Indiana Blog Review

Brain Drain

Manfred Eye:

How does a city such as Indianapolis stack up in this attempt to draw young, qualified professionals? Not very well.

Central Indiana Financial Shenanigans

Advance Indiana, "Carl Drummer's Fleecing of Center Township."

Indy Undercover has a couple of posts suggesting more of the same in the City-County Council here and here.

Senate Jockeying

Frugal Hoosiers:

One interesting story that came out of last week and received little attention was the attempted shake up of the Senate Democrat Caucus.  Senator Vi Simpson attempted to take control of the caucus by running for minority leader, a position that has been occupied by Sen. Richard Young for years. This move presumably was a first step toward a Vi Simpson run for Governor, putting her a position of leadership and giving her a platform of relevancy for two years.

Legislative Pay

Chris Douglas:

Never has a  topic been thrown about with so much heat and so little light as legislative pay and benefits.  If we don't begin to pay our elected officials seriously, we're going to get the worst form of public servant.  In many  cases, we already have it.

Marcia Oddi:

Could this be a coincidence? So far I've read three stories today, from different parts of the state, all making a point that Indiana legislators are poorly paid.

She also finds more on the topic.

Advance Indiana:

It seems to me that Indiana's current compensation system is not at all transparent. Per diem pay is being systematically used and abused to boost legislative pay . . .

The current system is also quite generous to lawmakers who hold jobs where employers do not penalize them for time spent away tending to legislative business . . .

. . . if Indiana legislators think they are undercompensated, they should begin by devising a more straight-forward system of pay than the current system, which by design makes their pay appear much less than what it actually is. Indiana should also consider whether it wants full-time or part-time legislators.

Leo Morris:

But unless we're going to make it enough for a full-time job, the General Assembly will continue to draw the same kind of people it now does -- i.e., people who can take off from their normal jobs a few months a year -- and continue to not attract the "middle class."

Graduation Rates

RiShawn Biddle was impatient for the numbers.  Now that they're out, Advance Indiana laments, and Abdul has a radical suggestion.  Mark Rutherford, "But at least we have palaces to house our failed government schools."  His suggestion for regional centers sounds promising.

Leo Morris says of the methodology, "Both ways of calculating the graduation rate are arbitrary, and you could make good arguments for either one . . . The important thing is to have a system everyone understands."

But Biddle counters that the new rate isn't arbitrary.  Both agree that greater transparecny will lead to new solutions.

More Post-election Commentary

Chris Douglas:

The voters have spoken in Indiana's Marion County, and it's important to understand one of their messages: The Republican Party, both locally and statewide, must now stop its attacks on the glbt community if it is to achieve an electoral majority in a close election.

And if you have interesting comments on the broadcast media ads from this past election, your participation is solicited:

The Howey Political Report and IndianaOnMessage are inviting readers to participate in an interactive project. Most of the legislative and Congressional campaign TV and radio ads are posted on the HPR/IOM websites. We're asking readers to tell us which campaign ads were the best, the worst, and the most innovative and why.

FSSA Privatization

Advance Indiana: "The $1 billion privatization agreement is being done for all the wrong reasons."

MORE: AI continues:

The Star's Tim Evans describes Governor Daniels' $1.16 billion decision to privatize Indiana's welfare system as "bold", but I can think of several, more apt descriptions. "Ill-advised", "reckless" and "rushed" are all better adjectives in my mind.

And Doug Masson says the recent snag "highlights one of the problems with privatization — lack of transparency and lack of accountability."

Retreat America

Advance Indiana gleefully points out an FEC ruling that further casts doubts as to the legality of voting guides produced by Eric Miller's front organization, Advance America.

He follows up with a critique of a recent interview with Miller.

(Bil Browning also pokes at the interview.)

Kenn Gividen notes that AA won't include Libertarians in the guides, and Democrats rarely respond, " the guides are little more than a list of Republican candidates."

Purged Precincts

Scott Tibbs notes that purging the bloated voter rolls in Monroe County (all those former students) will lead to local redistricting and ensuing turmoil.

Camm Glam

Scott Fluhr explains how a years-old, local murder sensation has propelled a Southern Indiana prosecutor into a rising Republican star.