Things to like about Massachusetts: Well, Salem seems pretty cool. And you’ve got to respect the Celtics. I’ve always wanted to tour the Lizzie Borden House, so that’s a plus. Oh, and they have some very sound governmental policies … ok, maybe three out of four ain’t bad.

I’m going to tell you a story; we’ll call it "The Ballad of J. James Marzilli, Jr." Raise your hand when something sounds askew.

A state senator serves the public for over 20 years. He then resigns and announces he won’t seek re-election after he’s arrested and charged with disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, and accosting a person of the opposite sex. However, his name remains on the ballot and he loses handily — what with all the alleged accosting and whatnot. Yet, he files to double his pension. In doing so, he cites a state law that allows elected officials under 55 with more than 20 years of "creditable" service to upgrade their pensions if they fail to win re-election.

Barbara Anderson of Citizens for Limited Taxation offers the indignation:

"The whole point of being an elected official is to do such a good job that you don’t get thrown out," she said. "So if there’s an incentive that if you do get thrown out and then get rewarded for that, that just kind of scrambles the entire system, which doesn’t work under the best of circumstances, but this just makes it worse."

And for good measure:

"They get an additional pension if their constituents get sick of them and throw them out? Am I hearing that right? Only in Massachusetts…"

Looks like the pension decision is being withheld until a verdict is reached in his court case.

Egat. One has a feeling voters and the taxpaying public of the Commonwealth might like to let Ms. Borden take 40 whacks at this law.

The Cincinnati Enquirer published an article last week claiming Ohio taxpayers are still "on the hook" for legal fees stemming from lawsuits against the state in the 2004 election. Yikes. It states there were 23 lawsuits against the former Secretary of State, with over $1 million still needed to settle seven of the suits.

All but one of the settled cases involved election law. That one, settled for $73,139, involved a business-records suit in which a Brown County truck driver sued because his Social Security number was posted on a state Web site.

Last week, the Ohio Controlling Board OK’d payment of the latest judgment, awarding five TV networks and the Associated Press $325,521 in attorneys’ fees and expenses from a 2004 case. The lawsuit challenged (former Sec. of State Ken) Blackwell’s order to block ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC, Fox News and the AP from conducting exit polling within 100 feet of the polls on Election Day 2004.

Brunner, a Democrat, fired some of the outside counsel hired to defend those cases shortly after she took office in 2007. But 13 of the cases remain active in state and federal courts, including a lawsuit that challenged Bush’s narrow re-election.

Pretty brutal considering times are tough and taxpayers need all the breaks they can get. No word yet if anyone plans to sue the Bengals for having to endure their games this season.

Hat tip to our very own Glenn Harkness for the info.

WRTV6 reporter and blogger Norman Cox offered some very sensical commentary over the break, asking the Indiana legislature to "walk and chew gum at the same time" when it comes to consolidating government. Most notably, he believes the legislature should stop making excuses and actually work to implement the township consolidation put forth in the Kernan-Shepard report. He writes:

As soon as Governor Mitch Daniels announced his plan to reorganize county government and get rid of townships, a modified version of last year’s Kernan-Shepard report, House Speaker Pat Bauer immediately shot down the idea, saying that legislators need to spend all their time on salvaging Indiana’s economy, balancing the budget, and keeping critical state functions such as schools afloat. Why? Are our senators and representatives collectively unable to do more than one task at a time?

I suspect the real reason for deep-sixing any reform package is that too many members simply oppose the idea for various reasons. Because they once held the lower-level offices that would be eliminated. Because their friends and supporters now hold them. Maybe because they genuinely believe getting rid of the offices is a bad idea. But don’t use the economy as an excuse.

The Heritage Foundation’s Brian M. Riedl and Alison Acosta Fraser offer advice to President-elect Obama regarding how he can keep his promise to issue a "net spending cut." The authors point out that most incoming presidents promise to do so, yet fail when it comes time to make tough choices. They write:

The American people have repeatedly expressed exasperation at the pork, runaway spending, and budget deficits that have plagued Washington during this decade. You were elected President on the promise of fiscal responsibility and a "net spending cut." Scaling back planned "stimulus" spending that would likely fail to help the economy would be a strong first step toward fulfilling your promise. Reforming Social Security and Medicare before more of the 77 million baby boomers begin to collect benefits is also imperative.

The writers also offer some key tips (they’re in bullet points so you know they mean business). Here are a few:

• Define "net spending cut"
• Cut farm subsidies
• Reform entitlement programs
• Devolve more programs to state and local governments
• Use PAYGO to prevent expensive new entitlements

A new article on Stateline proves that Blagojevich’s Senatorial dealings are far from the first drama to surround a vacant U.S. Senate seat. Granted, I doubt any of these governors were caught on tape dropping F bombs of glee over the opportunity to personally benefit over the appointments, but interesting nonetheless:

In Alaska in 2002, newly elected Gov. Frank Murkowski (R) appointed his daughter, Lisa, to the Senate seat he himself had vacated. The move caused such an uproar that both the Legislature and later voters — through a ballot measure approved in 2004 — took away the governor’s appointment power. Alaska now holds elections to choose substitute senators, and Murkowski later was voted out of office in a Republican primary, losing to current Gov. Sarah Palin. 

In Massachusetts in 2004, Democratic lawmakers — worried then-Gov. Mitt Romney would appoint a fellow Republican to Democratic Sen. John Kerry’s seat if Kerry won the presidential election — stripped Romney of his power to do so. Voting on the proposal — which replaced the appointment process with a special election — broke sharply along partisan lines.

Also noteworthy is that current Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal – a Democrat – was the last governor to fill a vacant Senate seat with someone from the opposing party. This happened last year when Republican Senator Craig Thomas passed away, and Wyoming’s law dictated that the seat be filled by someone from the same party as the person who vacated it. Freudenthal chose Republican John Barasso.

Former Indy Mayor Stephen Goldsmith offered some advice to the incoming U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Shaun Donovan, via his column in Governing. Leaning upon his own experiences, Goldsmith offered the following tips:

• Measure performance, not activities
• De-layer the bureaucracy
• Try a little trust and support public-private partnerships
• Block grants are better than program grants
• Recognize that individual choice and market forces drive innovation

Goldsmith adds:

This year, at Harvard Kennedy School, we presented our top Innovations in American Government award to Donovan and his New York City Acquisition Fund, a $230 million partnership that finances the purchase of land and buildings for affordable housing. The Acquisition Fund is supported through a collaboration of the city of New York, the city’s leading financial institutions and 10 national philanthropies. The fund encourages banks to offer credit to smaller developers by insulating their contributions from the highest-risk positions within the fund. By combining innovative private-sector structured finance techniques with the mission-driven commitment of the public sector, the Fund gives small affordable-housing developers faster access to equity and predevelopment capital, achieving remarkable results. The work of local mayors and community development and finance agencies will benefit greatly if "Secretary Donovan" wakes up every day remembering "Housing Commissioner Donovan."

On this blog, we often tout innovative efforts from Indiana’s business community at large. Now, we get to feature an employee at one of our member businesses whose efforts have not only innovated change, but helped to change the course of a nation.

Bart Pietrzak, an engineer at Applied Engineering Services (Indianapolis), was recently awarded the very prestigious Order of Polonia Restituta (the Order of Polish Rebirth), one of Poland’s highest Orders and the second highest award Polish civilians can receive. Here are the details from a press release:

The order is awarded to those who have rendered great service to Poland and the Polish people.  In particular, the Order honors outstanding achievement in the areas of art, science, academia, agriculture, industry, philanthropy, and unpaid public service. 

Mr. Pietrzak received the award for his political activity with the Workers’ Defense Committee (KOR), the Committee for Social Self-Defense (KSS KOR), and the Solidarity Trade Union in Poland in the mid to late 1970s.  As part of his work with KSS KOR, Mr. Pietrzak helped raise money and provide free legal consul for those protestors who had been arrested for speaking out against the communist rule and who organized strikes against drastic increases in food price.  Mr. Pietrzak was also an editor and photographer for the underground magazine Puls (Pulse).   During communist-imposed marshal law in 1981 Mr. Pietrzak was arrested and imprisoned, and later immigrated to the United States. Opposition activity like this helped transform Poland from a communist-ruled state into a democratic country.  Mr. Pietrzak went back home to Poland to receive the award presented to him from the President of Poland on November 11th, 2008, which is Poland’s Independence Day.
 

Also check out this interesting Q & A with Pietrzak on the company’s web site.

Congrats, Mr. Pietrzak, on this remarkable honor.