What I’m Watching
This weekend marked six months of being a very happily married man so I gave local and state politics a break and spent time with my lovely wife. It was time well spent and I highly recommend some of you getting off the blogs and getting out of the house and doing something.
With that said, I still kept an eye on local goings on. Here’s what I’m watching this week.
- Indiana lawmakers will be back Wednesday figuring out unemployment insurance, education funding and maybe local government reform. Democrats say talks broke down because State Senator Brandt Hershman went to a Lincoln Day Dinner as part of his 4th District Congressional run. Now some Republicans are dropping the line that House Speaker Pat Bauer wanted to attend an out-of-state conference this weekend and that’s why he adjourned the House until later this week. No offense to all parties involved, and you know I like most of you, but the sooner you all leave, the better.
- I’ll also be watching the Lincoln Plowman resignation on Monday. There are a couple dynamics at play here. By stepping down, as opposed to being fired, Plowman will keep his retirement since he has 20 years as an IMPD officer. Plowman is also resigning from the Council, I’m checking through my list of possible replacements, one person who quickly comes to mind is Tim Ping who briefly ran for State Representative to replace Mike Murphy who is running for Congress.
- Now that Bart McAtee has beat back a challenge to his status as a candidate for Sheriff for the Republican primary, I’ll be interested to see what the follow up is. I watched the hearing and Friday and read the briefs of both parties and if I read McAtee’s reply and watched the Election Board properly, McAtee’s attorney admitted that between the time he filed for an exploratory committee for Sheriff and formally announced for Sheriff his job was paid in part by federal funds. That could provide an opening to file a complaint later that he was in violation of the Hatch Act. Stay tuned for that one.
- I’m also hearing that the anti-smoking people are going to try to give it another go around and bring back a smoking ban to Indy since they lost at the legislature. I really don’t think they’ll have more success this time around than the last, although economic development and tourism seems to be the trial balloon of the day. In fact I think, they’ll have less success since the newest member of the Council Angel Rivera, opposes an outright total ban.
That’s all for now. I have a few hours left before it’s time to get back to real work, so I’m going to go hang out with my lovely wife who was gracious enough to let me have a few minutes and scribble down this post.
