Reflections

I have spent the last few weeks since the Fishers City Council election reflecting on the results of that election, and lessons to be learned from it.  In no particular order, here are some of them.

• I got votes from about 40% of those who voted, a very respectable showing for a Democrat. But despite my fiscal conservatism on local financial issues, some people only vote for Republicans, period, and paid too little attention to the very real financial issues related to our overuse of TIF financing and rapidly rising debt.  
• It is exhausting to be a candidate, physically and mentally.  That is doubly true when you are the only candidate of your party on the ballot. 
• Voter turnout in non-Presidential elections, especially for city offices, is nothing short of horrible, and it has been getting worse.  I have heard all sorts of ideas about why this is so, including blaming the one-party nature of local politics to voters simply not understanding why local government is important. I will do my small part about the problem, but even my Republican friends don't understand this. Is it apathy, futility, ignorance of local government, or something else? 
• Democratic Party involvement is probably part of the solution, but the problem there is two-fold, both at the bottom where too few people want to do the hard grassroots work to make it happen, and at the top, where there is a lack of resources, training, communication, and involvement. If Democrats could somehow get their act together, it would drive more citizen involvement in the process. 
• As an alternative to the comment above, I could support non-partisan local elections for mayors and city councils. If there is a Republican or a Democratic position on most local issues, I have yet to see it. It's hard to put a party label on a road construction project. And the stereotype about Democrats being big spenders is just false.  In Hamilton County, the big spenders are all Republicans. But not all of them support that. 
• Both Democrats and Republicans need to learn to talk to each other in a civil manner and be able to work together for common cause. CityYes was a great example of how citizens could put aside party label for a shared vision. 
• Fishers still needs to pass a human rights ordinance. I have no faith in the State doing this right any time soon.
• Fishers also needs to pass a version of an ethics ordinance and campaign finance reform to limit special interests who do business with the City from essentially buying access to city government via large campaign donations. 

I will continue to speak out and write about matters that concern me.  Although I do not expect to write any more posts for this blog, please follow my Hamilton County Politics blog, which also posts to Facebook and Twitter. Feel free to follow it, and me.  Thanks to everyone who supported and worked for me, words cannot express how much I appreciate it. 

Equal Rights in Fishers

Over the last several days, a lot of controversy has erupted over the Indiana General Assembly's adoption of what it called the "Religious Freedom Restoration Act".  Governor Pence has taken a lot of criticism for his support of this law, including from some Republican mayors like Mayor Ballard of Indianapolis, who feel that this law is bad for our image and bad for business.

Fishers Mayor Scott Fadness has today announced his own disapproval of this law, as reported here by Larry Lannan:  http://www.larryinfishers.com/fishers-speaks-on-rfra.html. I have told Mayor Fadness that while I disagree with him on some things, that I agree with him on others. This is one of the times we agree.  I have in the last few minutes emailed that message to the Mayor.

But perhaps we need to go beyond statements and proclamations and take a hard look at drafting an equal rights ordinance for Fishers.  To my surprise, apparently we do not have such a local law. Fishers is generally an open and accepting community, with residents of many faiths, and origins from all over the world. I believe that the time has come to enact that open, accepting attitude into local law.

I believe strongly in equality of the law for all people, regardless of race, religion, gender, national origin, disability, or sexual identity or orientation. We continue to strive to achieve that standard that Thomas Jefferson wrote more than 200 years ago, that "... we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal...". A local ordinance recognizing that principle should be something to consider.