Otto Von Bismarck is often credited for the famous quote, “Laws are like sausages. Better not to see them being made.”
Indiana is no different. The process of crafting bills in the General Assembly can be ugly and sticky. Interest groups push their causes, overwhelmed legislative staffs try to direct traffic and legislators try to balance 100 different priorities (assuming they actually read all the bills that come before them). You can only hope that the end result is edible.
Take the curious case of House Bill 1022. Its stated goal is to make police forces at private universities more transparent — to make more of their records open to the public.
There’s no mystery why the issue has come before the legislature. The handling of sex assault cases on college campuses, including the University of Notre Dame, has been under a spotlight for months. And ESPN has taken Notre Dame to court over police records, raising questions about why police on college campuses are not subject to the same open-records laws as municipal forces.
The legislators supporting House BiIl 1022, including Rep. B. Patrick Bauer and Sen. John Broden of South Bend, insist they want to take action. They say their bill will help lift the veil of university police secrecy. The Independent Colleges of Indiana, an advocacy group for private schools in the state, even called the bill a “sea change.”
But the sausage-making can get messy sometimes.
As Tribune reporter Margaret Fosmoe reported this weekend, House Bill 1022 would apply to only a fraction of the cases that Notre Dame police handle in a given year. The bill would have no effect on the bulk of incidents that occur on campus. The bill also doesn’t specify what level of detail would have to be released. A sea change? Far from it.
Another provision of the bill mandates the release of records that already have to be released under federal law. That’s not change. That’s an empty, redundant mandate.
Let’s not forget, too, that Independent Colleges helped write the bill. And that Bauer, Broden and other sponsors have recently served or continue to serve on the board of the organization.
It may seem all too cozy, yet the key parties still insist publicly that House Bill 1022 would be a serious step in addressing the debate about opening college police records.
Like we said, ugly and sticky.
It’s time to toss away House Bill 1022.
If legislators and universities want to get serious about transparency, they need a bill with real meat to it.