.”

Short is finishing his second term as Washington Township Trustee and served on the City-County Council from 1991 to 2003. He is running for trustee again this year.

Short’s lobbying firm focuses on retail, commerce, insurance, state government and gaming and its clients have included government agencies, public utilities and gaming companies, according to a biography provided by Short.

Short said he was encouraged to run for mayor by people dissatisfied with Ballard’s performance, including “community folks, pastors, business people and regular citizens.”

The only other Democratic candidate currently being mentioned as a potential candidate is State Rep. Ed DeLaney, a former partner at Barnes & Thornburg, the law firm that currently operates the City of Indianapolis as a wholly-owned subsidiary thanks to the empty suit currently occupying the office.

Disgraced Former Illinois Congressman Tied To Gary Airport Contractor Arrested In Zimbabwe On Pornography Charges

Former Illinois Congressman Mel Reynolds (D) was forced from office in 1995 after he was charged and convicted of statutory rape of a 16-year old girl, obstruction of justice and solicitation of child pornography. While in prison, he was slapped with additional charges related to the misuse of his campaign funds. President Bill Clinton showed him mercy and commuted his sentence to time served on his way out of office in 2001. Reynolds unsuccessfully sought a political comeback last year after his successor in Congress, Jesse Jackson, Jr., was forced from office following his admission that he had used hundreds of thousands of campaign money for his personal use. Now comes news out of Harare, Zimbabwe that Reynolds has been arrested on pornography charges in that country. From the Sun-Times:

The state-controlled newspaper, The Herald, reported that Reynolds was arrested Monday for allegedly possessing pornographic material and violating immigration laws . . .

The Herald said Reynolds was arrested by police detectives and immigration officials at a Harare hotel.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. Embassy, Karen Kelley, said the embassy could not comment as it was a private matter and the embassy did not did not have a privacy waiver.

The newspaper reported that Reynolds had accumulated hotel bills worth $24,500 which he has not yet paid.

So why in the world was Reynolds spending so much time in Zimbabwe? Well, it turns out that he's been there working on behalf of a very wealthy Chicago businessman with very close ties to President Barack Obama, Elzie Higginbottom, who has been working on business deals in the country despite the fact that the U.S. supposedly continues to impose sanctions against the Mugabe-run government in Zimbabwe that make such business deals unlawful. The Mail & Guardian reported last year on Higginbottom's efforts to land business deals in Zimbabwe, which were originally focused on the country's vast diamond mining business but later refocused on agriculture, tourism and real estate.

The Mail & Guardian said that Higginbottom, who it described as "a major Chicago fundraiser" for President Obama, had been "schmoozing senior Zanu-PF figures, including President Robert Mugabe" in an effort to win business deals from the government. The Mugabe government, in turn, was hoping Higginbottom could use his influence with the Obama administration to ease sanctions against the government.

Zimbabwe security forces apparently saw the participation of Americans in the Chiadzwa diamond fields near Marange as key to avoiding further action by a “hostile" US government to restrict the Zimbabwe diamond trade.

The security forces also hoped that a delegation of Chicago businessmen led by Higginbottom would lean on key members of the Obama administration to reverse, or ease, US sanctions against senior Zanu-PF figures.

The sanctions, administered by the US treasury's Office of Foreign Asset Control (Ofac), prohibit US citizens from engaging in “any transactions with any person, entity or organisation" on a list of “specially designated nationals". . .

Although no evidence has come to light that Higginbottom has sealed business deals with Mugabe or Moyo directly, he is skating on thin ice . . .

Higginbottom confirmed this week that his company had “been seeking business opportunities in Zimbabwe for several years". 

“Our agenda has consistently and solely been related to business. We have no political agenda," he said.

But documented attempts by Higginbottom's team to negotiate a diamond-mining joint venture with a business team from the Zimbabwe ministry of defence rings alarm bells. Evidence gathered by civil rights groups and journalists in recent years suggests that the military has perpetrated human rights abuses in the Marange diamond fields, and that senior military figures have imposed themselves as silent shareholders in diamond mining companies . . .

“I would be very surprised if someone like Higginbottom, with the kind of money he has and the ambitious investments he proposes, can be in Zimbabwe for three or four years without having to transact with senior Zanu-PF government, security and intelligence officials subject to sanctions," said a long-time security and intelligence source working for the Movement for Democratic Change . . .

The article in the Guardian & Mail from last year specifically mentions work Reynolds was performing for Higginbottom in Zimbabwe, although Higginbottom sought to distance himself from Reynolds when asked about comments he made in his name praising the Mugabe government. The article also discussed the fact that the Rev. Jesse Jackson had accompanied Higginbottom on a trip to Zimbabwe in 2011:

Higginbottom's business dealings with Zimbabwe have been inextricably entwined with politics from the beginning, and he has associated himself with the major thawing of US-Zimbabwe relations this year.

He first met Mugabe on the sidelines of the United Nations general assembly in New York in 2011, and sponsored a Doing Business in Zimbabwe Day in Washington, DC.

He then led a delegation of Chicago businesspeople to Zimbabwe in November 2011, where he met Mugabe again.

Disgraced former US congressman Mel Reynolds, who assumed the mantle of Higginbottom's spokesperson during that trip, told Zimbabwe state media that “mining, housing, insurance, farming, banking, medical and other" deals were under discussion.

In a wide-ranging interview with the state-owned Sunday Mail, Reynolds praised Mugabe as “one of the last lions of Africa that brought freedom to the people of this great continent".

He concluded with a statement: “I personally believe that sanctions should have never been imposed in the first place. I also believe that Zimbabwe can move forward despite sanctions."

Reynolds's position was also noted by Zimbabwean security forces in internal documents seen by the M&G.

Higginbottom distanced himself from the claims attributed to him in Zimbabwe in November 2011, saying that they were made in his name without his approval.

“We can assume no responsibility for comments he [Reynolds] made in Zimbabwe or elsewhere about his political/professional affiliations. Nor did we approve any representations he may have made about our objectives that were not true," said Higginbottom.

Reynolds could not be reached for comment.

Higginbottom's business outreach is not limited to Zimbabwe. His company, Eastlake Management & Development Corp., brokered a deal with the Gary International Airport last year for a new aircraft service facility at the airport. That contract has resulted in a lawsuit being filed against the airport authority by Gary Jet Center, which claims the deal provides an unfair business advantage by giving preferential treatment to B. Coleman, an aviation company operated by Higginbottom's company at the airport, in violation of federal and state regulations. The Gary Post-Tribune describes the facts surrounding that lawsuit:

The authority board voted last summer to let East Lake lease one existing hangar and to lease land to build two more hangers. The authority also reached a deal with East Lake for B. Coleman to take over management of the airport’s 60 smaller “T-hangars,” with B. Coleman keeping 20 percent of the revenue from those hangars.

The agreement, according to the lawsuit, allowed B. Coleman to start operating as a full-service company, called a fixed-base operator, that can sell fuel to airplanes and provide mechanics. It also gave the company nine months to meet certain regulations, required by federal law, such as having 35,000 gallons of fuel on hand in above-ground storage and having a building with at least 10,000 square feet of space.

B. Coleman currently operates from two double-wide trailers, does not have the fuel on hand and does not have a Federal Aviation Administration-certified mechanic, according to the motion filed by Gary Jet Center.

Along with giving B. Coleman a waiver from these regulations, Gary Jet Center, in its motion, says the airport authority has given B. Coleman other preferential treatment such as not having to pay certain fees or not forcing its customers to pay certain fees, all of which Gary Jet Center has to do.

The motion says Gary Jet Center has already lost one customer, who owns two planes, to B. Coleman because of this preferential treatment.

“While Gary Jet Center is not afraid of competition, it wants that competition to occur on a level playing field,” Wil Davis, president of Gary Jet Center, says in an affidavit attached to the motion.

Gary Jet Center notes in its filings that the airport had to make numerous assurances to the federal government in order to get funding, one of which says all fixed-base operators must be subject to the same rates, fees and other charges . . .

That deal with Higginbottom's company, incidentally, was brokered by John Clark, the controversial former head of the Indianapolis International Airport who was sent packing after bad media attention focused on his lavish travels and spending. Clark's Hoosier friends, including Lacy Johnson, helped him land a lucrative contract with the Gary Airport Authority. According to news reports, Clark earned about $166,000 in consulting fees last year before the airport authority inked a deal to award management of the airport to a Virginia-based company. What a corrupt, tangled web of people involved all around here. I can only imagine the sort of business dealings that are taking place up at Gary's airport these days with this cast of characters.  

 

HJR-3 Passes Senate 32-17

Action on HJR-3 this session finally comes to a close after it passed on third reading by a vote of 32-17. Sen. Mike Delph kept his word and voted against it because of the leadership's decision not to allow an amendment to add back the second sentence stripped from the bill in the House, which would have broadened the state's ban on same-sex marriages to extend to civil unions, domestic partnerships or any other form of legal recognition that equated a same-sex marriage to traditional marriages. Sen. Ron Alting, Sen. Vaneta Becker, Sen. Phil Boots and Sen. Pete Miller were four other Republican members who joined Democratic lawmakers in opposing HJR-3. One Democrat, Sen. Richard Young, voted in favor of it. The constitutional amendment must be approved by the members of the next General Assembly before it can go before voters for consideration at the 2016 general election. Meanwhile, all of the important legislative initiatives that screw over the public have flown through the process already under the radar while the legislature turned the public's and the media's attention to this sideshow circus act.

Ballard Wants Prince William and Princess Kate To Visit Indy's New Cricket Stadium

You can't make this stuff up. In an interview with WISH-TV's Eric Halvorson, Mayor Greg Ballard said that he had reached out to the British consulate to invite Prince William and his wife, Kate Middleton, to visit Indy's new world sports park that he is having built on the city's east side for a national cricket tournament being hosted there next summer, even though he's provided insufficient funding to the city's parks department to adequately maintain the parks the city already has. This man's priorities are so screwed up on so many levels that it is beyond being humorous. It's just downright sad that we have a mayor who is totally consumed by sports facilities and handing out large subsidies to his campaign contributors while so many parts of the city are literally becoming disaster areas due to out-of-control crime and the large number of abandoned homes and commercial buildings occasioned by neighborhoods in decline as more and more people move outside of Marion County to escape the poor conditions. In case you had any doubts, no, William and Kate won't be visiting Indy's world sports park next summer.

Delph/Marriage Discrimination Amendment Media Coverage Says A Lot About What's Wrong With The Media Today

I've been asked by a few people why I haven't commented on the battle State Sen. Mike Delph had with opponents of HJR-3 on Twitter and the media reaction by focusing on the fact that he has a gay brother who differs from him on the amendment for obvious reasons. I consider Mike a friend, even though I disagree with him sharply on HJR-3.

What really bothers me is the obsession with this issue to the exclusion of other issues making their way through the legislature that will directly impact the lives of people living in this state. HJR-3 is a bad idea, but it's already state law. It makes absolutely no legal difference whether this same-sex marriage ban is a part of the state's constitution. My guess is that future federal court decisions will prevent the enactment of any state constitutional amendment and likely lead to the striking of the state's current Defense of Marriage Act as unconstitutional before this issue makes it to voters in 2016. At one time, this was a grassroots debate on both sides of the issue. It's now been hijacked by high-paid lobbyists and consultants who care more about how much money they can make off of debating this issue than any substantive meaning the debate offers.

The fact is that the media in this state is doing a horrible job at discussing other more important issues at the legislature, including mass transit, more state intervention to erode legislative authority at the local level in favor of executive authority, public funding of another stadium, taxation issues, particularly as it relates to the state's businesses, relaxed environmental regulations to reward polluters, and other proposed laws, such as HB 1126, which pretty much guts a current law that allows employees who've been cheated out of their wages to recover those unpaid wages through a civil remedy that acts as a hammer to discourage employers from engaging in this practice in the first instance.

State House reporters have increasingly relied on social media like Twitter to provide extremely short-handed version of actions taking place at the state legislature. Gone are the days when the Indianapolis Star used to have full-page stories covering a variety of issues before the legislature. HJR-3 has seemingly consumed about 90% of the media coverage this session. Most of the reporting has added very little meaningful discussion of the issue other than to report its progress much the way a sports reporter would report on a sporting event, focusing too much on the personalities of key players and which side is doing a better job messaging their viewpoint to lawmakers.

Today, State House reporters are totally enthralled over a press conference that Sen. Delph has called this morning at 10:00 a.m. The weekend has been filled with idle speculation about what Delph's announcement will discuss. Some of have speculated that he's going to leave the Republican caucus over his disapproval with a leadership decision not to allow an amendment to be offered to add back the controversial second sentence stripped from HJR-3 by the House, a suggestion rejected by Delph. Others have suggested he intends to announce his plans to challenge President Pro Tempore David Long for his leadership position. Whatever it is, it's not as important as many of the other issues that will impact the lives of average Hoosiers far more directly than whatever this issue entails. Reporters are either too lazy to study and report on those issues, or they're just spectators at the Coliseum cheering for more blood. Either way, it's not a good reflection on the state of journalism today.

UPDATE: Apparently the purpose of Delph's press conference was to vent over frustration with the Senate Republican leadership's handling of HJR-3. In protest, he's casting a vote against HJR-3 unless the second sentence is restored. Happy President's Day!

Is Ban The Box A Good Idea?

Councilor Vop Osili has a proposal pending before the City-County Council, Proposal No. 4, which bars questions on job applications for government jobs concerning an applicant's past criminal convictions. The proposal, referred to as "Ban The Box," would extend to employers doing business with the city and those receiving local economic development incentives. Councilor Osili told members of the Public Safety Committee that he was very excited about his proposal. In committee, an amendment removed the requirement for city vendors and businesses that receive economic development incentives. The only saving in the proposal is that city and county agencies would still be allowed to perform criminal background checks after the person has been called in for an interview but before being offered a job.

Our neighboring state of Illinois enacted a similar law last year for the state of Illinois where the City of Chicago enacted Ban The Box back in 2006. The Sun-Times reports this morning that Gov. Pat Quinn has appointed a man as the state's head of the Department of Child and Family Services who was once convicted of stealing $9,000 from patients of a local mental health treatment center. The 61-year old Arthur Bishop was also forced to pay child support for a child he sired out of wedlock after a paternity action was filed against him in 2003. Bishop knew that he was the father of a daughter born in 1986, but despite his work in social services and at the state agency charged with protecting at-risk children, he refused to acknowledge the daughter. The daughter's mother obtained a child support order against Bishop, but the court wouldn't order back child support based on Bishop's contention that she had waited a long time before requesting support and had concealed that he was the daughter's father when she was first born, a fact disputed by the child's mother.

According to the Sun-Times, Bishop refused to grant an interview to the newspaper to discuss his past criminal conviction or his paternity action. A spokesperson for the Department said that she believed it was "inappropriate to raise decades-old issues that have long been resolved and have nothing to do with his performance as director." Are you kidding me? This guy runs the state agency in charge of child and family services and it's inappropriate to ask questions about him being a dead beat father and stealing from patients of a publicly-supported mental health center?  Remarkably, Bishop had listed the prior conviction on numerous job applications with DCFS and had been hired to very high-paying jobs despite his prior conviction for theft. He now earns $150,000 a year as the agency's director.

Mayor Greg Ballard support Osili's initiative. In the past, his administration has boasted of its overt efforts to hire ex-offenders, noting that at least 10% of all new hires for the city of Indianapolis are persons with prior criminal convictions. Don't be surprised when you find out that city employees are stealing, shaking down people for bribes and who knows what else when it goes out of its way to hire people with criminal pasts. There has been a plethora of cases in recent years of public employees in this state getting caught stealing money from their government employers or worse. It just seems to me that the trend is to reward people in this country at every turn for bad behavior--to the point where we are actually favoring people in public hiring decisions who have committed crimes over persons who have lived model lives. What's the disincentive to break the law if, as a matter of public policy, we're going to take the view that criminal law-breaking can't become a disqualifier?

Pence Misrepresents Business Tax Burden In Pushing Elimination Of Business Personal Property Tax

Surely Gov. Mike Pence wouldn't mislead the public about the taxation burden faced by Indiana businesses in pushing the elimination of the business personal property tax, a move that would save businesses about $1 billion a year currently relied upon by local governments statewide as a source of revenue, would he? That's what the Northwest Indiana Times' Dan Carden concludes that Pence is doing in comparing the state's business tax burden to surrounding states.

"This is just a bad tax in a state where you make things," Pence said. "Illinois doesn't have one, Michigan just voted to phase theirs out ... I think it will make Indiana more prosperous, more competitive."

Repeatedly left unsaid -- and perhaps unknown to Pence -- is that while Illinois is one of seven states without a business personal property tax, Illinois companies annually pay a 2.5 percent income tax surcharge known as the "business personal property replacement tax."

The 1970 Illinois Constitution required the General Assembly eliminate the business personal property tax by 1979 and authorized a replacement tax to ensure schools and local governments continued to receive the same amount of money they did when the personal property tax was in effect.

As a result, while Illinois' corporate income tax rate is 7 percent -- the same as Indiana's, though Indiana's is set to drop to 6.5 percent next year -- Illinois businesses actually pay a corporate income tax of 9.5 percent with the business personal property replacement tax included.

Similarly, when Pence speaks about Michigan being on track to eliminate its business personal property tax, he omits that starting in 2016 Michigan local governments can charge an "essential services assessment" on business real estate, to make up 100 percent of the revenue lost due to the personal property tax cut.

Pence also is fond of talking about how Ohio eliminated its business personal property tax in 2010. He never mentions, however, Ohio replaced it with a gross receipts tax, charging a 0.26 percent fee on all taxable business revenue over $1 million for the privilege of doing business in the state.

After all the pushback from local government leaders, Pence has softened his position and said he would go along with a partial replacement of revenues lost from the elimination of the tax. If you think governments are going to do with less under any circumstances, think again. They always find a way of finding other taxpayers to pay when one group of taxpayers are given a break.