Comments on Advance Indiana™: The Politics Behind Indianapolis' At-Large Council Seats

Maybe Mitch was at the meetings to supply those in...

2011-04-10T08:16:57.124-05:00

Maybe Mitch was at the meetings to supply those in attendance with whatever they were smoking at those meetings . . . he certainly looked like he was dressing the part back then.

Unigov only succeeded in accelerating white flight from Marion County into the collar counties since the unintended consequence of Unigov was desegregation of the county school districts by Judge Dillion.

As always Unigov shows how both parties love big government. Take smaller government entities and strip them of all powers or disband them and consolidate them at higher levels. Of course this is always done in the name of efficiencies of scale but lets face it . . . it is all about power and getting more of it either at the local, state or national level.

Indy Man is correct on the pre-Baker v. Carr (one ...

2011-04-09T10:48:45.514-05:00

Indy Man is correct on the pre-Baker v. Carr (one man, one vote) history of Indiana politics....Marion County elected its reps county-wide. I don't remember it...didn't even live in Indy and I was just a kid. But I have heard stories.

You can call them that too, Gary. You are right. ...

2011-04-09T10:17:20.585-05:00

You can call them that too, Gary. You are right. That's like saying I'm going to cut my spending by $20 this year when I earn $100k and spend $150k each year.

As far as I can tell, we have few people truly standing up for the people.

Ron Paul and Rand Paul are two that stand up for us against this madness. Both of them are outside that fake paradigm of left vs. right.

I prefer to call them Republicrats, Melyssa. That&...

2011-04-09T10:00:01.670-05:00

I prefer to call them Republicrats, Melyssa. That's what I'm thinking right now of the people who announced this so-called great budget deal last night that does absolutely nothing to address the overspending problem we have in Washington.

Peterson may have had a D beside his name, but he ...

2011-04-09T09:50:50.807-05:00

Peterson may have had a D beside his name, but he had the blessing of the Republicans to assure his win.

Indy is one party rule.

The two party system is an illusion designed to keep you trapped in the false left vs. right paradigm keeping the sheeple divided.

And you know what they say about dividing the people.

Correction for what it is worth: In the sixties,...

2011-04-09T09:03:10.377-05:00

Correction for what it is worth:

In the sixties, State Representatives and Senators ran countywide. Unless there was massive ticket splitting, your party won either all or nothing. That is how they ended up with a 70 to 30 spread in the Legislature. Marion County was allocated 16 Representatives and 8 Senators.

Primary ballots were enormous. Primary voters tended to vote for the names at the beginning of the ballot. If your name did not start with an A, B, C, or D, you had almost no chance of winning. That is how a young State Senator Dan Burton came to be.

The 3 man districts did not evolve until the seventies.

Before Unigov, Indianapolis had nine city councilors who were assigned districts but were elected at large. Only six councilors were allowed to be members of the same party. Therefore there was almost always a 6 to 3 Democrat - Republican city council split.
I haven’t researched the law lately, but I believe that Indiana second class cities still work this way.

And I should have said multi-member districts. Tha...

2011-04-09T01:06:18.477-05:00

And I should have said multi-member districts. Thanks for the correction.

That's for the correction. It was Whitcomb. Bo...

2011-04-09T01:05:04.456-05:00

That's for the correction. It was Whitcomb. Bowen was Speaker.

Pretty interesting stuff -- I have to wonder how D...

2011-04-09T00:12:09.017-05:00

Pretty interesting stuff -- I have to wonder how Daniels got so close to the key players back then -- I know his father was in the pharmaceutical industry, but still, it's pretty impressive to know even the backroom dealings not being a member of the press and just an undergrad college student. I guess he was lucky his drug dealing at Princeton didn't affect his thesis completion.

One small thing I was wanting to double-check, Gary -- Otis Bowen wasn't governor when UniGov was created I don't believe, but was Speaker of the House. I believe Ed Whitcomb was governor (I remember the dates he was in office because I've got to meet and spend time with Governor Ed a couple times, and he's an intensely fascinating and very kind person).

When you say that state reps were elected at large...

2011-04-08T23:46:11.176-05:00

When you say that state reps were elected at large, you may have meant that districts were 3 man districts. Each district elected 3reps. I remember my district had Mannweiler, Bill Soards, and someone named Nelson. It was NW in Pike Township. Ogden remembers them.