State News
- State News
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Maureen Hayden: Republicans embrace Bosma’s ‘Own Your Own Dream’ agenda
You may be hearing a lot more about the “American dream” from Republicans in the Indiana Statehouse in coming months.
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With eye on power, House Republicans set agenda
There’s still a month to go before the November election, but Republicans who dominate the Indiana House of Representatives have already unveiled their legislative focus for the next session.
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Daniels announces boost to state pension funds
On Thursday, Gov. Mitch Daniels announced that $360 million from the state’s budget surplus will go to shore up five public pension funds.
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Lawsuit challenges Indianapolis monument's protest policy
Eric Smith is a disabled war veteran who decided to protest the United States’ involvement with a global arms-trade treaty by standing on the steps of Indiana’s most famous war monument with protest signs in hand and his 10-year-old son at his side. But because Smith didn’t have a permit to do so, he wasn’t there long before he was told to leave or risk being arrested.
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Rewrite of criminal code seeks to match crime and punishment
To understand why the Indiana criminal code may undergo a major overhaul in the next legislative session, it helps to know that child molesters and rapists face less prison time than someone caught with a few grams of cocaine standing near a public park.
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Maureen Hayden: Commission making progress on state’s sentencing reform
At a recent meeting of the state’s Criminal Code Evaluation Commission, one of the members described a class D felony as the kind of crime most people have committed but just hadn’t been caught for it.
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State’s tough drug-free zone law may be on its way out
Some key legislators want to do away Indiana’s tough, penalty-enhancing “drug-free zone” law, saying it no longer serves its original intent of protecting children from drug dealers.
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Panel eyes new approach for Indiana high school seniors
The push to nearly double the number of Hoosiers with college degrees by 2025 may change the way Indiana high school students spend their senior year.
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Indiana DCS director resigns amid ethical scrutiny
Indiana’s top child-protection official resigned today amid questions of whether he violated his agency’s code of conduct through his involvement in a child neglect case involving his grandchildren.
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Public sentiment and fiscal issues shift the pot debate in Indiana
Chad Padgett is a retired juvenile corrections officer from Logansport who found himself in an unexpected place last summer: Testifying in front of the Indiana Legislature’s sentencing policy study committee holding a hearing on the merits of relaxing the state’s marijuana laws.
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Voters may see more guns at polling places
A 2011 state law that barred local governments from enforcing their own gun restrictions also covers many public buildings where people go to vote.
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Steele pushes to decriminalize pot possession
An influential Republican lawmaker believes it’s time for Indiana to decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana and plans to include language to do so in legislation to overhaul the state’s criminal code.
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Indiana judges revise ‘parenting time’ rules in custody cases
After two years of review, Indiana judges have approved proposed changes to a comprehensive set of guidelines aimed at reducing conflict between parents in child custody cases.
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Maureen Hayden: Newest justice noteworthy for role in protecting children
Finally. That was the word uttered time and again, with an exclamation point for emphasis, late last week when Gov. Mitch Daniels announced he’d picked a woman to sit on what’s been the all-male Indiana Supreme Court.
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Push is on for limiting schools’ use of physical restraints
Advocates and parents of children with special needs want the Indiana Legislature to require schools to have clear guidelines on when to use physical restraints and isolation rooms to discipline students.
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Expert: Ind. stage collapse compensation fair
The architect of compensation for victims of last year's deadly Indiana State Fair stage collapse says he believes the state was "exceedingly fair" with victims.
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ACLU lawyer makes case for liberties for all
The contents of Ken Falk’s office tell a story about what it’s like to be the state’s leading civil liberties lawyer.
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Maureen Hayden: License plates spark debates in states
Who would have thought the back of your car could become a free speech battleground? Probably not the folks in Florida who, in 1987, started the trend of using state-issued specialty license plates to raise money for special causes.
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Report on prison inmates may shape next debate on sentence reform
A study of low-level offenders in Indiana prisons show most are repeat offenders with multiple past convictions and failed attempts at community-based supervision programs.
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Nonprofits may drive debate over specialty plates
Twenty years after Indiana issued its first specialty plate — emblazoned with a bald eagle and the word “Environment” — to benefit the Indiana Heritage Trust, there are more than 100 state-issued plates that generate millions of dollars for nonprofit groups.
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Rising demand for cheaper, cleaner fuel drives CNG
Last Wednesday, when motorists were hit with the biggest one-day jump in gasoline prices in 18 months, customers at the fueling station at Greene’s Auto & Truck Service in Indianapolis were filling their tanks for less than a dollar a gallon.
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Labor Day loses its place as campaign mile marker
It was big news back in 1976 when then-President Gerald Ford departed sharply from political custom by deciding not to launch the formal start of his election campaign on Labor Day.
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Court rules state sex offender registry unconstitutional
A federal court appeals ruling may push state legislators into finding a fix for some long-standing problems with Indiana’s sex and violent offender registry.
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Maureen Hayden: Arrest and conviction records live forever in digital age
Last year, the Indiana Department of Correction released more than 19,000 offenders back into communities around Indiana.
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Statehouse members ramp up their use of social media
Both Republicans and Democrats in the Indiana Statehouse are ramping up their use of social media to reach constituents and market their political party’s brand.
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Private data collectors threaten to challenge criminal records shield law
Private companies that buy and sell court records used in background checks are threatening to challenge a state law that allows people with years-old, low-level arrests to shield their criminal histories from employers.
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Sentencing reform undertaken with opposite premise
A closer look at low-level offenders in Indiana prisons reveals that few of them are first-time criminals.
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Daniels backs review of Fort Wayne campus' future
Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels says he supports a public discussion about whether the joint campus run by Indiana and Purdue universities in Fort Wayne should become an independent school.
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Legislators look at food safety at state's farmers markets
The increasing demand for locally grown and raised food has driven up the number of farmers markets in Indiana, raising questions about whether state and local food-safety officials can keep pace.
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Maureen Hayden column: Daniels gladly takes heat for Muslim dinner at Statehouse
Ismaeel Hummeid was born in a country now governed by a ruler who wouldn’t think twice about killing him. On Thursday evening, the 20-year-old college student from Syria was standing in the halls of power, introducing himself to Gov. Mitch Daniels, a man who’s served two presidents in the White House.
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