From Steve Schoettmer
Elizabethtown
I just recently attended the redistricting meeting at Ivy Tech, and then watched online the BCSC school board meeting, where the school board unanimously voted to reinstate the mask mandate for schools.
Even though some parents came to the meeting, acting like Mel Gibson’s William Wallace, shouting “Freedom” and demanding that masks not be mandated. Many other common sense citizens pointed out the folly of that.
The school board wisely voted unanimously to require them. Common sense and science won.
Then, in the redistricting meeting, voters from around southern Indiana berated the Republican supermajority for gerrymandering the state and their all but certain attempt to do it again.
The Republican supermajority is so large, that even if all the Democrats left the chambers out of frustration, the Republicans would still have a quorum.
The Republicans can do whatever they want.
If you are a Republican, you may think well great, we want to be able to do what ever we want. We don’t care that we have silenced the other 40%-45% of the population. Elections have consequences. And even though we cheat to get all that power, we like it that way.
The problem with that point of view, though it may seem enticing, is that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
But not only that, in violates our state Constitution.
Article 2 Section 1 of the State Constitution says, “All elections shall be free and equal.”
It doesn’t say they ought to be, or should be, or it would be nice if they were. It says they shall be.
It is the same language that is in the North Carolina State Constitution. It is the same language that the North Carolina Supreme Court used to throw out that states gerrymandered Republican maps. The same language that ultimately was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.
I have merged these two topics for a reason. They are both about people wanting to do harmful damaging things. And people, common everyday people, coming together to try and stop it.
These anti-vaxxers have given me an idea. Maybe it’s our turn to put on kilts and face paint, grab our trusty claymores, and stand on the Statehouse lawn and shout “freedom” too.
At least we would have the law on our side. Plus I understand that wearing a kilt can be unbelievably refreshing.
