Editor's note
Trish Whitcomb is running for a seat in the Indiana House. It’s her first time as a candidate rather than as a consultant. What’s it like? Who Gets What podcasts will follow her campaign, not as an endorsement, but as an education for all of us about the tasks, troubles and treats of being a candidate. Hear it all at mortonjohn.libsyn.com
The Indiana General Assembly never left, but they are back. Their summer study committees have met after detailed study of summer. No results or serious recommendations are expected unless they sustain and extend some existing destructive policy.

Let’s cut to the chase. It’s time for the Indiana General Assembly to stop dissembling. Those who can arise without assistance need to get out of their recliners and start doing what needs to be done.

1. Release members to act without the discipline of the Caucus. Let’s make the bold assumption that our 150 elected legislators are grownups. They can make their own decisions without the dictates of a repressive party leadership fully inebriated on the power of a super-majority of automatons.

2. Pass into law an independent redistricting process applicable to all levels of government. This would likely rationalize districts such that two adjacent House districts would constitute one Senate district. No House districts would be divided.

Currently the Senate and the House district maps are independent of each other. It affords chaos and cover for the ambitions of individuals who seek lifetime membership in the General Assembly.

3. Adopt the Maine Electoral College allocation rules.

Now the winner of the popular vote in Indiana gets all of the electoral votes in a presidential election. Under the system used in Maine, a notoriously left-wing coastal state, the winner of the statewide popular vote gets two electoral votes. The winner of each congressional district gets the one electoral vote of that district. No Constitutional amendment is needed for this move toward a more equitable system.

In 2020, instead of all 11 Indiana electoral votes going to the Repulsive candidate, that person would have received nine electoral votes and two such votes would have gone to the party that is Bidin’ its time.

(My apologies to those unfamiliar with the Gershwin songbook and who know only Taylor Swift lyrics.)

4. Establish a serious study committee to provide legislation that reduces the number of townships in each county. Have you looked at the size of Kent and Mound Townships in Warren County recently? If not, take a look at stats.indiana.edu/maptools/maps/boundary/townships.

5. Examine the rationale for 92 Indiana counties given contemporary technology. Why should Warren, Fountain, Parke and Vermillion not be joined into one or two counties? Perhaps Jasper and Newton counties should be returned to their former singularity. Let’s not neglect Blackford with Jay, Ohio with Dearborn or Switzerland.

I would miss the detailed data on each separate area, but my fetish is not the concern of the state. Likewise, cost cutting should not be the dominant objective, but rather improving service to citizens in line with the structure of society in the 21st century rather than the 19th century.
Morton J. Marcus is an economist formerly with the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University. His column appears in Indiana newspapers, and his views can be followed his podcast.

© 2024 Morton J. Marcus

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