Recent editorials published in Indiana newspapers
The (Fort Wayne) Journal Gazette. May 6, 2016
Indiana women lag far behind in series of lifestyle indicators.
Given the candidates at the top of the major-party tickets, women are likely to be a major focus in the presidential election season ahead. The issues affecting them are felt by all Americans, so a snapshot of where women stand in 2016 is important to note. For Indiana women, it's not flattering.
A study by the Institute for Women's Policy Research ranks Hoosier women 39th in the nation for indicators that include earnings, poverty, health measures and child care. Among neighboring states, only Kentucky women fare worse.
Indiana ranks dead last for work and family indicators. The state's policies for child and dependent care lag many other states. Child-care policies do not support working mothers, and the gap between labor force participation by mothers and fathers is large. Paid-leave policies do not support working women.
Although Indiana has finally invested in a state-funded preschool pilot program, it remains far behind other states. In 2013, fewer than 15 percent of Indiana's 4-year-olds were enrolled in a state or federal pre-K program. In Kentucky, the figure was 44 percent, and in Oklahoma it was 87 percent.
The cost of full-time care for an infant in a child-care center was among the lowest in the nation, but that's as much a reflection of the poor wages available for jobs held almost entirely by women.
Employment and wage figures for Indiana women are especially discouraging. Median annual earnings for full-time, year-round Hoosier workers - male and female - have fallen from $34,958 in 2004 to $34,000 in 2015, but women in Indiana earn just under 76 percent of what men earn. Wages are improving, but at an unacceptable pace. At the current rate, women in Indiana won't achieve equal pay with men until the year 2086.
The type of jobs they hold shape those numbers. Just 36.5 percent of women are in managerial or professional occupations. The state ranks 45th in that measure.
Indiana's best grade for women is in political participation, but a C- is far from a glowing mark. Women hold just 31 of the 150 seats in the Indiana General Assembly even though women hold a slight majority in the state's population.
The lack of female representation is evident in the legislative agenda and debate, particularly on issues such as the abortion bill approved in the last session. Several female Republican legislators broke ranks to vote against the measure.
Rep. Sean Eberhart, R-Shelbyville, noted the irony of a male-dominated institution determining policy on women's health.
"Today is a perfect example of a bunch of middle-aged guys sitting in this room making decisions for what we think is best for women," he told his House colleagues. "We just need to quit pretending that we know what's best for women and their health care needs."
If Indiana's poor showing on the women's status report is an indication, there are many other issues in which Indiana policymakers don't know what's best for women. Election prospects are poor in terms of increasing female representation in state government, but that doesn't mean lawmakers can't listen and advance policies to improve the status for women and girls in Indiana. ___
South Bend Tribune. May 6, 2016
Negative ripples from high court ruling.
Open government advocates who worried about the repercussions of a recent Indiana Supreme Court ruling didn't have to wait long to see their fears confirmed.
Last month, the high court ruled that although Indiana legislators are subject to the state's public access law, ordering the release of lawmaker email communications with lobbying groups and businesses violates the state constitution's separation of powers between the legislative and judicial branches of government.
The dust had barely settled on that decision before Gov. Mike Pence used it to argue that he should not be required to release documents tied to the governor's illegal immigration lawsuit. An Indianapolis attorney sued Pence over the documents, asking a court to decide whether the governor's heavy redaction and denial of those records was permissible under the Indiana Access to Public Records Act.
In filings a few days after the Supreme Court ruled in the lawmaker email case, Pence lawyers argued, "Just as the judiciary should not 'intermeddle' with the legislature's determination of what constitutes its own work product, the judiciary should also not 'intermeddle' with the executive's determination of what constitutes its own work product, deliberative material, or privileged material."
Steve Key, executive director of the Hoosier State Press Association, says if the judiciary accepts this position, it could "eviscerate the Access to Public Records Act" because every agency would make the same argument. The end result, he says, is that the public's ability to hold government officials accountable would be "greatly hamstrung by such a policy."
It's especially disappointing that this attack on the public's right to know comes from Pence, a self-proclaimed advocate for a free and independent press who in March vetoed a police records bill that would have sheltered police departments at Notre Dame and nine other private colleges in Indiana from following the same crime reporting requirements as other law enforcement agencies. '
In a statement explaining that veto, Pence called the bill an "unnecessary barrier to transparency."
Those words still ring true. Too bad Pence, in this latest case, isn't showing the same commitment to the public's right to know.___
The (Anderson) Herald Bulletin. May 6, 2016
Disparity in sentencing is worthy topic.
A mother recently sat in a Madison County courtroom, trying to listen to the discussions between an attorney and a judge about her son.
A few weeks earlier, the son had been found guilty by a jury of dealing cocaine, a Class A felony. On the day when the mother was struggling to hear the discussions, her son would be sentenced to 35 years in prison.
She was mad at the criminal justice system, angry that it treated unfairly black and Latino males. Such inequality has documented time and again, particularly since the 1980s when penalties turned harsher for drug dealers.
Those particular ethnic groups, when convicted of drug-related offenses, often face sentences nearly 20 percent longer than those imposed on white men convicted of similar crimes, according to a 2014 American Civil Liberties Union study.
President Barack Obama has rightly spoken out on what he believes are excessive sentences for drug-related crimes. To address the disparity of sentencing, Obama signed into law the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010, addressing the amount of crack cocaine and powder cocaine needed to trigger certain federal criminal penalties.
Indeed, we hear of drug-dealing physicians who receive probation or the addict who gets sentenced to attend counseling session while on parole. The sentences often depend on the charges filed by prosecutors who know what felonies they'll be able to prosecute.
But it is difficult for many of us to fathom how one criminal's sentence varies from another. We must go case by case.
More importantly, it is crucial to understand a suspect's history and the severity of the crime. In this story, the criminal had faced an armed robbery arrest previously.
In others, a first-time offender may receive a lesser sentence than a hardened criminal.
Each case needs to be heard in court with past and previous history taken into consideration. Thankfully, committed judges perform the task at hand.___
(Logansport) Pharos-Tribune. May 4, 2016
Putting Trump closer to victory.
Indiana was ground zero Tuesday for the presidential primaries, and Cass County voters came out in force to have a say in who might be our country's next leader.
In the national election spotlight is not a familar place for us Hoosiers. We rarely have the eyes of the nation on us come primary election day. And Tuesday proved to be an even more historical day for Indiana as the state's results sparked the end of a candidate's campaign.
Republican hopeful Ted Cruz dropped out of the race late Tuesday evening after Donald Trump led the vote totals. Here in Cass County, Trump received just shy of 57 percent of the vote. Cruz came in second with 34 percent. Trump's statewide trouncing of Cruz left his campaign reeling. His absense puts Trump on a clear path to his party's nomination for president.
Cruz had campaigned hard in Indiana, hoping that it would be his D-Day; instead, it is his Waterloo. He said Tuesday night that he was "suspending" his campaign.
Cruz claimed Gov. Mike Pence's endorsement, but that might have been the kiss of death. The governor's ultra-conservative agenda has made Indiana simultaneously a pariah and a laughingstock, and has turned off Hoosiers, who are, by and large, practical, commonsensical and moderate.
Like Pence, Cruz panders to those on the far right and lets his personal beliefs, rather than pragmatism and sound public policy, drive his agenda. Hoosiers saw right through him.
But they did buy Trump's act. His disdain for the establishment, coupled with patriotic bravado and an unrelenting appeal to the good old days, brought Hoosiers out in droves to vote for him. Trump, essentially, makes it all very simple - his way or the highway, and that proved attractive to a people entangled in a web of red tape, paralyzed by political correctness and awash in government complexity.
On the Democratic side, Indiana - and Cass County - threw its support behind Bernie Sanders in a victory the candidate is hoping becomes a tidal wave in coming primaries. In his post-victory speech in southern Indiana, he warned those proclaiming otherwise that this election is not over.
Still, Clinton has a wide lead in the delegates race, and she's poised to land a knockout blow to Sanders in the California primary on June 7, if not before.
But, if our talks with voters leaving Cass County polls Tuesday is any indication, there's no clear favorite in this race. In fact, the words "lesser of two evils" were quite popular among those casting their ballots. In many cases, we heard, residents opted for one candidate more because of a strong dislike for his or her opponent rather than a real commitment to the candidate themselves.
That's a sad state of affairs for the nation because although this election has been and will continue to be a wild rate, it's hindered by this sobering realization: The winner will lead our country.