June 16, 2021 Gerrymandering is the problem that prevents us from solving just about every other problem. The fact that we have set up a system of electing to the legislative branch unreasoning and unrelenting partisans who feel accountable only to people who think exactly the wa â...â
Life is full of surprisesâand some of them are pleasant ones. We Hoosiers received one of the good surprises a few days ago when we discovered that U.S. Rep. Trey Hollingsworth, R-Indiana, has both a conscience and a spine. Hollingsworth was one of 35 Republican members of the â...â
There must be something about the office of Indiana attorney general that attracts people who are, as my late grandfather used to say, âhalf a bubble off of plumb.â Back in the 1970s, the office was occupied by a martinet named Ted Sendak, who famously demanded that everyone â...â
Indiana Republicans sure know how to fuss and feud. They have a dandy fracas going on right now. During the just-suspended session of the Indiana General Assemblyâmore on that in a momentâour lawmakers passed a bill limiting the governorâs emergency powers. It should be not â...â
One former Indiana state legislator called it âa massive (expletive) power grab.â Another told me it was âa back-door way to get to a full-time legislature.â The two former lawmakers are from different parties. The first is a Democrat, the second a Republican. What they w â...â
The conservative Indiana lawmakers who say they love constitutional principles have a funny way of showing it. The stateâs lawmakers in the Indiana General Assembly just sent their plan to curtail some of the Indiana governorâs emergency powers to Gov. Eric Holcombâs desk. â...â
Major league baseballâs decision to pull the All-Star game away from Atlanta has provoked outrage on the right. The MLB did so to distance the game from the Georgia state governmentâs attempts to rig elections. The Georgia legislature passed and Georgiaâs governor, Republic â...â
Poor Jim Lucas. The Republican Indiana representative from Seymour who just loves, loves, loves guns and racially charged memes is in the middle of another controversy. This latest dust-up is a particularly Lucas-like tragic farce. Itâs filled with alt-right half-truths and out â...â
Many Americans have Georgia on their minds these days. The Peach State has become a kind of Rorschach test for this country. People on opposite sides of the United Statesâ great partisan and ideological dividing line look at the same facts and events in Georgia and see entirely â...â
Some lessons people have to learn again and again. And some lessons they never learn at all. Years ago, when Evan Bayh was governor, a Republican chieftain told me his party had made a fundamental mistake with the then young prince of the Indiana Democratic Party. This was near t â...â