In an odd turn of events, Ed Clere is removed as House Public Health chairman.

In Indiana, wagon-circling is an Olympic event.

Rep. Clere removed as chairman of state health committee, by Elizabeth Beilman (N and T)

INDIANAPOLIS — State Rep. Ed Clere, R-New Albany, has been removed as chairman of the Indiana House of Representatives Public Health Committee.

While Clere claims it was his controversial stances on issues that caused his removal, House Speaker Brian Bosma said he made an administrative change because of Clere’s behavior.

Clere said Bosma called him last Monday to warn him of his removal, referencing an earlier conservation the two had in September.

“He told me that he and other members of the house Republican caucus were upset with me about a number of controversial issues and my stance on those issues,” he said, specifically referring to issues including needle exchanges and statewide Medicaid expansion.

But Bosma said his decision “had nothing to do with his position on issues and everything to do with how he has treated other people and his role as chairman” ...

Civil rights and LGBT? Indiana Republicans vow to keep us barefoot, stupid and mean-spirited.

Fundamental change, just so long as nothing fundamentally changes. It sounds almost like a Gahan campaign promise.

Indiana legislators foreshadow LGBT rights battle, by Maureen Hayden (CNHI via N & T)

INDIANAPOLIS — Any speculation that state lawmakers would wait until after the November election to debate civil rights for lesbian, gay and transgender Hoosiers is gone.

On Monday, state Senate President David Long, Fort Wayne, said legislators will soon see what he called a “comprehensive” bill that may extend anti-discrimination protections while allowing people to also claim religious freedom to deny those protections ... Long, a Republican, refused to give details of the proposed measure that will be filed when lawmakers return to the Statehouse for their short, 10-week session in January.

Even the Chamber of Commerce is urging the GOP to be rational. The House Speaker apparently sees bigotry as the state's biggest growth industry, with final word reserved for the Minority Leader.

House Speaker Brian Bosma, meanwhile, said the Legislature won’t be “bullied, badgered or blackmailed” into passing a measure that isn’t supported by most Hoosiers.

At the chamber’s legislative preview Monday, Bosma promised a civil debate would ensue, but he admitted it could be difficult.

“This is clearly the toughest issue of the session,” he said, "maybe the toughest issue of our [legislative] careers.”

That’s not how his Democratic counterpart sees it. House Minority Leader Scott Pelath said legislators could simply pass a bill that adds four words: “sexual orientation, gender identity” to the state’s civil rights law. And then move on to other pressing issues like road funding.

“My advice,” he said, “is to get it over with.”

Package store empire opposes beer and wine at the Indiana State Fair.

"Big Red Liquors spoke in sole opposition to the bill during the hearing, citing concerns that greater access to alcohol would lead to abuse."

Meh. Why not let the reportable facts about state fair prohibition do the talking, and refrain from editorializing?

Meanwhile, the larger issue in this and numerous other legislative matters pertains not to Big Red's bizarre family-oriented fears (it only recently paid to be the guild's title sponsor at our Winterfest) but the irony of multinationals (begin with AB-InBev for the sake of convenience) kicking back at localism's palpable shift with their rheumy-eyed complaints about discrimination against the big guy, mostly prefaced with the latest, greatest bogeyman: "Granholm." 

Of course, they haven't been above rigging the marketplace by whatever means are available over a period of decades. Now they want protection against changing tastes and local shift. Screw the big guys -- but of course, that's just my opinion.

Based on what I heard yesterday, my guess is that the state fair's prohibition will end, and when given the buyer's choice as to what it purchases and from whom, the presence of Indiana beer and wine will be untainted by Stella Artois.

Brewers push for alcohol sales at Ind. State Fair, by Summer Ballentine (AP)

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — A nearly seven-decade-old ban on alcohol at the Indiana State Fair could come to an end if lawmakers can reconcile desires to promote local brews with concerns about maintaining the fair's "family friendly" atmosphere.

An Indiana House committee heard testimony Wednesday on a proposal to lift a ban on alcohol at the fair. The bill passed the Senate but still needs approval from the House and Gov. Mike Pence before it could take effect. A vote is expected next week.

State fair officials and beer brewers say the time has come to showcase Indiana-made craft beers and wines alongside other agricultural products. Liquor, not just wine and beer, also would be permitted if the bill becomes law.

Excuse me, says Stemler, as amended HJR-3 moves to Silent Ron Grooms's desk.

I was told yesterday that Steve Stemler is a kind and wonderful man, who might have voted "yes" or "no" to HJR-3, but decided to opt out, because of, er, well ...

Stemler now can be defined by an inability to participate in a measure he once deigned to co-author. Would he have opted for neutrality in WWII? Is his brain hurting?

At any rate, the House has spoken, sending HJR-3 to the Senate, where we now have the great pleasure of watching Silent Ron squirm. Yesterday, every "yes" vote was a Republican.

Indiana House passes HJR-3 with changes, sends measure to Senate (Dan Spehler at Fox59)

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind.—The Indiana House passed the amended version of HJR-3 Tuesday afternoon.

The bill passed the full house by a vote of 57-40. The measure will now be sent to the Senate.

On Monday, lawmakers dropped HJR3′s controversial 2nd sentence.

Steve Stemler excused from a decision yet again as the House excises an HJR-3 clause and fundamentalist notjobs reach for their Bics.

Gazing at the "how they voted" list, one sees the name Steven Stemler and a word that prompts Yogi Berra's "deja vu all over again."

That'd be "excused." Not exactly a profile in courage, and yep; we've all been here before ... in 2011.

Same-sex marriage: One in the win column for Rep. Clere, who refrains from supporting the "language of hate."

Rep. Steve Stemler, D-Jeffersonville, was excused from House action on Tuesday and did not vote. However, he was listed as a co-author of the bill.

As this was the case again yesterday, douchebaggery has a new poster child. Meanwhile, the Indy Star's reporters explain the shape our GOPsters are in, which I can describe with brevity: Like I've always told you, fundamentalism simply is bad for business.

Indiana House amends HJR-3, possibly delaying referendum, by Tony Cook and Barb Berggoetz (IndyStar)

 ... Democrats say Republicans are in a bind for several reasons. They're torn between two traditional bases of support: the business community and social conservatives. They also fear growing opposition to gay marriage bans could hurt them in future elections.

"The governor made it clear he didn't want the amendment on the ballot in 2016," said Rep. Charlie Brown, D-Gary. "So, now, what do they do? They are between a rock and a hard place. They are killing themselves even nationally with this whole issue. Why would they continue to pursue this when most of the folks who were opposed to this are their friends – big business (and) the (Indy) chamber" ...

The straight lead paragraphs:

In an atmosphere of rapidly shifting opinions on gay marriage, nearly two dozen Indiana House Republicans bucked their leadership to strip a same-sex marriage ban of the clause opponents find most objectionable.

The House voted 52-43 to remove the proposed constitutional amendment's second sentence, which would have banned civil unions and similar arrangements. That leaves only the first sentence, which would still ban gay marriages ...

Indiana House GOP omits agenda item as Rhonda Rhoads rushes forward with a muddy shovel.

Their own press release.

Their own pictograms.

At NAC: "This is bad law-making," but still, Rhonda Rhoads lends her name to HJR infamy.

Indiana alcohol legislation, teetotaling and "public safety."

Yes, Representative Bill Davis is serious: If small brewers were to sell closed containers of craft beer at farmers markets (as farmhouse wineries already can), public drunkenness and illicit fornication soon would chase the kiddos away from the heirloom tomato stall. I was there in the room when Davis remarked that if he had his way, Prohibition would yet again be the law(less) of the land.

Perhaps soon the legislature of Mississippi will begin its sessions with a new prayer: "Thank God for Indiana, or else we'd be the most ... "

You know, red state shit.

Legislature had little taste for alcohol bills, by Maureen Hayden (CNHI Statehouse Bureau)

Greensburg — When it comes to alcohol, the 2013 legislative session may be marked more by what it didn’t do to boost booze sales than what it did.

Legislators did decide to let a small group of well-established wineries and breweries to get into the business of distilling spirits, and it cleared the way for an auction of some cheap liquor licenses for lakefront development in a resort community on Lake Michigan. But they crafted both bills to have narrow impact.

In turning down another bill that would have given Indiana breweries the same right as Indiana wineries to sell their products at farmers’ markets, the legislative gatekeepers signaled their distaste for lifting Indiana’s historically strict limits on alcohol.

“If we did that, the next thing you’d know, we’d have farmers markets turning into liquor stores,” said House Public Policy Chairman Bill Davis, a Republican from Portland who’s played a key role in killing alcohol expansion bills.

Davis is a teetotaler who’s repeatedly killed a bill that would allow grocery and liquor stores to sell carry-out alcohol on Sundays. But he said decisions aren’t based on his personal views, but on what’s best for the public safety.

Artisan distilling: Legislative loosening and other flanking maneuvers.

Even a cynic like me must doff his chapeau in recognition of the political artistry involved in moving the "artisan distillery" bill past Bill Davis, who is as ardent and unapologetic a prohibitionist as Carrie Nation ever dreamed of being.

State may loosen rules for micro-distilleries: Bill could help small entrepreneurs capitalize on growing demand for ‘locally grown’ drink, by Maureen Hayden (CNHI Statehouse Bureau via Pharos-Tribune)

INDIANAPOLIS — The Indiana General Assembly isn’t ready to let Hoosiers buy booze at a grocery store on Sundays, but lawmakers may be willing to loosen up the state’s tight alcohol laws for artisans who craft beer, wine and spirits.

Legislation to allow Sunday sales of carryout alcohol from retail stores died in the House last week. But several other alcohol-related bills are making their way through the legislature, all aimed at helping small entrepreneurs capitalize on the growing demand for “locally grown” drink.

They include a bill that would allow farm wineries to sell their products directly to retailers and a bill that would let the makers of craft beers sell their products at farmer’s markets and trade shows.

There’s also legislation aimed at relaxing Indiana liquor laws to allow the creation of micro-distilleries that would specialize in producing small batches of bourbons, whiskey, vodkas and gins.

Legislative libations 1: Matters of distilling and brewing.

In Indiana legislative news, HB 1293 (creation of artisanal distilling permits) will be heard in committee this very morning. As currently written, it would broaden the scope of distilling permits for existing small wineries wishing to enter or expand distilling, and enable existing small breweries to obtain permits on what amounts to a leveled regulatory playing field.

Our own representative Ed Clere is carrying the ball for this bill, and he is joined as sponsor by Rep. Rhonda Rhoads from the adjacent District 70. I support this measure sans self-interest, seeing as though NABC has no immediate plans to get into distilling, and I'd like to publicly thank Ed Clere (sans irony) for seeing the merit of enabling craft distilling in Indiana.

The other two items of interest to the Brewers of Indiana Guild, of which I'm a director, both originate in the Senate and are explained below in excerpts from a mailing by the guild's executive director. SB 0401 would rationalize the paperwork for small breweries to legally pour samples at fests and events. SB 0100 would allow us to sell pre-sealed bottles and growlers at farmers' markets. Needless to say, I'm in favor of these measures, as well.

We have filed three bills: SB 0100 (to permit brewers to sell product at farmers markets), SB 0401 (to create a streamlined process for serving at festivals and special events) and HB 1293 (to create an artisan distiller permit) ...

 ... There will be other hearings and opportunities to support all of our bills. In order to become law, a bill must have a committee hearing and vote, debate and vote on second reading, and debate and vote on third reading. The bill then goes "across the hall" (from Senate to House, or House to Senate) where the entire process repeats. In reality, only a fraction of bills make it to the governor's desk, and those that do are rarely in the same form as they started (because of amendments).

ON THE AVENUES: The triumph of the scofflaws.

ON THE AVENUES: The triumph of the scofflaws.

A weekly web column by Roger A. Baylor.

The journalist, writer and social commentator H. L. Mencken celebrated the repeal of Prohibition by drinking a glass of cold water.

“My first in 13 years,” he explained.

Mencken’s witticism is repeated near the end of “Prohibition”, Ken Burns’ cautionary and instructive 2011 documentary film. It chronicles the single most ridiculous “great” experiment in American history that did not involve war, segregation, genocide, eugenics, Miller Lite or Bud Selig, because at least Prohibition killed no one, right?

Wrong, although the very same religious zealots, health fascists and bubble-headed family activists whose decades of admittedly effective lobbying brought about the country’s bizarre hypocritically wet/dry hiatus never ceases insisting, against all evidence to the contrary, that eliminating alcoholic beverages would reduce various abuses and deaths – particularly on the part of those working men cruelly subject to the destructive forces of Demon Rum … or was the real problem related to unfettered Robber Baron capitalism and the human degradation it brought to the shop floor, more so than the stupor coming on its heels?

At any rate, the anticipated utopian panacea did not come into being at the stroke of an amendment to the Constitution. People continued to be injured and to die, but for intriguing new reasons.

Fatalities, dismemberments and other injuries stemming from the explosion of organized crime, which predictably followed in the wake of Prohibition, were considerable in number. Also, havoc was unleashed when unregulated bootleg poisons were unwittingly ingested by normal, ordinary folks.

Of course, to be crippled, blinded or killed outright by drinking a simple cocktail was to expose yourself to vilification by the Prohibition era’s proliferation of nutcase moralizers: As a God-denying, law-breaking agent of perversity, you deserved to suffer.

Don’t believe it? Just ask modern-day fundamentalist quacks like Pat Robertson, forever conjuring the sophistry necessary to blame tornado victims for not praying hard enough for deliverance, or AIDS patients for being promiscuous devils who’ve made an otherwise “loving” God all irate, with dire consequences.

Pfui. By 1933, with Prohibition finally tossed into Trotsky’s historical dustbin – thanks to the terminal arrogance of its proponents, a creeping national exhaustion from the daily strain of quenching illicit thirsts, the gut-wrenching economic dislocations of the Great Depression (capitalism again), and a pressing need to steady our collective nerves before commissioning the Greatest Generation to slay Nips and Nazis – only then may we fast-forward 70-odd years to early 2012, when I sat listening, spellbound and disgusted, to a nattily attired trucking company owner from Northern Indiana, who unfortunately also serves in the House of Representatives. He was explaining his views on booze to the Brewers of Indiana Guild board.

Not only is he diametrically opposed to ruining the lives of innocent children by countenancing beer and wine sales at the state fairgrounds during the State Fair (libations to be consumed by adults, mind you – not the children themselves), but he strongly favors a return to the halcyon days of the aforementioned Prohibition era, and the re-outlawing of all forms of beverage alcohol, presumably so drinkers might join dope smokers, serial sodomites, Democrats and even readers of French literature inside a spanking new, for-profit Gulag on the Indiana prairie, its construction naturally outsourced to foreign investors, so that the half-dozen or so right-thinking and sober patriots remaining on the Outside might enjoy the state all by themselves.

His Heaven is my Hell, not unlike the rampant hypocrisies that so often comprise the American myth.

---

Watching the Ken Burns documentary about Prohibition last week proved to be an excellent preparatory strategy for me, because it rendered me appropriately militant as I eagerly awaited the start of the 9th American Distilling Institute conference. The conference was held from April 1 through the 4th, with most events taking place just a few miles away from New Albany at Huber’s Winery and Starlight Distillery, itself a showplace of family business, small business, agribusiness and the tourism business.

They do it all, and Huber’s is like a textbook illustrating these connections: Kinfolk, farming, visitors and commerce. The trucker/legislator needs to read this book – any book, for that matter. Of all the voluminous absurdities he utters (trust me, it was a Candid Camera moment), the one making the least sense is his attitude of skepticism that beverage alcohol has any useful connection to agriculture.

Of course, even the most cursory examinations of world culture and human history over the millennia indicate otherwise, and yet these facts like cannot survive ideological motivations like his. It remains that fermentation is a natural process, one harnessed by mankind from times immemorial to create pleasing and at times sustaining beverages from the agricultural yield.

In the absence of refrigeration, grape juice and wort (barley liquid ready for boiling) are highly perishable. Alcoholic content helps to preserve them, thus preserving the value of the crop, because the value of wine and beer as finished products are higher than as raw materials.

Distillation takes the process a step further by concentrating the alcoholic content of the fermentables. It is a man-made process, to be sure, and one widely used for applications other than the production of beverage alcohol, but the analogy holds. There’s nothing unnatural about any of it, and all of it begins somewhere in a field, where plants are growing.

One thing I’ve noticed is that craft-oriented makers of beer, wine and spirits share an interest in restoring a sense of place and connectivity when it comes to their ingredients. This interest parallels other contemporary movements pertaining to locality and sustainability – perhaps imperfectly, but in the sense of gradual shift. As noted so often in this space, shift happens … if you want it. America’s dreadful experiment with Prohibition proved eloquently that a shift running counter to nature and human proclivities was not a good idea.

Perhaps all of Indiana’s legislators should be compelled to watch the documentary series.

Rep. Bob Morris: The conspiratorial face of domestic douchebaggery.

I have it on the best authority that Rep. Bob Morris was born in rural Paraguay, the illegitimate and illiterate son of Maj. Frank Burns and an escaped Nazi spy named Greta, and served as a professional misogynist in Ft. Wayne before turning to selling used cars to John Birch Society members. Morris’s birth certificate, driver’s license and elementary school diploma were forged on Photoshop. How do I know all this? I saw it on the Internet, and until Rep. Clere tells me otherwise, you can’t convince me.

Roger A. Baylor

I use this word so seldom, but what an asshole!

Lawmaker opposes Girl Scout honor » Recent Local News » News and Tribune

newsandtribune.com

INDIANAPOLIS — An Indiana lawmaker won’t support a resolution celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Girl Scouts because he believes it is a “radicalized organization” that supports abortion and promotes homosexuality. Rep. Bob Morris of Fort Wayne has sent a letter to fellow Indiana House Repu...

Equal time for the GOP's seasonal celebrants, including HD-72.

Same-sex marriage: One in the win column for Rep. Clere, who refrains from supporting the "language of hate."

The most poignant passage in Lesley Stedman Weidenbener's Courier-Journal coverage of the Indiana House as proud inheritors of the Torquemada tradition in Indiana politics comes with this Valentine Day's poem written by Rep. Mary Ann Sullivan (D-Indianapolis):

“Just press the red button; the color of no. It will stop all the nonsense and not strike a blow, a blow that hurts thousands across this great state and taints our constitution with the language of hate.”

Not unexpectedly, our own Rep. Clere's comments leave ample wiggle room for placating the many theocratic fascists among his constituents, but at least he got the pesky Constitutional part right by voting no on HJR-6.

Indiana House approves constitutional ban on same-sex marriage (Weidenbener in the C-J)

INDIANAPOLIS — The House approved a proposal 70-26 Tuesday that would make Indiana the 31st state to ban same-sex marriage in its constitution. Indiana law already defines marriage as the union of one man and one woman, but advocates of a constitutional amendment say it’s needed to protect traditional marriage from activist judges ... ... If approved by the Senate this year, the proposal can be considered again either in 2013 or 2014. If approved by the General Assembly a second time, the proposal will be placed on the November ballot in 2014 for ratification.

We must look elsewhere for our daily dose of opprobrium, and accordingly, given the special place he occupies in the exurban hearts of both Reclaim Our Culture Kentuckiana (ROCK) and One Southern Indiana (1Si), the supposedly Democratic Rep. Steve Stemler plays a wonderful, down-home role in this same-sex rejection production, one reminiscent of Larry Linville's archetypal Frank Burns on M*A*S*H, or perhaps Dan Coffey.

Hurriedly speed-dialing ROCK's Ayatollah Wickens for direction, Stemler first beat the pander bear rush to become co-author of HJR-6, but did not cast a vote either way yesterday. Weidenbener explains:

Rep. Steve Stemler, D-Jeffersonville, was excused from House action on Tuesday and did not vote. However, he was listed as a co-author of the bill.

Professional grade fluffing like that belongs in California, not Indiana, but I digress. Kindly permit me to publicly ask a question that surely must have occurred to many readers: Is there any known way to distinguish Steve Stemler from a garden variety GOP stooge, save for his own declaration of affiliation, one regularly contradicted by his political actions?

Crickets chirp, pins drop.

HJR-6's prime mover, Rep. Turner, is quoted by Weidenbener in the act of pandering to John Q. Public:

“Ultimately, it’s the public that decides whether we want to put this in our state constitution.”

Turner had no comment as to whether he belongs to the Flat Earth Society, and so we're free to surmise to our creationist hearts' content. Spanish Inquisition, here we come ... make that, "return."

Indiana House hypocrisy: No smoking = Workplace safety. Unless you work in a bar, club, casino ...

... then, your health really isn't that important, after all.

It's all about protecting workers, unless you have the misfortune of working in an exemption? If the empirical data is correct, then it's "all or nothing" -- or nothing at all.

House passes smoking ban that exempts bars, casinos, by Lesley Stedman Weidenbener (Courier-Journal)

INDIANAPOLIS — Smoking would be banned statewide in most restaurants and other workplaces under a bill the Indiana House passed 73-26 late Tuesday.
But House Bill 1131 exempts bars, private clubs, casinos and tobacco businesses. It also allows smoking in the private areas of small businesses in which all employees are family members ...

... As introduced by House Health Chairman Charlie Brown, D-Gary, the bill would have banned smoking in all public places — including bars, restaurants and retailers. Only casinos and horse tracks would have been exempted.

But last week and again on Monday, House members whittled away at the ban, carving new exemptions until it was a bill that Brown barely supported. Still, he asked House members to support it Tuesday, pledging that he'd be back to seek something more comprehensive. “If any one of you were to do a survey of your constituents, overwhelmingly they would support no smoking in the workplace, no smoking in public places.”

Gather those half-pints of Kessler ...

As the Brewers of Indiana Guild met on the fourth floor of the Statehouse yesterday to testify before the Senate committee on behalf of Sunday carry-out sales at microbreweries and brewpubs, a House committee one floor below was hearing arguments of a different sort.

Bill would permit alcohol sales during elections, by Lesley Stedman Weidenbener (Courier-Journal).

INDIANAPOLIS – Bars and restaurants could sell alcohol while the polls are open on Election Day and stay open later to accommodate Sunday night crowds under bills that a House committee will vote on next week.

Unsurprisingly, I have an opinion on both of these topics.

As for adjusted Sunday opening hours, yes. Why should Sunday be any different than Monday, Wednesday or Friday?

In like fashion, the prohibition of all Sunday alcohol sales on Christmas Day should be ended, too. Both of these standpoints are remnants of “blue laws” that derive from deference to a particular religious standpoint. You can have your swimsuit models, because I fantasize about the day when the ACLU intervenes to strike down these and other anachronisms that violate church-state separation.

The same applies to Election Day sales. I’ve written on this topic numerous times, and defy you to show me how drunken voting can be any more dim-witted than casting ballots while sober. We should be encouraging drinking before voting, not discouraging it.

What are the odds of passage for these measures? I’ve no idea. Yesterday we spoke to eleven state senators, two of whom were as impervious to logic as future steaks chewing their cuds on the farm. Nine others seemed reasonable. As long as some legislators continue to consult their Bibles rather than the Constitution before making up their minds, anything can happen, and probably will.