The Ultra-Right-Wing State Nobody Mentions

http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/24552-the-ultra-right-wing-state-nobody-mentions


Indiana State Capitol at the end of Market St, Indianapolis. (Photo: Daniel Schwen / CC)

Indiana is a right-wing, conservative state. Somehow, however, the state seems to fly under the radar of the national media when they address the right-leaning activities in other states like Texas and Wisconsin. This is curious because it has frequently been Indiana at the forefront of many of the right-wing laws that have garnered attention from the national media in other states. Indiana has been ground zero in privatization of public resources, voter ID laws, assaults on reproductive rights, lax environmental regulations and dismantling unions - to name a few pet right-wing initiatives.

Several years ago, much of the media attention was focused on far-right-wing, anti-union activities in the Wisconsin legislature. While this attention was warranted, what was missed was that Wisconsin's neighbor, Indiana, was engaged in similar anti-union and ultra-conservative legislative initiatives. Governor Mitch Daniels, governor at that time, and the Republican-controlled House and Senate had advanced many of the same types of laws that were garnering attention in Wisconsin. One of Daniels' first tasks upon becoming governor was to delegitimize the state's public service unions. The unions had been lawfully recognized as a bargaining unit by executive order. Daniels, with a stroke of a pen, decertified the public sector union, saying that government worked better without them. This garnered some media attention, but not enough to raise the alarm in other states. Daniels continued his assault on unions by pushing charter schools on poor black communities like Gary, Indiana, and, in his final days, by signing so-called "right to work" legislation. The latter issue did pique the interest of national media, but only mildly.

One of Daniels' initial acts as governor that did get some media traction was his decision to privatize the administration of the state's welfare support system. He awarded a $1.34 billion contract to IBM to deliver the state's welfare system. This taxpayer giveaway met with little resistance and culminated in disastrous results - with IBM eventually suing the state of Indiana when Daniels rescinded the contract. His next big privatization scheme was to lease the state's toll road. He leased the state's toll road, which happens to run through the poor communities of Gary, Hammond and East Chicago, but the governments and citizens of those communities received nothing in return for the lease. This move also displaced many former state toll road employees. Daniels never advanced any progressive jobs agenda that would put the state's poor and minority citizens to work in good-paying jobs. His answer to the state's poor job creation was to privatize everything and bust up the unions. Despite this record, Indiana is not mentioned among the pantheon of conservative states in America.