Brian Kanowsky

The governor refers to Indiana as the island of prosperity. We’re the island of secrets. - Senate Democrat Leader Vi Simpson

On Tuesday, Indiana Senate minority leader Vi Simpson (D-Ellettsville) called out Governor Mitch Daniels and his administration for their culture of secrecy around state budgeting and spending. Specifically, Simpson and State Rep. Bill Crawford (D-Indianapolis) want to know what services, programs, and personnel have been cut under Daniels’ repeated budget crises.

Daniels’ budget director, Chris Ruhl, told Simpson that “a comprehensive list of executive branch budget reductions wasn’t available”. If our leaders don’t have access to this information, how can they make informed decisions? And how can citizens cast an informed ballot if neither voters nor lawmakers have any information?

Of course, it isn’t just budget information that the Daniels administration has been unable or unwilling to provide.

Indiana reporters, especially the team at WTHR in Indianapolis, have spent months trying to confirm the jobs numbers that Daniels has been touting, to no avail. Indiana Economic Development Corporation (IEDC) head Mitch Roob – last seen presiding over the disastrous privatization of Indiana’s welfare system – said of the jobs data, "We don’t share it with the public. We don’t release it to the news media. That’s confidential information." States surrounding Indiana, including Ohio, Michigan, and Illinois, make that information public.

And when Mitch Daniels is asked to back up the numbers, all he can do is walk away:

It’s no surprise that Mitch Daniels doesn’t want the public to have this information – when WTHR went to investigate some of the jobs that Mitch Daniels says he’s brought to Indiana, they found abandoned factories and empty fields.

Mitch Daniels’ culture of secrecy also extends to the much-maligned Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM). The Gary Post-Tribune’s Gitte Laasby has done some incredible (and award-winning) work investigating stories about BP’s environmental permits and the pile of toxic steel waste named after former steel executive and current IDEM director Tom Easterly. Laasby’s editor, suspecting that the agency was “intentionally withholding and otherwise seeking to squelch information,” asked her to request records from IDEM that mentioned Laasby. The result?

Note that, other than the note at the top, every single word is redacted because the words are of ultimate import to the secrets of the state Indiana that all words cannot be released. Every article, noun, verb, dependent clause, all fall under the heading of being so much of a sensitive nature that no one should know about it. And even Laasby’s name, which was part of the open records request — if it exists in the blackness somewhere — is too dangerous to release to the public.

Each of these instances of Mitch Daniels hiding public information from Hoosier voters is troubling, but together they form an unmistakable pattern. As Senator Simpson put it, it is a culture of secrecy that pervades the entire executive branch.

Senator Simpson indicated that Democrats will be developing and introducing legislation designed to increase transparency, including  “easy online access to budget and spending information”. And that’s a good start, but it isn’t enough. Indiana’s antiquated public access laws need a wholesale revision. And we need to start supporting candidates who make transparency and open government a key part of their agenda. In Indiana, that starts with electing Pete Buttigieg to the Treasurer’s office and Sam Locke to the Auditor’s office this November.

Crossposted at Blue Indiana and Daily Kos

Over at CQPolitics, political analyst Stuart Rothenberg eulogizes Mike Sodrel’s political career:

Mike Sodrel has been in my life forever. Or maybe it just seems that way.

Every two years for almost a decade, the Republican businessman has been on the ballot in Indiana’s 9th district, either trying to oust Rep. Baron Hill (D) from Congress or, once, seeking re-election to the House.

But with his bizarre primary defeat earlier this month, Sodrel, a 64-year-old trucking company owner, probably ends a political run that featured more downs than ups.

[...]

Of course, as Sodrel found out, there is a difference between being known and being liked.

Apparently, 9th district Republican voters knew Sodrel but were ready for a change.

I think Rothenberg might be overstating the case here – I don’t think Sodrel is capable of knowing (or caring) what the voters in the 9th think of him. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him back for another run in 2012.

This is, after all, a man who claimed that young people would rather have "color televisions" than health insurance. When I offered to trade in my 20-year-old 13" TV, he naturally turned me down. This is a man who dismissed the possibility that 9th District Republicans would support either Todd Young or Travis Hankins. A man who, despite his own history of dubious negative advertising, threatened to sue Todd Young over his campaign ads this time around. A man who, in an astonishing show of preschool pettiness, all but shut down constituent services after his 2006 loss.

On the other hand, I hope Rothenberg is right. The people of Indiana’s 9th District have rejected Sodrel’s ideas of leadership since he managed to eke out a win in the 2004 election. Maybe after yet another loss, he’ll take his ball and go home for good.

(Crossposted from BlueIndiana)

Hoosier Representatives Andre Carson, Baron Hill, Brad Ellsworth, and Pete Visclosky all earned the gratitude of their fellow Hoosiers for voting to include the Murphy amendment in this year’s defense spending bill. As you probably know, the amendment instructs the Department of Defense to end the discriminatory policy of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell in the armed services, pending the outcome of a Pentagon review. Democrat Joe Donnelly joined with the remaining Republican delegation (Buyer, Pence, and Burton) to continue excluding gay and lesbian Americans from the service.

Here’s the House version of the amendment, which passed 234-194:

An amendment numbered 79 printed in House Report 111-498 to repeal Dont Ask Dont Tell only after: (1) receipt of the recommendations of the Pentagon’s Comprehensive Review Working Group on how to implement a repeal of DADT (due December 1, 2010) and (2) a certification by the Secretary of Defense, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and President that repeal is first, consistent with military readiness, military effectiveness, unit cohesion & recruiting, and second, that the DoD has prepared the necessary policies and regulations to implement its repeal. It would also include a 60 day period after certification before the repeal took effect.

And lest you think there’s some principle at play in the GOP opposition to the bill, here’s Steve Buyer ignoring all the evidence:

"It is very clear that homosexuality is incompatible with military service."

In contrast, Rep. Andre Carson released a statement that included this:

"Any patriotic American willing to give his or her life in defense of country should have that opportunity. And our troops should never be forced to lie about who they are in order to continue their service. Today’s vote will help ensure this kind of personal conflict is never an issue for the brave men and women in our military."

Last night, Congress decided that discriminating to please Steve Buyer wasn’t important enough to jeopardize our national security. And 5 Republicans defied GOP Conference Chairman Mike Pence to support repeal.

The fight against DADT isn’t over, but this looks like the beginning of the end. The Senate still has to vote on the final bill – although the Armed Services Committee, including Indiana’s Senator Evan Byah, voted to repeal DADT.

But while the DADT vote is getting all the attention, I was intrigued by a vote on an amendment offered by Rep. Gutierrez, which would give the Secretary of Defense the power to review (and end) contracts with BP and their subsidiaries if they are deemed to no longer be a “responsible source”. Reps. Carson, Donnelly, Ellsworth, Hill voted for this amendment. The GOP delegation (joined by Rep. Visclosky) voted against giving the Secretary of Defense and the Pentagon the power to review BP’s contracts.

The Guitierrez amendment passed easily (372-52), but it’s striking to me that all of the Hoosier delegation just last year voted to strip ACORN of any federal contracts despite a lack of any wrongdoing by the group.

So according to Mike Pence, Steve Buyer, and Dan Burton, helping families deal with the foreclosure crisis while being the victims of a badly-edited piece of manufactured conservative outrage means that you don’t deserve any federal contracts – even if a law to that effect might be unconstitutional. On the other hand, if you’re responsible for untold economic and environmental devastation and the deaths of 11 workers, we can’t even look into your contracts if the Defense Department deems that BP is no longer a responsible source.

These GOP congressmen are willing to risk our national security to eject service members from the military because they don’t like them, and they’re willing to risk our security to maintain contracts with a supplier that may be irresponsible. And just a few days before Memorial Day, no less.

These two votes, taken together, show a clear picture of our delegation’s priorities. In the cases of Pence, Buyer, and Burton, it’s clear they’re willing to put just about anything ahead of Hoosier troops, and they’re willing to put their ideology ahead of the Hoosier values of responsibility, fair play and equality under the law.

When I first signed up for Twitter, I created one account for playing around with the service and communicating with friends (@bmk – created 2008-01-10) and a second account for communicating with my colleagues at work (@bkanowsky – created 2008-07-21). After I left my job, I continued to use the “professional” @bkanowsky account to share news about technology, communication, and to a lesser extent, some personal updates. The @bmk account became my outlet for humorous and political expression.

And while I continued to encounter new people and conversations on my @bmk account, the @bkanowsky account quickly stagnated. I would sometimes go days without updating it, or provide only a perfunctory update. I wasn’t creating any value on the stream, and it showed – I never really grew the numbers of the people I followed or who followed me. I received very few replies or direct messages – too often, it was one-way communication.

At the same time, splitting my time and personality between two accounts held back my @bmk account. I don’t think I ever came across as a complete person, since I suppressed many of my other interests to focus on politics.

So, after 2 years, I’m declaring the split-personality experiment a failure. It doesn’t surprise me, since the very idea ignores the most basic advice about being successful with social media – the be yourself.

Over the next week, I’ll be winding down the @bkanowsky account. I’ll still be following many of the same people and making better use of Twitter lists to manage my account.

I’ll post a follow-up in 6 months and see how being my whole self affects my Twitter experience.

Last night, Democrat Mark Critz won the special election to fill Jack Murtha’s old seat in Pennsylvania’s 12th district. This race in a swing district (Voted Kerry in ‘04, McCain in ‘08) was hyped by Fox News and many Democratic sources as a bellwether race.

Critz’s solid victory brought out the usual spin from the GOP, but Democratic strategist Paul Begala pointed out that there was a good reason for this Democratic victory (partial transcript below):

Begala: "Mark Critz ran attacking the Republican for – guess what – cutting spending! He attacked him for being against Medicare. He attacked him for wanting to privatize Social Security. He attacked on the very sorts of issues that Democrats generally win on."

Even Politico, usually a faithful transcriber of every GOP press release, credited Critz’s Democratic message:

In the case of Critz, that meant hammering Burns as being in favor of outsourcing jobs overseas and highlighting his willingness to cut Social Security benefits – significant liabilities in an economically-beleaguered and aging congressional district.

Case in point:

While no two elections are exactly alike, it’s not hard to draw parallels to races here in Indiana, and especially to the Senate race between Brad Ellsworth and DC lobbyist Dan Coats.

Last week, Coats endorsed the Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget plan, which called for the privatization of Social Security and the elimination of Medicare. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee immediately picked up on it and attacked Coats for this giant giveaway to his former lobbying clients on Wall Street.

The GOP and Coats will try to paint the Ellsworth as a lackey of Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi, like Tim Burns did in PA-12. (In fact, they’re doing it already. I think it’s mandatory for every post on their anti-Ellsworth propaganda site to mention Pelosi at least once.) But as this special election showed, a 50-foot tall cartoon Nancy Pelosi can’t compete with Democrats who run on the issues – even in a district where Obama’s approval rating is as low at 35%.

Democrats can win in tough districts if we emphasize our values and priorities – and that shouldn’t be hard to do against a lobbyist who worked to help his clients ship American jobs overseas and wants to raise taxes on 90% of Americans.

(Crossposted at BlueIndiana)