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The regular meeting of the Randolph County Tea Party was held on Thursday February 2, 2012.
The meeting was opened with prayer, Pledge of Allegiance and singing the National Anthem.
Ron introduced our guest speaker, Bill Davis, Representative for District 33 of the Indiana House of Representatives.
Mr. Davis opened his remarks by noting that over the years, participation in the legislative process by citizens had decreased dramatically. He then stated that due to the Tea Party this participation has increased, not only by Tea Party activists but by others as well. He thanked the Tea Party for making this happen.
He stated that when communicating with our representatives, personal letters, phone calls and emails are much more effective that a letter blitz with nothing changed but the signature. He advises personal correspondence and keep it personal and keep it short.
Mr. Davis commented on Indiana’s efforts to reduce the size of government. He commented on HB 1006 where a board was identified to review the value of the 920 some licenses and the 420 licensing boards in Indiana. In order to determine which of these are really needed, one criteria used was to identify how many complaints had been received by these boards since some had never met and some were never appointed showing some were not needed. A license identified was beauticians. BUT hundreds of beauticians visited the statehouse showing they wished to be licensed. The bill was pulled.
Taxpayers must help the legislature become more efficient. Governor Daniels has reduced the size of the civil service by 3500 jobs and has been criticized for this. What many may not realize is that this has been done through attrition. In addition, the legislature had changed all “merit” employees to “at will” employees. Merit employees can only be terminated for cause, at will employees can be terminated due to reduction in force and other reasons.
Mr. Davis noted that the current short session is at a midway point, meaning that all House Bills have been sent to the Senate and all Senate Bills have been sent to the House. Any bill that is not changed by the receiving chamber will be forwarded on to the Governor for signature. Bill noted that 44 new bills have been introduced since January 28th 2012. 108 bills have passed the House and 140 bills have passed the Senate!
Indiana’s “Right to Work” has received the most public attention along with HB 1001 which deals with human sexual trafficking. HB 1001 was fast tracked to be passed prior to the Super Bowl in Indianapolis because sexual trafficking follows major sports events. Mr. Davis stressed that we must not think this only happens in big cities and at major events. He stressed that happens everywhere and it does happen in rural areas. He stressed that people must be willing to stop this, to get involved and to step forward when we feel something is not right.
Mr. Davis also addressed the impression that the Republicans and Democrats “can not get along” and provided voting on several measures that show that the legislators agree on most things with votes like 94-5.
HB 1299 was introduced by Mr. Davis and has passed. This bill addressed the sale of High Energy Caffeine and alcohol drinks in Indiana. The use of caffeine in this drink affects the consumer so that they do not realize the amount of alcohol they are consuming. These drinks contain 12% alcohol Imbibing in these drinks can lead to alcohol poisoning; 79,000 alcohol poisoning deaths nationwide occurred last year.
Mr. Davis explained the following bills:
· HB 1005 A bill for random drug testing for welfare benefits was passed after an amendment to include legislators as well was added to the bill.
· HB 1072 giving tax credits to new businesses coming to Indiana was slated to sunset in 2012, the sunset was moved to 2015.
· HB 1199 to remove Indiana death taxes beginning in 2015.
· HB to allow legislative and other committees to meet through skyping, thereby eliminating gas costs.
· HB 1367 affecting Indiana’s highly rated deaf school
Mr. Davis also noted that the bill developing a Health Care Compact was passed by the House last Friday (video explaining a Health Care Compact attached to video) we will plan on a speaker addressing this issue in the near future. Also additions have been made to the Sunshine law that imposes monetary fines for failure to follow the law.
Mr. Davis commented that Indiana needs to continue to reduce the size of government and that citizens need to continue to support the legislators who step forward to stand against the Federal Government. He notes that suggestions are being made to limit the number of bills a legislator can introduce. Currently the House has a limit of five per member but the Senate has not limit.
Questions from the audience were addressed by Mr. Davis and we thank him for his attendance and his candor.
Our straw poll for the 2012 Presidential election had the following results:
Gingrich……………20%
Santorum…………...59%
Paul…………………10%
Romney……………..10%
Sharon provided an update on the Richard Mourdock campaign for Randolph County. Name recognition was up from 54% to 89%. National endorsements for Mr. Mourdock are expected shortly and with these will come money! She asked for volunteers to make phone calls from their own homes now that we are finished with the phone banks and also asked for volunteers to work the polls. Sign up sheets were passed out. She cautioned that as we put up yard signs we check our county or township ordinances as some have a 30 day prior to election requirement.
It was noted that Mr. Mourdock has signed a “term limits” pledge and that he is against earmarks and pork barreling. Dodie noted there is currently a bill in the Senate banning both earmarks and pork barrel projects and we should all watch with interest to see how our current Senator Lugar votes on this. (Senator Lugar voted AGAINST this bill)
John Edwards noted he is assisting with the candidacy of Don Bates Jr. for the Senate seat currently held by Mike Pence. John will be serving as the Coordinator for Randolph County. We have had two candidates for this seat address our group and Mr. John Hatter, a third candidate will address us on March 1. Support for Mr. Bates in our group is very high at this time.
Ron and others commented on the Meet and Greet for Jay County residents that were held on January 29th. This event was held to assist Jay County in developing their own Tea Party. Several interested residents from Portland were in attendance and thanked us for the effort. There were 42 people attending the meet and greet and they have set their first meeting for February 9th.
The open discussion session of the meeting addressed how to become a delegate for the State convention and upcoming primaries across the country. It was noted that in America you can denounce your citizenship for $450.00.
Upcoming events:
February 8th………..6:30 p.m. Steering Committee Meeting Arby’s group room
February 16th…………..6:30 p.m Regular Meeting of Randolph County Tea Party Moose
Lodge, Guest Speaker Jim Wallace Candidate for Governor of
Indiana
February 29th……….Lincoln Dinner at Husted Hall at 4-H grounds….Mitch Daniels
Guest Speaker….tickets $20.00
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Ron and Dodie
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