Archive for the ‘SJR7/Marriage Amendment’ Category

Sometimes you have to wonder if the Democrats ever really believed they had a shot at beating Mitch Daniels. If they did, those faint hopes grew extremely dim once JLT officially beat the establishment’s chosen candidate, Jim Schellinger. Their hopes were all but dashed once Dennie Ray Oxley II joined the Team JLT and her merry band of fire baton twirlers.

It seems that once Dennie Ray opens his mouth, something fun for the righty blogosphere spits out. First, it was him saying that his fingerprints are on each of the bills that go through the House during the session. As Mike McDaniel rightly noted on last week’s Indiana Week in Review, it’s only because Pat Bauer told him to physically carry a bill from one place to another.

But Dennie Ray’s latest incident is enough to make even us chuckle even more with delight and a person I consider a good friend (even though he blogs for the other side of the aisle), Bil Browning, captured it all in his coverage of the State Democrat Convention when Dennie Ray and Baton Twirler Jill spoke to the Stonewall Democrats Caucus (their version of Log-Cabins for those who may not know), in his write up for the Huffington Post. Now, fellow Director and also a good friend, Mike Jezierski also covered it last night, but let’s dig into Dennie Ray’s statements, especially those regarding SJR-7 a little deeper shall we?

(Read more after the leap ) (more…)

Professional Acquaintance of Hoosier Access, Bil Browning of Bilerico, wrote this piece in The Huffington Post:

“[Jill Long Thompson] opened with talk about getting Indiana back on track and continued on to talk about civil rights. “No matter what caucus you talk to, civil rights are a top priority. For some caucuses it becomes more important. We don’t need more people who are on the wrong track when it comes to interpreting the Constitution and what God wants,” she said. “You will have a friend in the Governor’s office every hour of the day.”

When she introduced Rep Oxley, he didn’t get the same standing ovation Long Thompson had received. He started out talking about the economy and segued into his experience and his vote on SJR-7.

[More below the fold]

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Posted in Dennie Ray Oxley II, Governor's Race, Jill Long Thompson, SJR7/Marriage Amendment | No Comments » | Read more..

Hoosier Access was able to get a hold of letter submitted to the South Bend Tribune by a citizen who has been trying to reach Speaker Bauer’s office to request that the Speaker stop holding up SJR 7, the marriage amendment.  The story here is pretty amazing, though it is not necessarily surprising.

 On Tuesday, January 24 I called the statehouse to speak with the office of Pat Bauer with regard to SJR 7, the marriage amendment.  My intentions were to respectfully voice my support of the legislation, since Pat Bauer is the sole individual in the House who can bring it to a full floor vote.  In addition I wanted to remind him of his campaign promise made in October in 2006 (see the following quote from a campaign press release)

 “If I am elected Speaker of the Indiana House after the November 7 general election, I will allow committee meetings, floor debate and a final vote in that chamber on a constitutional amendment to prohibit gay marriages in Indiana”

 When the call center answered, I asked to speak with the office of Pat Bauer.  She asked “regarding what?”  In a polite manner I said “SJR7, the Marriage Amendment”.  She replied “one moment please” as if I was being transferred.  The next thing that I know I am disconnected.  At first I think that it’s an error so I immediately call back.  They hang up on me again!  After prolonged frustration I finally get someone at the call center to tell me that Bauer’s office is not accepting any phone calls.  In a calm manner, I ask “why?” She replies that it is the directive they were given with no explanation.  So I asked her if she thought it was ridiculous, that a citizen of the state of Indiana should be denied the right to speak with our government officials.  She agreed but said there is nothing she could do about it.  The only advice she could provide was to write an email.  

 I am highly disappointed that one our high-ranking state officials would act in such a manner.  Especially considering the position that Speaker Bauer took when campaigning in 2006.  This is exactly the kind of behavior that has caused our society to become so disgusted with our federal government.  It’s too bad that our state officials are following suite.  I did write an email communication, but feel like my voice is unimportant to Pat Bauer.  And what about all the citizens of our state whom have no access to email, or don’t even know how to send an email? Is it honorable to completely ignore them?  What a sad day for the State of Indiana.

Can Pat Bauer say “Minority Leader”?  This story is unfortunate on two levels.  Number one, the marriage amendment should go to the floor of the House were it will probably pass and the people will get a chance to vote on it this fall.  The merits of the amendment speak for themselves (I’ve discussed them elsewhere here).  Number two, regardless of the issue at stake here, why is Pat Bauer not interested in hearing what the people have to say?  This is arrogance and it’s unacceptable.

This was released yesterday by Eric Miller and Advance America:

Legislative Tragedy – SJR 8 –
Repeal of Property Taxes!!

On Tuesday, January 22nd at approximately 5:40 pm the Chairman of the Senate Rules and Legislative Procedures Committee, Senator David Long, started a public hearing on SJR 8, the Constitutional Amendment to Repeal Property Taxes and a new bill, Senate Bill 100, which would set up a study committee on the repeal of homestead property taxes. Senator Long is also the leader of the State Senate.

 

Committee Hearing Shuts Out Public!
Senator Long held a committee hearing on January 8th on SJR 8 that permitted the public to testify both for and against SJR 8. This was the right thing to do.

However, on January 22nd Senator Long refused to let the citizens who came to the committee hearing to testify on either SJR 8 or the new bill, Senate Bill 100. After a long opening statement where he demeaned those who wanted to repeal property taxes, he proceeded to discuss the new bill, Senate Bill 100, which would set up a study committee. This bill had never been discussed in a public committee hearing prior to January 22nd. Senator Long abused his position as the Chairman of the Rules Committee and refused to allow any of the more than 20 citizens who came to the hearing to testify on Senate Bill 100.

(Read more of this below the fold) (more…)

Posted in General Assembly, Legislation, Legislature, Property Taxes, SJR7/Marriage Amendment | 1 Comment » | Read more..

House Joint Resolution 1was the proposed Constitutional amendment that contained permanent caps on property tax rates in Indiana.  The measure was part of Gov. Daniels’ solid plan for dealing with the current property tax crisis.  Unfortunately, HJR 1 effectively died last night when Speaker Bauer failed to call it down for a vote.

Some are reporting that the move by House Republicans to try and insert the language of SJR 7(the marriage amendment) into the property tax amendment is what killed the measure.  However, a House source has clarified that Rep. Tim Harris’s proposed amendment to HJR 1 was what really made Bauer kill the measure.  Rep. Harris’s “controversial” amendment proposed the complete elimination of all residential property taxes.

Note that Rep. Harris’s proposal was not that we eliminate all property taxes or immediately eliminate residential property taxes.  It merely set in motion the legislative ball on the process to eliminate residential property taxes, something that the House Republican Caucus has seriously considered, and the Governor has shown open-mindedness towards should it be shown that the numbers work with current revenue levels.  Further, the Governor’s plan will still be able to pass the General Assembly this session without the passage of HJR 1.

They may not have the majority, but they sure are playing hard. Indiana House Republicans are using some pretty good parliamentary tactics to bring the marriage amendment to the floor (see here and here). On the subject of hate crimes legislation, Rep. Jackie Walorksi (R-Lakeville) introduced an amendment to the utterly repugnant HB 1076, that would make it a hate crime to commit an abortion on a viable fetus.

Democrats will probably once again fail to call down the hate crimes bill for a 3rd reading out of a fear for the consequences of A) passing the amendment or B) defeating the amendment.

Today marks the last day that legislation that started in one of the chambers can pass that chamber and move on to the other side of the building.

Last session, Speaker Pat “The Hair” Bauer tried to kill the marriage amendment by keeping it in a committee and preventing it from ever getting to the floor for an up-or-down vote.

Bauer knew that, if it ever made it to the floor, it would pass handily.

The committee was a convenient mechanism to keep the amendment off of the floor and allow the Democrats to avoid going on the record about the amendment (and avoid having it pass, since many Hoosier Democrats would overwhelmingly vote for it, as they did last time when it was put to a floor vote).

Now, however, House Republicans have exercised the “nuclear option” to go around The Hair and the committee where he consigned the marriage amendment to die.

By offering the marriage amendment as an amendment to a bill, in this case property tax reform, they will circumvent the committee graveyard and force the House to go on the record on the marriage amendment (and likely pass it).

Questions have been raised at Masson’s Blog about whether such a move is germane, or relevant to the measure to which it is being attached.

The chair–the speaker–would make that determination (effectively forcing The Hair to go on record about it).

Moreover, the moment that the Speaker renders a determination that the amendment is not germane, that ruling can be appealed by a floor vote of the House.

It is my understanding that this would not be a voice vote and “selective hearing” would have nothing to do with its outcome.

In April of 2003, for example (and I don’t have a citation yet; will hunt a few up later), the chair made a ruling about the germane-ness of an amendment, and was overruled by a vote of the House.

It seems unlikely to me that selective hearing would have allowed that to transpire; it seems clear that a recorded vote will be necessary.

A recorded vote will force the House Democrats, many of whom either support the marriage amendment or are afraid to oppose it, to go on the record of how they stand about it.

Even if they succeed in preventing it from being attached (something which I view to be unlikely; I think it will be attached and it will be passed), they will have gone on the record about it (and will give fuel to Eric Miller & Company for the general election). (more…)

House Republicans aren’t giving up on their attempt to pass a Constitutional amendment protecting marriage as the union of one man and one woman.  Contrary to some statements made by opponents of the amendment, the measure is not some new type of discrimination.  Indiana law currently prohibits same-sex unions and a Constitutional amendment is needed simply to prevent judges from writing their personal philisophical beliefs into law.  Further, discrimination isn’t a bad thing in and of itself, our laws constantly discriminate between individuals who follow the law and individuals who break the law. 

But back to the news item.  Assistant House Minority Leader Eric Turner yesterday submitted an amendment to HJR-1, the proposed Constitutional Amendment capping property taxes, inserting the language of SJR 7 into the legislation.

Good job Leader Bosma, Assistant Leader Turner, and House Republican caucus on working hard to pass this needed legislation.

For those of you still unconvinced that Indiana should pass a Constitutional amendment even if we don’t have a case dealing with same-sex marriage sitting the docket, I would suggest that you read this article.  Iowa isn’t a bastion of liberalism.

The Washington, D.C. based Family Research Council had an item in yesterday’s daily e-mail update about the status of marriage accross the states and Indiana’s efforts to pass SJR 7 were mentioned.

In places like Iowa, Indiana, Maryland, and Florida, the President’s annual State of the Union address is taking a backseat to what many see as the troubling state of their own unions. Pro-family Hoosiers, who recently celebrated the legislature’s decision to vote their marriage protection amendment out of committee, are facing a do-or-die battle to get the initiative on the November ballot. If House Speaker Pat Bauer (D) sabotages the bill, as he has promised to do, voters will have to wait four to six years for another shot at protecting marriage. If Bauer, who is an award-winning opponent of traditional marriage (so honored by the ACLU), bars citizens from defining marriage, it will only be a matter of time before Indiana’s courts do so for them. In the Sunshine State, where residents are consumed by the presidential primaries, another race hangs in the balance–the race against time for traditional marriage proponents. Florida4Marriage has been scrambling to gather thousands of new signatures to place a marriage protection amendment on this November’s ballot. As a result, left-wing groups are out in full force, countering the petition drive with the same scare tactics that defeated the Arizona marriage amendment. Preying on the fears of the elderly, liberals are wrongly arguing that the amendment would threaten their well being. It would not, but homosexuals aren’t letting a little thing like the truth get in the way of an effective campaign. Elsewhere, Iowans are so outraged at the activism of a lower court in striking down the ban on gay marriage that they have petitioned the legislature to impeach the judge responsible for last year’s ruling. At a January 16 rally, protestors demanded that their leaders take up a marriage protection amendment before the case goes to the Iowa Supreme Court. Although Governor Chet Culver (D) pledged to “stop gay marriage from coming to [his] state,” he has yet to do a single thing to prevent it. On the contrary, he’s publicly refused to push any legislation until the high court rules. In the brief time since Maryland’s General Assembly has convened, proponents of same-sex “marriage” have already canvassed the State House, lobbying members to introduce bills that would overturn the existing ban on homosexual marriage. Reports indicate that a handful of those bills are making their debut in the legislature today. Time is of the essence! If you live in these states or have friends who do, we urge you to make your voices heard. On the future of marriage, it could make all the difference!

You can find the contact information for The Hair The Speaker here.

Did the title grab your attention?  I hope it did.

Yesterday I was down at the State House, and specifically the Senate Judiciary Committee, for the hearing of Sen. J. Res. 7, the marriage amendment.  The final outcome of the hearing was a 5-4 party-line vote (with 2 Republicans absent) to send the measure on to the full Senate.

A somewhat surprising “Nay” vote on the committee came from Sen. Jim Arnold (D-LaPorte).  I spoke with Sen. Arnold just before the hearing started and he assured me that although he supported SJR 7, he was under the impression that it would not advance in the House (though rumor had it that all of that might change) and was going to vote against the amendment in committee.  

It is a little disappointing that Sen. Arnold voted against SJR 7, and I disagree with his reasons for doing so, but it should be remembered that he is not an anti-traditional marriage individual and that his support on the floor will be useful to passing the amendment.  Further, future battles on this issue may find him voting with us in committee if he understands that the other chamber will at least hear the measure.

Now, here’s the dead bodies part.  Rep. Scott Pelath (D-Michigan City) is the chairman of the House Rules Committee and is essentially Pat Bauer’s water boy on the committee.  Pelath recently stated that he would not allow his committee to hear any marriage amendment because “The short session (of the legislature) was designed to deal with emergencies. We have a very serious problem with the property tax system, and we don’t have any gay marriages in Indiana.” 

So, according to Pelath, marriage isn’t an important issue and on top of that there is only enough time to deal with “emergencies” during this short session.  Of course the operative word there is “emergency” and it looks like Mr. Pelath is not holding to an objective standard here in defining said operative word.

Pelath is the lead sponsor of HB 1144 which is a bill that deals with the failure of individuals to report a dead body.  Is this an emergency issue?  It passed out of committee 9-0 but I have a hard time understanding why a bill dealing with the reporting of dead bodies can be considered an “emergency” piece of legislation.  Have we had a problem with people failing to report dead bodies?  Has there been some sort of nationwide crisis involving people hiding dead bodies?  Does this issue have as much of an impact on the future of our society as the protection of marriage does?  I don’t think so.  If we had a serious national or state problem with people failing to report corpses to the authorities, I’d say this bill needs to be quickly considered.  However, to think that this issue is more of an emergency than traditional marriage, well, that is a bit over the top.

If Pelath was exercising some sort of uniform standard of “emergency” here I would find his arguments against SJR 7 a little more palatable (but still dead wrong) but it’s even worse when Pelath lives up to a double standard in his own legislative actions.

By: Brian Sikma

Some are urging conservatives to move beyond the marriage amendment and start focusing on other “important issues.” Certainly the protection of traditional marriage is not the only important issue facing Indiana today. But among the several important issues like property tax reform and local government reform, marriage remains one of, if not the, most critical issue facing Indiana.

The protection of traditional marriage is so important because it strikes at the very soul of our culture. While fiscal and economic issues matter a great deal, it would be meaningless to have a fiscally healthy and economically robust state if that state had lost its soul. Marriage provides a safe heaven for the development of children. Marriage and family force individuals to learn the principles of duty, responsibility, and selflessness. A state that is made up of individuals who have successfully learned these principles is a state that is strong and ready for the future.

Marriage is the foundation of the family, and when people learn within the realm of the family that doing the right thing doesn’t necessarily mean doing the easy thing, you will have a society comprised of individuals who govern themselves and are interested in living for a cause beyond themselves.

A society that lives for itself, that seeks its own pleasure over duty, that believes in fulfilling your own wants over the needs of others, is a society that is on the verge of collapse. Rome was defeated not because its military was weak, but because the collective morality of its people was almost non-existent.

The state has the duty to protect marriage-not define it. Marriage has already been defined and because of past challenges to the definition of marriage the state has been forced to use its power to enforce what has already been defined in what the Founder’s termed “the law of Nature and of Nature’s God.”

It is fair to say that a vast majority, if not all, of the supporters of SJR 7 (the marriage protection amendment) would not be advocating for the amendment’s passage if our state and if our nation were not faced with the problem of activist judges who have little qualms about legislating from the bench and redefining marriage when asked to do so. Supporters of traditional marriage did not seek this debate, it was force upon them by the radical actions of a minority of individuals possessed of a strange view of morality and acting in conjunction with a sympathetic judiciary.

It is for these reasons that supporters of SJR 7 should continue to debate and support a constitutional amendment protecting marriage. The desires and opinions of a handful of legislators should not cause us to retreat from the field or abandon our cause.

After an up and down week for SJR-7 that had it slowly dying, only to receive a quick jolt of life, it finally has died with House Rules and Legislative Procedure Committee Chairman Scott Pelath saying he wasn’t planning on having a hearing. This after Senate Pro Tem and Republican David Long assured the media there would at least be a Senate Hearing. Without the guarantee of a House hearing, the bill and the amendment are pretty much dead for this cycle.

So with it’s demise, I plead with everyone, socially conservative, socially libertarian, socially liberal, gay, whatever, (myself included) can we please move on to talking about other substantive issues besides gay marriage, SJR-7 and how bigoted conservative Christians are, fully understanding that we’re probably never going to see eye to eye? (Funny, those who call Christians bigots seem to be intolerant themselves of Christians and their views and the views of scripture. Maybe it’s just reciprocal bigotry.)

Here’s what I suggest. 2008 is shaping up to be the most incredible year in politics in Indiana and the United States in a long time. In Indiana, property taxes are the biggest issue with several proposals to fix the problem thrown out there. The Governor’s plan seems to have the head start, while the House GOP would consider total elimination of residential property tax and the total elimination crowd still seems to be charging full bore with their plan while threatening legislators who don’t support them with defeat in either the primary or the general. Immigration proposals seem to be the only other piece of legislation that could make a dent in the legislative conversation.

(Read the rest of my rant below the fold) (more…)