MARCUS: Let’s help keep legislators in check

 The good news is that I will not become Spider-Man and then need to conquer my fear of heights. The bad news is that
I will not become Spider-Man and be able to compel the foolish, thoughtless and greedy to behave differently.

But
I get ahead of the story.

All last week, I felt good that Todd Rokita, Indiana’s secretary of state, is pushing
for less partisan redistricting of political offices after the 2010 census. The fact that some in his own Republican party
told him to keep his nose out of their affairs only reinforced my good feelings. This is a clear split between an appropriately
ambitious politician (Rokita) and the indolent, selfish, anti-republican forces in the GOP. That’s the makings of a
great political pudding.

Of the Democrats, incumbents with districts to defend are silent. David Orentlicher, former
holder of a House of Representatives seat, now a candidate for Marion County prosecutor, has endorsed liberating redistricting
from the grasp of the parties’ machinery. But what does that endorsement mean in the other 91 counties where David O
is unknown? Does his voice carry weight even in Marion County, where political savagery normally dominates redistricting?

Who else will step forward to endorse the righteous cause of redistricting seats in Congress, in the General Assembly,
and in local elections according to population only? State Sen. Mike Delph, R-Carmel, has been effective in getting the Census
Data Adversary Committee to consider the issue. In the past, Sen. Vi Simpson, D-Ellettsville, introduced constitutional amendments
to create a redistricting commission that would reduce the highly partisan nature of the present system, where each house
draws its own lines by its own rules.

When the CDAC meets Sept. 29 (its agenda has not been announced as of this
writing), it may choose to examine Indiana’s voting history and how other states draw their district lines. My own research
shows that, in 2008, the last time we elected representatives to the House, only 11 of 100 seats were competitively contested
(the winner getting less than 55 percent of the vote). Conversely, 26 of the 100 seats were uncontested: The winners got 100
percent of the vote. Does that mean voters in more than one-quarter of Hoosier districts were so satisfied with their representatives
that no challenger could be found? Or does it mean the game is so rigged to favor one party or the other that it doesn’t
encourage competition?

Without genuine support from BB&D (Speaker of the House Pat Bauer, Senate Majority Leader
Brian Bosma and Gov. Mitch Daniels), little will happen. Little, that is, unless citizens fed up with legislative inertia
and ineptitude rise up to demand that candidates in the May 2010 primaries and November 2010 general elections endorse changes
in how we draw the lines in 2011.

However, all this was forgotten when I was bitten six times by one or more spiders.
The results were startling. I began to feel more weird than usual. I became especially irritated by inconsistencies initiated
by the Indiana Department of Transportation (For example: Why does southbound traffic on Meridian Street have unencumbered
access to eastbound Interstate 465 while northbound traffic is halted by a stoplight before entering westbound I-465?). Also,
I wanted to leap across the state using the network of mobile phone towers and weave complex patterns among the newly installed
windmills in White County.

Fortunately, I have comprehensive health insurance and could use the urgent-care facilities
of the Hammond Clinic where an ointment was prescribed and my sanity saved. Otherwise, I would be confined now to downtown
Indianapolis, because there are not enough tall structures elsewhere in the state to satisfy a novice Spider-Man.•

__________

Marcus taught economics for more than 30 years at Indiana University and is the former director
of IU’s Business Research Center. His column appears weekly. He can be reached at mmarcus@ibj.com.