Tag Archives: State: Indiana

News from The Associated Press: Lawmakers put Indiana on the verge of becoming the Rust Belt’s first right-to-work state, passing legislation Wednesday that prohibits labor contracts requiring workers to pay union representation fees.

News from The Associated Press: Republican Rep. Dan Burton of Indiana says he won’t seek re-election to a 16th term.

ChicagoTribune.com: The American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana’s top lawyer said Thursday that a bill pending that would allow schools to teach creationism in science classes clearly violates the U.S. Constitution and invites legal challenges.

News from The Associated Press: Democrats who have been boycotting the Indiana House in a battle over right-to-work legislation could each face a $5,000 fine if they stay away another day.

Religion Clause: The National Center for Science Education reported last week that so far this year, six separate anti-evolution bills have been introduced . . .

Palladium-Item | pal-item.com: Indiana’s first specialty license plate that benefits gay causes is now available for purchase.

Big Government: For the second time in a session that is only weeks old, Indiana House Democrats refused to show up for work on Tuesday, effectively delaying the passage of right-to-work legislation.

Washington Post: A judge upheld Indiana’s school voucher law on Friday, rejecting opponents’ arguments that the largest such program in the nation unconstitutionally uses public money to support religion. | Meredith v. Daniels (Ind. Super. Ct. (Marion Co.) Jan. 13, 2012)

News from The Associated Press: Indiana House Democrats on Monday ended a three-day boycott of the Legislature over a contentious labor bill but are not promising to stay long enough to allow a final vote on the divisive measure.

News from The Associated Press: Democrats were poised to sit out another day of the Indiana House session on Thursday as they try to stop their state from becoming the first in more than a decade to enact right-to-work legislation.

Journal and Courier | jconline.com: County commissioners gave their approval Tuesday to a rezoning that will allow for construction of an Islamic community center in northwest Tippecanoe County, although the vote was not without controversy.

AFA of Indiana: Thankfully, the Alliance Defense Fund, one of the nation’s top religious liberty law firms, did a lengthy legal analysis of the Evansville ordinance that was devastatingly effective. They noted over a dozen serious flaws in the ordinance and cited more than 200 court cases, founding quotes and examples of the problems these ordinances create for churches, charities, business owners and vital community groups like the Boy Scouts and the Salvation Army. (Even groups that tend to be known for their economic expertise, like the Heritage Foundation now have studies showing the conflicts between same-sex marriage and non-discrimination ordinances with Constitutional freedoms.)

Evansville Courier & Press: The Vanderburgh Commission voted Tuesday night to table an ordinance that broadens how county code recognizes people of sexual orientation, gender and disability.

OneNewsNow.com: A religious freedom ballot issue is slowly moving forward in Florida. Mat Staver of Liberty Counsel explains that the Florida constitutional amendment is opposed by the American Civil Liberties Union and teachers unions because it could lead to school vouchers allowing parents to send their children to religious and private schools.

AP: Indiana political leaders are looking to fast-track sex-trafficking legislation before football fans flood Indianapolis for the Super Bowl.

Chicago Tribune: A southwestern Indiana city is weighing whether to update its local anti-discrimination ordinance to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender.

WSBT.com: Four South Bend men and the ACLU sued saying it was a gift to the Diocese and against the separation of church and state. A judge ruled in their favor but after two other failed proposals from the city, a federal court approved a public auction of the land at the minimum bid of $545,000.

Evansville Courier & Press: Local gay advocates say the Evansville City Council’s amendment of the city’s municipal code this week to include provisions against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity will make the community more diverse and attractive to business.

WLWT Cincinnati (includes video): Last year, Franklin County came under fire for a Nativity scene on the grounds of the county courthouse.

Chesterton Tribune: Students from 182 of Indiana’s public school districts have moved to private schools under the state’s new education voucher program, although only seven districts lost more than 100 kids. In all, 3,919 students . . .

Federation for Children: The Indiana Department of Education (DOE) announced that the state’s new voucher program approved nearly 4,000 students for participation in 2011-12, making the Choice Scholarship Program the biggest first-year voucher program ever.

LifeNews.com: An abortion practitioner based in Indiana is under investigation by state officials for hiding the fact that he does abortions in the Hoosier State on medical forms filed with Ohio officials.

The Indianapolis Star | indystar.com: Lawyers for the state tried for a second time Thursday to convince a federal court that Indiana’s law defunding Planned Parenthood should go into effect immediately and not be delayed until after a judge rules on a lawsuit challenging the law.

LifeNews.com: Three pro-life legal groups have weighed in on the case — including the American Center for Law and Justice, Alliance Defense Fund and Thomas More Society — and they have said the law is constitutional.

Boston.com: An attorney for the state of Indiana told a federal appeals court that Planned Parenthood could end a dispute over a new state law cutting off some funding for Planned Parenthood by separating its abortion business from its health service operations.

LifeNews.com: Three pro-life legal groups have weighed in on the case — including the American Center for Law and Justice, Alliance Defense Fund and Thomas More Society — and they have said the law is constitutional.

LifeNews.com: The Indiana affiliate of the Planned Parenthood abortion business says it will not stop doing abortions in order to get state taxpayer funding that Indiana officials want to cut off to the abortion business.

Seattlepi.com: Indiana officials contend the state’s Planned Parenthood chapter could end a fierce legal dispute over abortion funding by simply separating its abortion business from other services.

WSBT-TV: This is the second time suits have been filed on behalf of same-sex couples. The first involves a Wanatah woman who died in the stage collapse.

LifeNews.com: Indiana officials filed a legal brief on Monday with a federal appeals court asking that it reverse a judge’s decision this summer overturning its new comprehensive pro-life law that limits abortions and de-funds Planned Parenthood.

WSJ.com: Columnist Bill McGurn on Indiana school vouchers and Catholic school enrollment. Also, Heritage Foundation fellow Rachel Sheffield on the expansion of school choice.

Education News: Weeks after Indiana began the nation’s broadest school voucher program, thousands of students have transferred from public to private schools, causing a spike in enrollment at some Catholic institutions that were recently on the brink of closing.

365gay.com: Lawyer Kenneth J. Allen told RadarOnline that he also plans to “challenge Indiana law’s lack of recognition of a same-sex partner as a beneficiary under its wrongful-death law, and seek damages from the state for the victim’s 17-year-old daughter.”

ADF Attorney Bryan Beauman at the Speak Up Movement University Blog: Starting this school year, Indiana offers Hoosier families a sweeping variety of school choice options. Despite recent efforts by the state’s largest teachers’ union, those options remain in place pursuant to a ruling Monday.

Americans United: Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the ACLU of Indiana and the national ACLU today asked a federal court to block an Indiana city’s plan to use public funds in support of a religious school.a

A judge Monday declined to halt Indiana’s broad new school voucher program, saying the law was “religion-neutral” and likely to be upheld.

AP: Students who have signed up for Indiana’s broad new school voucher program could be jerked out of private schools midsemester unless it’s allowed to continue operating pending the outcome of a lawsuit, state officials argued Thursday.

Pro Life Blogs: This week, the Thomas More Society filed a “friend of the court” brief in the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit on behalf of more than 60 members of the Indiana General Assembly, in opposition to Planned Parenthood’s assertion that defunding abortion providers imposes an “unconstitutional condition” on physicians’ alleged right to perform abortions.

LifeNews.com: A pro-life law firm has filed legal papers with an appeals court defending the law the state recently-approved that revokes taxpayer funding for the Planned Parenthood abortion business.

BusinessWeek: Aetna Inc. informed the Indiana Department of Insurance in an April 29 letter that it intends to cancel all individual policies on Dec. 1.

LifeNews.com: Three pro-life legal groups have weighed in on the case — including the American Center for Law and Justice, Alliance Defense Fund and Thomas More Society — and they have said the law is constitutional.Planned Parenthood of Indiana in 2008 suspended an employee after a video showed the staffer covering up a girl’s statutory rape. The video was a part of an earlier series of undercover investigations Live Action performed with a UCLA student, Lila Rose, posing as a 13-year old girl who had sexual relations with a 31-year-old man.

Steven Aden at Townhall : For starters, this means the law of the land in Indiana declares that “human physical life” begins at conception. An amazing feat considering the fact that Planned Parenthood’s “bioethics expert” in the case, Lee M. Silver, a Princeton University professor and American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellow, relied on the same Leftist-lexicon that has been so thoroughly dominant in academic and naturalistic circles for generations.

OneNewsNow.com: The Institute for Justice has announced it will defend the Indiana school choice program in court against groups that feel their monopoly over public education is threatened.

AP: Kansas is one of the five states – along with Alabama, Idaho, Indiana and Oklahoma – that enacted abortion bans this year modeled after the groundbreaking fetal-pain bill passed in Nebraska in 2010.

ADF attorney Steven Aden appeared on the Hugh Hewitt Show to discuss the new law. | MP3 audio 5:37 mins | Related ADF press release

WSJ.com: School may be out for the summer, but school choice is in, as states across the nation have moved to expand education opportunities for disadvantaged kids. This year is shaping up as the best for reformers in a very long time.

Reuters: The Indiana State Teachers Association on Friday filed suit against the state, asking a court to block implementation of the country’s largest private school voucher program.

The New American: Senior Counsel Steven H. Aden of The Alliance Defense Fund, another pro-life group supporting Indiana’s action, observed: “The precious tax dollars of the people of Indiana should not be funneled to abortionists, especially during tough economic times. The Indiana Legislature has worded a bill that allows them to be good stewards of the people’s money in this regard without fear of jeopardizing other funding that is clearly not at issue in this bill. In fact, if … the bill … is ever attacked in court, ADF would offer to assist in mounting a legal defense of the law free of charge.”

ADF attorney Steven Aden at Townhall (6/30): On Friday, June 24, a federal court temporarily suspended portions of Indiana’s House Bill 1210, which contained a provision aimed at defunding abortionist organizations, like Planned Parenthood, within the state. And although this suspension was disappointing, other aspects of the court’s decision were a boon for pro-life groups in Indiana and the whole nation.

Baptist Press: Of Pratt’s retention of the life-at-fertilization provision, Steven Aden of the Alliance Defense Fund said, “All the court did was recognize the indisputable fact that a biological human life begins at conception. It is false to say anything else.”

LifeNews.com (6/28): Three pro-life legal groups have weighed in on the case — including the American Center for Law and Justice, Alliance Defense Fund and Thomas More Society — and they have said the law is constitutional. Planned Parenthood of Indiana in 2008 suspended an employee after a video showed the staffer covering up a girl’s statutory rape.

Judge places Indiana’s abortionist defunding provision on hold but agrees women can be told ‘human physical life’ begins at conception

LifeNews.com: Three pro-life legal groups have weighed in on the case — including the American Center for Law and Justice, Alliance Defense Fund and Thomas More Society — and they have said the law is constitutional.

USA Today: Planned Parenthood of Indiana began cutting back services today and will shut eight clinics this week as a state law cutting off funding takes effect, The Indianapolis Star reports.

Life News: Three pro-life legal groups have weighed in on the case — including the American Center for Law and Justice, Alliance Defense Fund and Thomas More Society — and they have said the law is constitutional.

LifeNews.com: Three pro-life legal groups have weighed in on the case — including the American Center for Law and Justice, Alliance Defense Fund and Thomas More Society — and they have said the law is constitutional.

LifeNews.com: Three pro-life legal groups have weighed in on the case — including the American Center for Law and Justice, Alliance Defense Fund and Thomas More Society — and they have said the law is constitutional.

Freedom From Religion Foundation: proposal for the city of South Bend, Ind., to buy a commercial property and donate it to a Catholic school violates the U.S. and state constitutions, says a complaint to the city from the Freedom From Religion Foundation.

LifeNews.com: Relying on a new law that Planned Parenthood has taken to court to strip it of taxpayer funding under Medicaid, Indiana officials have said the abortion business is no longer qualified to participate in a tax rebate program.

LifeNews.com: Twenty-eight members of the U.S. Senate signed a letter they released today to President Barack Obama’s Medicaid Administrator, Donald Berwick, defending Indiana’s ban on taxpayer funds going to abortion providers such as Planned Parenthood.

Three pro-life legal groups have weighed in on the case — including the American Center for Law and Justice, Alliance Defense Fund and Thomas More Society — and they have said the law is constitutional.

State officials in Indiana say they will defy the decision by the Obama administration asking it to not proceed with implementing a new pro-life state law that would revoke taxpayer funding for the Planned Parenthood abortion business.

LifeNews.com: Leading national pro-life organizations are blasting the Obama administration for its decision on Wednesday to disallow the state of Indiana to move forward with its request to cut off between $2-3 million in taxpayer funding the Planned Parenthood abortion business gets via Medicaid.

. . . Obama administration has told the state it can’t implement the new law, with Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Donald Berwick denying a request to deny funds saying the federal Medicaid law stipulates that states can’t exclude providers based on the services they provide.

AP: The ACLU filed Wednesday in in U.S. District Court in Indianapolis seeking to block the state’s new E-Verify law.

Indianapolis Star: An Indiana Supreme Court ruling that a police officer was justified in searching a man’s home over his protests has prompted threatening emails and phone calls, and state officials are pleading with the court to reconsider. | Related post

Indianapolis Star: An Indiana Supreme Court ruling that a police officer was justified in searching a man’s home over his protests has prompted threatening emails and phone calls, and state officials are pleading with the court to reconsider. | Related post

NWI.com: Overturning a common law dating back to the English Magna Carta of 1215, the Indiana Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Hoosiers have no right to resist unlawful police entry into their homes. | Orin Kerr provides more information on the ruling at the Volokh Conspiracy.

AP: lanned Parenthood of Indiana says it will cover the health care costs of current Medicaid patients for at least another week after losing much of its public funding under a new state law.

New American: Before Daniels signed the measure, ADF Senior Counsel Steven Aden advised: “The Indiana Legislature has worded a bill that allows them to be good stewards of the people’s money in this regard without fear of jeopardizing other funding that is clearly not at issue in this bill. In fact, if the governor signs the bill and it is ever attacked in court, ADF would offer to assist in mounting a legal defense of the law free of charge.”

“The precious tax dollars of the people of Indiana should not be funneled to abortionists, especially during tough economic times,” said ADF Senior Counsel Steven H. Aden. “The Indiana Legislature has worded a bill that allows them to be good stewards of the people’s money in this regard without fear of jeopardizing other funding that is clearly not at issue in this bill. In fact, if the governor signs the bill and it is ever attacked in court, ADF would offer to assist in mounting a legal defense of the law free of charge.”

LifeNews: Governor Mitch Daniels of Indiana has signed a bill to revoke taxpayer funding for the Planned Parenthood abortion business. The bill makes the Hoosier state the first to go as far as it has in shutting down funding.

National Catholic Register: The pro-life Alliance Defense Fund provided Indiana with a legal opinion that the law would withstand any challenge, based on the success of similar measures in other states such as Texas and Missouri against Planned Parenthood appeals.

The American Independent: “Taxpayers should not be forced, through tax dollars, to support performing abortions or any organization that performs abortions,” said Schneider, who called the service “morally objectionable.” He said the CMS claim that Indiana will not be able to deny Planned Parenthood reimbursement of Medicaid claims is a ”false alarm” and is confident the bill will pass all legal tests, bolstered by legal opinions from the Christian legal network the Alliance Defense Fund and James Bopp, Jr., an attorney for the Terre Haute, Ind.-based law firm Bopp, Coleson and Bostrom . . . Steve Aden, senior counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, said the notion that Indiana would be the first state to deny federal funding to abortion providers is inaccurate. He said Texas and Missouri* have already passed similar legislation, and, to his knowledge, have not been threatened with discontinuation of federal matching funds for family planning under Title X.

Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels on Thursday signed into law a plan giving Indiana the nation’s most sweeping private school voucher program.