I've always found it incredibly suspect that the only two counties in Indiana who do not elect their Superior Court judges are in northern, relatively Democratic areas. Perhaps there is more of a valid justification to this than I've picked up on previously, but the illusion of corruption and political pressure is so often cited as a reason for public policy in the region -- good or bad -- gives me pause.
Jeff Parrott of the Tribune takes a look at the most recent setback for advocates seeking to return the proverbial power to the people.
A state legislative panel has recommended that St. Joseph County should continue having most of its judges selected by the governor instead of voters.
The General Assembly's Commission on Courts recently voted 7-2 to recommend the county preserve its "merit selection" system for choosing Superior Court judges. Under that system, in place since 1973, a local group of lawyers and judges interviews judicial applicants for a judge vacancy, then sends a list of finalists to the governor, who makes the selection.
Voters can then vote "yes" or "no" every six years on whether to retain the judge.
Lake County is the only other county in Indiana that uses merit selection. The commission recommended that Lake County also keep the status quo.
The majority on the panel cited insurmountable political pressure and the possibility for corruption as the main reasons to protect the "merit" system. No word yet on why the insurmountable political pressure and corruption elsewhere in the state is somehow more acceptable.
Arguments before the Indiana Court of Appeals began yesterday in the Lake County early vote center controversy, and while it looks increasingly unlikely that the decision will affect the sites in question, it was at least nice in some small way to see the Republicans back away from the absurd idea that they would seek to throw out the thousands of votes already cast.
Arguing before the state Court of Appeals on Thursday, Republican Party attorney Timothy Sendak said the party no longer will seek to have votes already cast at the three sites invalidated -- a possibility GOP attorneys had raised in earlier hearings.
But after Thursday's hearing, Sendak said individual candidates retain the right to challenge votes and demand recounts after the election.
"We don't anticipate any of that," Sendak said. "That's up to the candidates."
More than 6,400 people cast ballots at the three disputed sites through Wednesday, county elections officials said. Until Thursday, those votes were considered by many to be in jeopardy as the case wound through six county and state courts this month.
There was some thought that people might be shying away from early voting at the disputed sites in fear that their ballot would be tossed. Now that the shadow of GOP-sponsored suppression has been lifted, here's to hoping that we see a deluge of votes in the next few days.
I just received word that by in a 3-2 decision, the Indiana Supreme Court has declined the Republican Party's request to hear their appeal, instead directing the effort back to the Indiana Court of Appeals.
This should effectively allow all of the early voting locations to remain open throughout the next week and a half, signaling a clear victory for the voters in northern Lake County.
I'll have additional details as they become available.
In the latest development in this seemingly never-ending saga, the Indiana Republicans have been dealt yet another blow in their attempt to make voting more difficult for individuals in northern Lake County. In a clear ruling today, the Superior Court Judge said the additional early voting sites should remain open.
The judge granted a petition by Democrats and the United Steelworkers union to keep the sites open on grounds the centers provide better access to early voting to minority communities, which don't have the time or transportation to reach the early voting center in Crown Point.
"If early voting was not offered in the cities of Gary, Hammond and East Chicago, the voters in those communities would be the only voters in Indiana who would not by able to vote at a courthouse located in their city of residence," she states in her ruling, which was handed down just before noon.
She denied a petition by the Lake County Republican party to close voting in those Democratic strongholds because of the potential for vote fraud.
Kavadias-Schneider stated in her ruling, "Regrettably, Lake County has had a history of public corruption and voter fraud," but not enough to warrant disenfranchising voters in the county's three biggest cities.
She ruled that in-person voting is protected by "the strictest voting requirement in all 50 states."
Amen.
Next up on the docket will be the inevitable appeal by Hoosier GOPers, who just can't seem to get enough of legal challenges to legitimate voting efforts. After all, these are the same people who a few days ago said they thought the votes already cast should simply be thrown out.
True colors never looked so ugly.
Update: Indiana Law Blog has the opinion, and Doug gives a good summary over at Daily Kos for those new to the case. I agree with our good friend Masson that one of the better lines in the opinion is this, which really cuts to the heart of the matter:
Curley Plaintiffs' allegations of "vote dilution" have no merit because the votes of Mr. Curley and Mr. Brown will in no way be "diluted" by the casting of early ballots of other validly registered voters, any more than if they had cast those ballots on election day. The casting of ballots by other lawfully registered voters within the relevant jurisdiction is democracy, not vote dilution.
When the Lake County early voting fiasco first developed, the GOP lawyers and representatives took the tact that they weren't upset about early voting being extended to county offices in the northern, poorer portions of the county -- they just wanted to make sure that everyone got that opportunity. To wit:
Republican attorney David Brooks of Indianapolis law firm Brooks Koch & Sorg argued allowing Lake County to open satellite offices would be unfair.
"The implication here is that citizens in Gary, Hammond and East Chicago -- heavily Democratic areas -- have some right citizens in Hamilton County, for instance -- a heavily Republican area -- do not," Brooks said.
Now, after two weeks of legal maneuvering, the case is in a Superior Court. The judge asked a simple, reasonable question yesterday: What if we allowed these vote sites to stay open, and allow you to open additional ones in more suburban areas?
She explored with LaSota whether to open even more early in-person voting centers in suburban communities in response to Republican complaints Democrats have opened voting in the county's three largest Democratic strongholds.
However, R. Lawrence Steele, a GOP lawyer, told the judge they don't want more early voting centers open, they want Gary, Hammond and East Chicago's centers closed.
Kavadias-Schneider asked, "What of those who have already voted?" Steele said, "Maybe those votes should be discarded."
Compassionate conservatism? Change versus more of the same? Or perhaps we really should look into this pro-America, anti-America line of thinking.
These guys care about nothing more than making it extremely difficult for people to vote -- especially if you don't work regular hours, don't happen to have a car, or perhaps just don't happen to have three hours to kill on a Tuesday, standing in cold lines in November. And on top of it all, they apparently are fine with tossing a few thousand votes just days before the election.
The stalemate between Democratic and Republican attorneys over an acceptable Superior Court judge was broken yesterday, as the Indiana Supreme Court stepped in and appointed someone to hear the case.
The Indiana Supreme Court on Thursday appointed Superior Court Judge Diane Kavadias Schneider to take the reigns of Lake County's early voting controversy.
Attorneys in the case will meet via conference call this morning and request a hearing on a motion by Republican Party attorneys to close satellite voting sites in Gary, Hammond and East Chicago, according to Schneider's clerk.
Schneider will assume control of a case that has polarized the area as Democrats and Republicans vie for control of votes in the northern Lake County -- an area increasing seen as crucial in the battle for Indiana between presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain.
[...]
Former Gov. Frank O'Bannon appointed Schneider to the Civil Division of the Lake Superior Court in 2000.
One key thing that has been consistently overlooked in this case is that these same sites were open during the Democratic primary, with little or no identifiable problem. There was plenty of animosity between the two Democratic candidates at that point, so it is safe to assume that if the additional early voting locations had been unable to deal with the flow of voters, we would have heard about it.
Unless, of course, the Republicans aren't really concerned with their straw man "ballot security" argument, and simply think making it harder for poorer voters to exercise their right will somehow provide them an advantage on election day. But really, who would think that?
I was getting ready to write a summary of the latest developments in the ongoing saga over Lake County early voting, but I wandered across Masson's post on the subject prior to finishing, so I'll shamelessly quote him instead.
The federal court kicked the Superior case back down to the Superior judge. The circuit court entered an order requiring the centers to remain open. The superior court declined to intervene any further as of yesterday.
The latest is that the Indiana Supreme Court has entered an order consolidating the circuit and superior court cases and putting them both back in the superior court. The Supreme Court specifically did not rule on whether the superior court had jurisdiction or on the merits of the case. It set forth an expedited procedure for the parties to exercise their right to an automatic change of the judge if they so desired.
I'm still of the (admittedly uninformed) mind that the relevant statute appears relatively clear as to the appropriate venue for this appeal. Regardless, though, the matter remains up in the air at the present moment. The AP has more if you're interested.
Lake County Circuit Court Judge Lorenzo Arredondo ordered early voting locations opened immediately Tuesday morning in Gary, Hammond and East Chicago.
Sally LaSota, director of the county Election Office, said at 10:30 a.m. that she would act as quickly as possible to comply with Arredondo's order.
But Lake Superior Court Judge Calvin Hawkins, who has previously issued a rule blocking the early voting sites from opening, will hold a hearing on the issue at 1 p.m.
And attorneys representing the Lake County Republican Party, which opposes opening the early voting sites in the three Democratic strongholds, announced Tuesday morning they would file a motion asking the Indiana Supreme Court to consider a request to dismiss the case on which Arredondo ruled.
All of this is as expected, and the question now falls to whether the Indiana Supreme Court is willing to halt early voting -- a prospect that legal issues aside, will make for a Republican PR nightmare.
As expected, the federal judge's decision to send the Lake County early vote center controversy back to the state courts has opened a legal can of worms. And as John Byrne of the Post-Tribreports, it looks increasingly likely that today will see multiple TROs granted by multiple courts.
Van Bokkelen remanded the case to Lake Superior Court Judge Calvin Hawkins, who ruled Oct. 3 on behalf of Republicans by temporarily stopping early voting in the Democratic strongholds.
But before the parties appear in front of Hawkins at 1 p.m. today, another group of plaintiffs will take their case in favor of opening the satellites to Lake County Circuit Judge Lorenzo Arredondo.
Arredondo has ruled once in favor of the Democrats, ordering Oct. 6 that the Gary, Hammond and East Chicago polling places be opened immediately.
Plaintiffs in the Circuit Court case, including the Indiana NAACP and several trade unions, will now ask Arredondo to issue a permanent order to open the offices.
Now as I've mentioned previously, I think that arguably the Circuit Court is where this case should have been to begin with. If Judge Arredondo reissues his TRO in favor of early voting, and Hawkins later issues his TRO against it, local officials will be left to pick and choose which court to follow. One thing is clear, though: they won't waste any time opening these early vote sites when the time comes.
The Election Board intends to act immediately based on Arrendondo's ruling today, according to Lake County Clerk Thomas Philpot.
This sets up the possibility of the satellite voting offices being open before the case even gets to Hawkins if Arredondo rules in favor of the Democrats.
What happens in this case? Expect the issue to make its way to the Indiana Supreme Court at some point in the near future, but don't expect these facilities to turn away voters unless they receive orders from above.
In what I read at first glance to be a setback for the voters of northern Lake County, the federal judge has refused to rule on the issue of expanding early voting into the poorer portions of the county. The Times offers this report:
A federal judge has transferred a decision on whether to open early voting centers in Gary, Hammond and East Chicago back to Lake Superior Court.
U.S. District Court Judge Joseph Van Bokkelen ruled Monday county judges should decide whether an Indiana law requiring unanimous bipartisan support of a county's elections board to open multiple locations for voting before the Nov. 4 general election violates the Indiana Constitution.
[...]
Superior Court Judge Calvin Hawkins ordered early polling at those locations halted last week under a temporary restraining order requested by county Republicans. Lake Circuit Court Judge Lorenzo Arredondo ruled separately to open the centers. Meanwhile, Lake County Democrats, who advocate opening the early voting centers, took the case to Van Bokkelen's federal court in Hammond.
Following Van Bokkelen's ruling Monday, Hawkins set a new hearing date for 1 p.m. Tuesday in his East Chicago courtroom.
My problem with this decision is that the relevant statute seems to indicate that the appropriate court is not the Superior Court -- where the Republicans filed in order to have their case heard before a recent Daniels appointee -- but rather the Circuit Court, where Judge Lorenzo allowed a short-lived TRO last week that would have permitted the beginning of early voting.
Sec. 9. Except as expressly provided by statute, an appeal may be taken from a decision of the board to the circuit court. An appeal taken under this section must be filed not later than thirty (30) days after the board makes the decision subject to the appeal.
Perhaps this is a faulty reading of the relevant statute -- I'll welcome a clarification -- but as it stands, I simply can't conjure up a non-conspiratorial reason why Judge Van Bokkelen would send this back to the Superior Court and allow Judge Hawkins to renew his GOP-sponsored TRO.
(I recognize that this is where the case originated, but I'm still looking for a good reason why Judge Hawkins has the issue before him to begin with. If Judge Van Bokkelen believes this should be decided by the county courts, shouldn't there be some interest in ensuring the correct court is hearing the case?)
Here's a reminder that later today we should have an answer from the federal courts as to whether additional early vote sites can open in Lake County. For those of you needing to play catch-up, you can check out this post and this follow-up.
Alternatively, I offer this one sentence summary: The Republican Party is investing thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours in an attempt to make voting more difficult, while the Democratic Party does the same in defense of the voter.
On a related note, this Huffington Post story implies that Team Obama may be going on the offensive today over the misrepresentation of their stance of voter protection.
There will, however, be one new ripple. On Monday, Obama's communication's shop is expected to go on the offense on issues of voter protection after a week in which Republicans cried foul about registration efforts in various states and painted the community organizing group ACORN as a criminal enterprise.
Obama aides will attack Republicans over efforts to disenfranchise voters in several states, and announce a voter protection campaign involving hundreds of volunteer lawyers around the country
The fight over early voting in Lake County continued yesterday in federal court, and the judge assured both parties that his decision will come Monday. John Byrne of the Post-Trib gives more information on yesterday's hearing:
Attorneys spent about eight hours Friday arguing in front of U.S. District Court Judge Joseph Van Bokkelen about whether the satellite voting sites in the three cities help ensure a fair election for residents in northern Lake County or represent a crass attempt by Democrats to run up big returns in one of Indiana's biggest Democratic strongholds.
In the end, Van Bokkelen said he had not decided whether to grant Lake County Republican Chairman John Curley a temporary restraining order to prevent the voting sites from opening in Clerk's Office locations in the cities.
"I have gone all over the place on this case," Van Bokkelen said.
The judge promised to announce his decision Monday, so the voting sites could open Tuesday if he does not grant the restraining order.
While the right-wingers continue to twitter away about non-existent voter fraud -- I've never seen so much uproar over an election apparatus that seems to be working quite well -- they don't seem nearly as vocal about clearly expressing their real intentions when it comes to voting rights this election cycle.
The legal arguments may be nuanced, but the message from Indiana Republicans is not: They want a restraining order to make it more difficult for low-income voters to cast an early ballot. It's just that simple.
John Byrne of the Post-Tribune gives us an update on the latest legal maneuvering in the northwest corner of our state as Democratic officials fight to open new vote centers across the county.
Standing outside the Hammond branch of the Lake County Superior Court -- where one of the early in-person absentee voting sites would be located -- state NAACP president Barbara Bolling said voters in the three northern cities are being disenfranchised each day they can't cast ballots at their local clerk's offices.
Currently, early voting is only available in Lake County at the Election Office in Crown Point.
"We believe the citizens of Gary, Hammond and East Chicago have absolutely the right to the same services as the citizens of Crown Point," Bolling said.
Lake County Circuit Court Judge Lorenzo Arredondo ruled Monday that the three sites should be opened immediately, though U.S. District Court Judge Joseph Van Bokkelen had set a hearing on the issue for later this week.
However, federal court records indicate Van Bokkelen vacated Arredondo's order Tuesday during a conference call with attorneys in the case.
The hearing originally scheduled for Thursday has been bumped to Friday, due to what I have been told is an illness afflicting GOP lawyer Tim Sendak. To be honest, I don't know if they even do early vote centers on the weekends, so this means that even if we get a sympathetic decision in this case, it could be until next week before we see the first voters taking advantage of the new opportunities.
Oh, and I'd like to thank Matt Tully for narrowly avoiding any substantive thought on the issue in his column this morning. He had me worried there for the few minutes it took me to scan his piece. You know, probably the same few minutes it took him to write it.
It looks like the earlier reports that the federal hearing regarding Lake County early voting had been moved up were incorrect, as the Times explains that although the parties were scheduled to meet via teleconference today, there will be no ruling until Thursday's scheduled hearing.
Lake Superior Court Judge Calvin Hawkins issued an injunction Friday delaying the satellites' opening without a unanimous vote by the bipartisan county elections board. Two Republican board members voted against the satellites last month.
But Lake Circuit Court Judge Lorenzo Arredondo issued an order Monday for officials to open the satellite locations on grounds that restricting early voting was an unconstitutional infringement of voters' rights.
Meanwhile, U.S. District Court Judge Joseph Van Bokkelen ordered attorneys for all parties to participate in a noon teleconference Tuesday regarding the matter. He wasn't expected to rule on the matter until Thursday.
The media coverage and spin-happy lawyers have made the voter suppression case in Lake County somewhat confusing at first glance, but Progress Illinois provides a great, simple breakdown of the factors in this case.
First some basics. Under Indiana election law, early voting can only take place in a county clerk's main office. This clearly could be problematic in areas where the county seat is far in distance from the most heavily populated parts of the county. Therefore, the law gives each board of elections the authority to approve early voting centers elsewhere in their county.
Lake County's geography provides the perfect argument for these "satellite" polling places. The county seat, Crown Point, is the 7th most populous city in the county (pop. 24,000) and centrally located. Meanwhile, three of the four biggest municipalities -- Gary (pop. 96,000), Hammond (pop. 77,000), and East Chicago (pop. 30,000) are all located at the northern edge of the county, along Lake Michigan. Together, these towns hold more than 40 percent of the county's residents. (To the right is a population density map of Northwest Indiana. Lake County is visible in the upper left corner and you can see that the most populous areas are crammed at the top.) Moreover, Gary and Hammond are the fifth and sixth largest cities in the state.
It's in the city clerk's offices in these three towns that the Democratic members of the Lake County Board of Elections wanted to open up satellite voting centers. After all, it's about an hour roundtrip drive to Crown Point from any of them.
Republicans, meanwhile, are doing everything they can to make early voting more difficult in Lake County. No matter how they spin this, the GOP is fighting for a restraining order against voter participation in Northwestern Indiana.
Republican members of the county Election Board voted to block the creation of new voting offices in Gary, Hammond and East Chicago -- traditional Democratic strongholds.
But after consulting state law, the Democratic majority on the board decided it could institute the three early voting locations without GOP support. The Democrats said they will open voting centers in the Circuit Court Clerk's offices in the three cities so people can cast ballots there before the Nov. 4 general election.
Lake County Republican Chairman John Curley said the GOP will "almost certainly" mount a legal challenge to the Democrats' plan to go ahead with the circuit court clerk voting locations.
If Curley's objections stand up in court, the only place to cast an early ballot would be at the government center in Crown Point in what locals call south county.
Wait a minute, isn't south county considered to be a more favorable environment for Republicans?
Make no mistake; this is about keeping Democrat voters away from the polls:
"They're afraid," Hammond Mayor Tom McDermott said. "They're afraid poor people will go to the polls and vote Democratic. And frankly, they should be afraid."
Gary Mayor Rudy Clay:
"We all know what this is about," Clay added. "(Curley) assumes people in Gary, Hammond and East Chicago will vote Democratic. It's politics, and it's sad that he would put that before giving people the ability to cast ballots."
Hillary Clinton is scheduled to make an appearance in Hammond, Indiana today, but she's late, and they can't fill the place:
Officials at the Hammond Civic Center said Clinton was still in Mishawaka just before 12:30 p.m. Seats for the event were still available and campaign staffers were urging those interested in hearing the senator's speech to come down for the event.
The Hammond Civic Center is an anciently-old, smelly, almost decrepit place with poor ventilation, poor seating, just downright nasty. It's really like an old gymnasium -- the name doesn't fit. I'm not surprised people aren't showing.
Hammond mayor Tom McDermott, who is said to have statewide office hopes, and who supports Hillary Clinton, says the campaign's goal is to split Lake County's vote 50/50 with Obama.
There is a candidate named Raymond Fletcher running in the 1st District that is just amazing. Let me be clear before I continue. I've known Raymond for about four years now. I went to school with him at Indiana University Northwest.
The Teachers Union has thrown their two cents into the property tax reform debate today.
The Indiana State Teachers Union today called for the legislature to reject proposals for the state to cover all of school general operating costs rather than property taxpayers, saying doing so threatens the stability of public school funding.
Instead, representatives of ISTA said, the state could achieve the property tax cuts sought by picking up half of school transportation and capital projects funding, which they said are growing faster, and therefore causing property taxes to grow faster, than school general funds.
We will have to wait and see whether or not Indiana legislators pay much credence to this announcement. My initial thoughts are they probably won't.
The Lake County Council voted last night to adopt a local income tax, making it the last county in the state to do so.
All the council members described the income tax as a mandate thrust upon Indiana's second-most populous county by state officials, who have threatened to freeze the county's property tax levies at 2007 levels, costing taxing entities about $15 million in 2008.
"We've been told by the leaders in the Senate, 'If you guys in Lake County don't adopt this, then don't expect anything from us in the General Assembly,'" said Councilman Will Smith of Gary.
Its important to note however, that the 4-3 vote fell short of the 5 votes needed to overcome a veto by the county's Board of Commissioners. Your thoughts Buzzcut?
The recent IndyStar poll spelling out Gov. Mitch Daniels downfall has been picked up by some of the country's biggest blogs. Kos has this to say about Indiana's gubernatorial future:
The man who made a mess out of our nation's finances is making such a mess out of Indiana's that its deeply Republican votes are angling for big change. Fitting.
(I am also confused as to what is going on with this. Bumped from the user diaries. - promoted by Thomas)
Jeff Burton at The Times is reporting that at last night's IDEM Air Pollution Control Board Meeting in Portage, a preliminary rule change was passed, restricting particulate matter output, that would affect BP and other concerns around the state.
The rule change approved Wednesday calls for particulate matter changes for 72 sources around the state and an additional 32 sources in Lake County.
The draft rule, "Amendments to 326 IAC 6.5 and 326 IAC 6.8 Particulate Matter Limitations for Specific Sources and Repeal of Numerous Sections, LSA #04-279," can be viewed (pdf file) here, as can this (pdf file) fact sheet.
The kicker, though, is that BP seems to be arguing they've already reduced their air emissions, and shouldn't have the variance they were granted rolled back.
However, go to a different news source, and the story gets muddier.
BP and IDEM argued that emission reductions and shutdowns of some refinery units make up for the request to keep emissions at other units the same.
There's a huge difference in the reporting between The Times and the Post-Tribune. While The Times reports,
Should a rule preliminarily adopted Wednesday by the Indiana Department of Environmental Management's Air Pollution Control Board reach final adoption, the plant would be required to reduce its air particle output by 56 percent.
the Post-Tribune reports,
BP Whiting Refinery will reduce its emissions of tiny particles into the air by 380 tons annually.
But, then again, The Times says,
The plant, however, might already be in compliance, as some sources of pollution are no longer in use, rendered obsolete because of changing technology and a shift in fuels the processes.
Which is it? They will cut back on emissions? They won't? They already are? They might? They still want their variance permitting more pollution? They don't need it?
I'm hoping someone can make heads or tails of the conflicting reports of the same meeting. I'm thoroughly confused and annoyed with my local papers this morning.
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The media coverage and spin-happy lawyers have made the voter suppression case in Lake County somewhat confusing at first glance, but Progress Illinois provides a 
