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Vanderburgh County Democratic Party Events
Aces to face Valpo in Arch Madness opener
UE opens tournament on Thursday evening
With the release of the latest NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET) ratings, the Missouri Valley Conference has announced the seedings for the 2020 State Farm MVC Tournament.
The University of Evansville enters as the #10 seed and will be pitted against #7 seed Valparaiso. Game time will be 8:35 p.m. inside the Enterprise Center in St. Louis. The MVC TV Network will carry the contest with fans in Evansville being able to watch on Fox Sports Midwest. ESPN3 will also have the live stream.
Evansville and Valparaiso played a pair of entertaining games in the regular season with the Crusaders clinching their two wins by a combined four points. In the first meeting at the Ford Center on January 4, Valpo rallied late to force overtime before edging the Purple Aces by a final of 81-79. In the January 26 meeting at the ARC, its was the Aces who staged the rally. Trailing by as many as 18 points, UE fought back before dropping a close 67-65 decision.
Tickets remain available for the entire tournament. Fans can purchase their tournament packages at the Carson Center Ticket Office on the UE campus or by calling 812-488-ACES. These can be purchased in the ticket office Monday morning through 5 p.m. on Wednesday. If you are heading to St. Louis and look to purchase tickets on Thursday any time prior to the 8:35 p.m. tip, you can do so by emailing UE Assistant AD for Ticketing and Game Operations Jake Hill at jh690@evansville.edu.
Men’s Tennis takes down Ashland, 5-2
University of Southern Indiana Men’s Tennis snagged another in-region victory Saturday night at the Evansville Tennis Center with a 5-2 tally over Ashland University.
Freshman Lucas Sakamaki was the day’s iron man, going to a third set in his singles victory after going into extras in his doubles match with partner freshman Preston Cameron.
The Screaming Eagles (4-1) got the evening rolling sealing the doubles point with a 6-0 landslide from junior Spencer Blandford and sophomore Marvin Kromer in the second slot before Sakamaki and Cameron posted their 7-5 result in No. 3 play.
USI and the Eagles of Ashland (4-5) traded blows in singles action as Kromer opened up with a 6-2, 6-4 tally before Blandford posted the Screaming Eagles’ third team point with his victory in No. 4 action.
Sophomore Parker Collignon wrapped up the team win in the sixth spot with a 6-1, 6-0 score, setting up Sakamaki to put the bow on top with his three-set knockout, 2-6, 6-2, 6-4. For good measure, junior Kooper Falkenstein added an 8-5 victory in exhibition singles action.
USI Men’s Tennis gets some well-deserved rest as it prepares for its road trip to Springfield, Missouri to do non-conference battle with Drury University on Friday followed by Northwest Missouri State University next Saturday, also on Drury’s campus.
HOT JOBS IN EVANSVILLE
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Commentary: The Indiana City-County Council Legislature
By Mary Beth Schneider
TheStatehouseFile.com
INDIANAPOLIS – The Indiana General Assembly loves local control.
Loves it! They tell you so all the time.
They feel so strongly about it that even though they’d love to give teachers better pay, what can they do? That’s a local decision. They are nothing if not people of principle.
Except when they aren’t. Usually that happens when any local tries to exercise control. Ban plastic bags? Puh-leeze. Tougher gun ordinances? No way. Determine the boundaries of Indianapolis? Don’t make me laugh.
Maybe that’s it. Maybe because the Indiana General Assembly, decades ago, decided to enact Uni-Gov without letting voters in Marion County have a say in the matter, they’ve felt pride of ownership ever since.
This week, the Republicans who control the legislature decided to show the Democrats who control the City-County Council and mayor’s office just who it is that controls this city.
Recently, Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett proposed various steps to help tenants against unscrupulous landlords, including requiring landlords to inform tenants of their legal rights.
On Monday, a House committee, on a party line vote, passed an amendment stopping any municipality from regulating landlords and tenants unless the state allows it. And it specifically says landlords cannot be required to inform tenants of their rights.
The Indiana Apartment Association unsuccessfully fought that at the city level. So they simply headed to the other end of Market Street, the Statehouse, where the real power lies.
The City-County Council passed the ordinance anyway, though it likely will be overridden by the legislature and Gov. Eric Holcomb in the next few weeks.
Thursday, the legislature was back at it.
Sen. Aaron Freeman, R-Indianapolis, offered an amendment to a Northwest Indiana transit bill, House Bill 1279, that enacts penalties against IndyGo if it doesn’t raise 10 percent of the operating costs of the express transit service – better known as the Red Line – from private funds. That 10 percent was part of the deal in 2014 to get reluctant rural lawmakers vote for something that their constituents wouldn’t ride and wouldn’t fund.
But there was no penalty for not meeting it. Under Freeman’s amendment – offered on the Senate floor in the session’s waning days, ensuring little to no public input – if they don’t raise 10 percent of the funds from something other than taxes or fares, the state will annually withhold 10 percent of the Local Option Income Taxes (LOIT) that Marion County residents are paying and would bar any expansion of the rapid transit service.
In November 2016, 59.4 percent of Marion County voters said yes to paying 0.25 percent more in income taxes for better public transportation. And the referendum passed in 79 percent of the precincts.
Freeman – who retired from his last political post as a City-County Council member to run for the Senate in 2016 – insists he’s just putting teeth into the 2014 bill since IndyGo hasn’t yet raised any private funds. But it’s harshly rewriting the terms laid out then and doing so on the fly in an unrelated bill.
Mark Fisher, an IndyGo board member who this week became treasurer of the just-created foundation to raise that 10 percent of private funds, said they only recently got IRS to OK establishing it.
“This goes beyond stuff like the apartments,†Fisher said of legislature’s action. “If this goes forward, this does undermine the will of the Marion County voters.â€
Thursday, Senate Democrats vainly argued against the amendment because of the lack of public input and the impact of withholding 10 percent of local taxes from IndyGo.
“It’s not fair,†said Senate Minority Leader Tim Lanane, D-Anderson. “It’s not fair to the people of Marion County. It’s not fair to the people that ride on those buses. It’s not fair to the people that are driving those buses. It’s not fair to the whole city of Indianapolis.â€
Sen. Greg Taylor, D-Indianapolis, asked the Senate: “Aren’t you tired of doing legislation just for Marion County? I am.â€
“I agree,†Freeman said later. “I’m ready to not bring Marion County bills.â€
But not yet.
And it turns out, the Senate wasn’t tired at all. Freeman’s amendment passed 37-12, with two Indianapolis Republicans – Sens. John Ruckelshaus and Jim Merritt, who recently ran for mayor – voting no.
Never mind that Indiana’s Constitution says “all laws shall be general, and of uniform operation throughout the state†– a provision so regularly flouted that it’s a joke.
They might as well make it official. They are the Indianapolis General Assembly.
FOOTNOTE: Mary Beth Schneider is an editor with TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalists.
Stocks Drop on Growing Coronavirus Concerns
Stocks Drop on Growing Coronavirus Concerns
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- The spreading virus raises the temperature on the market.
- The U.S. equity market has declined sharply this week as new reports show confirmed cases of the coronavirus have picked up outside China, including outbreaks in South Korea and Italy. Somewhat encouraging, the pace of newly reported cases within China has moderated slightly, but the economic impact in the world’s second-largest economy is increasingly significant given ongoing factory closures, supply chain disruptions and city lockdowns that are wiping out a large portion of consumer spending.
- The economic impact is meaningful but temporary.
- U.S. economic growth is likely to take a modest hit this quarter as efforts to contain the virus have curbed air travel, international business activity, and domestic companies’ foreign production and sales in China. As a result, U.S. GDP growth is likely to drop below 2% this quarter for the first time since late 2018.
- That said, we don’t think this will knock the economy off its expansionary path, as U.S. household spending (70% of the economy) is less affected at this point. GDP growth contracted by 1.1% in Q1 2014 due to severe weather (remember the “polar vortex�), dropped to 0.1% in Q4 2015 as oil prices and production plunged and fell to 1.1% in Q4 2018 amid Federal Reserve rate hikes and the manufacturing slump. None of these marked a recessionary turn with GDP rising in the following quarters, as shown in the table below.
- The spreading virus raises the temperature on the market.
Source: FactSet, Edward Jones calculations. The total return of the S&P 500 Index. The S&P 500 is an unmanaged index and not available for direct investment. The past performance of the market is not a guarantee of what will happen in the future. *S&P 500 futures premarket activity on Nov. 9, 2016.
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- Economic growth in China will see a much more negative impact, however. Virus containment efforts have curbed consumer activity and tourism, while many businesses and manufacturing plants have closed temporarily. Looking at the SARS epidemic in 2003 as the closest comparison, China’s GDP growth was cut in half for a quarter but then rebounded twofold in the following period as the virus was contained.
- It’s too soon to tell if the coronavirus will see a similar timeline, but we think the economic impact will be temporary. We’d note, however, that the global implications are much larger this time. China was 4% of world GDP in 2003 versus 16% today. China is the destination of less than 3% of global exports, but the world’s second-largest economy currently accounts for more than 13% of global oil demand, over 50% of commodity consumption (steel, copper, aluminum, iron ore) and greater than a third of total global smartphone and auto sales.
- A prescription for higher volatility.
- Stocks don’t take well to uncertainty, and given the ongoing uncertainty around the effectiveness and timeliness of containment efforts, it’s unlikely market anxiety will subside quickly. This is not insignificant for near-term market performance, as we believe global GDP and corporate earnings estimates will need to be revised lower for the first half of 2020.
- That said, we don’t view this as a turning point in the economic expansion, nor do we see this as a catalyst for a more restrictive monetary policy. Some economic output will be lost, but most will be delayed. As such, we’d expect a rebound in Chinese and global growth in future quarters. The foundation of this bull market has been (and will continue to be) an expanding economy, rising corporate profits, and accommodative Fed policy – all of which are poised to remain intact for the year ahead.
- Monday’s drop (2/24/2020) was the largest daily percentage drop in the stock market in two years. A drop of 1,000 points in the Dow is certainly an attention grabber, but a wider view provides a much more useful perspective. Even with the decline this week, the stock market has gained 12% over the past 12 months. Moreover, stock market volatility has been notably subdued for the past several months, so a return of volatility should be viewed as more the norm than the exception. Over the past three years, the S&P 500 has had 19 days in which it fell more than 2% – none of which kicked off a longer-term downturn.1
- We doubt the growing risks related to the coronavirus outbreak will blow over immediately, so further volatility should be anticipated. But we also doubt this will permanently impair the broader fundamental backdrop of economic expansion and low-interest rates, supporting the case for the bull market to persist as we advance through 2020.
Important Information:Â Â Source: Bloomberg. Past performance is not an indication of what will happen in the future.
THE RIGHT TO MATTER
THE RIGHT TO MATTER
Gavel Gamut By Jim Redwine
It was not the British Parliament’s tax on tea that caused the Boston Tea Party on December 16, 1773; it was the denial of the Colonists’ right to be represented in Parliament.
It is not the sexual part of unwanted sex that matters to the Me Too Movement, we Homo sapiens have spent the last 200 to 300 thousand years engaging in sex; it is the “unwanted†factor that is objectionable.
And when our Founders were barely able to cobble together our Republic it was not the fact that some of the Thirteen Colonies had much greater populations than others or much greater wealth than others that almost caused the United States to be simply thirteen entirely separate entities; it was the fear by both the more populous and less populous colonies that their voices would not sufficiently matter.
There were many reasons why and how our constitutional democracy survived colliding circumstances, desires, and egos but two of the most significant compromises were the Proportional Representative construct and the Electoral College.
Large states accepted the compromise that in the Senate each state would have two and only two Senators because their proportional influence was recognized by having the number of Congressional Representatives determined by population. Smaller states accepted this arrangement in like manner because they would have an equal voice in at least one of the two Congressional bodies, the Senate, even though they would have fewer Congresspersons than larger states.
Then there is the imaginative system of the Electoral College. The Electoral College determines who will be the Executive Branch leaders, the President, and Vice President, via a method similar to the proportional representation system. And because the President has the authority to nominate all federal judges, whoever has influence over the election of the President has an indirect voice in the makeup of the third branch of our federal government, the Judicial Branch. Therefore, the Electoral College, whose only job is to meet every four years and vote for the Chief Executive and the Vice President, has some influence over two of the three Branches of our government. Of course, the Executive Branch contains the armed forces, the F.B.I., the D.E.A., etc., etc., etc. And these countless agencies assert immense power over all of us. We certainly want our opinions to matter when it comes to all those aspects of our government.
The number of Electors of the Electoral College is determined by totaling the number of Congressional Representatives each state has and each state’s two senators. The number of Congressional Representatives is derived from each state’s population. So, very similar to the general system of representative/proportional government, where all states have two and only two senators but have differing numbers of Congresspersons based on population, the Electoral College is based on every state having some Electors but more populous states having more Electors than less populous states.
Currently, there are 538 members of the Electoral College based on 100 Senators and 438 Congressional Representatives. For example, Indiana has 2 Senators and 9 Congresspersons for a total of 11 Electors and Oklahoma has 2 Senators and 5 Congresspersons for a total of 7 Electors. On the other hand, California has 2 Senators and 53 Congresspersons for a total of 55 Electors. Indiana’s sister state of Illinois has 20 Electors, almost twice as many as Indiana, and Oklahoma’s sister state of Texas has 38, over five times as many as Oklahoma. The District of Columbia has no Senators but does have 3 Electors based on the 23rd Amendment to the Constitution. Three is the least number of Electors of any state. The U.S. Territories do not receive any Electors.
Whichever candidate receives 270 Electoral votes, the current majority of Electors is elected President. Sometimes the candidate who receives the most popular votes does not receive a majority of the Electoral votes. This always reignites a debate to eliminate the Electoral College and go to a pure one person/one-vote system. Such was the case in 2016 when the Democrat nominee Hillary Clinton received 3,000,000 more popular votes than the Republican nominee Donald Trump, but Trump received 304 Electoral votes, which was 77 more than Clinton received. Had this outcome been inverted I suggest the pro/anti-Electoral College debate would have also been inverted.Â
There certainly are legitimate arguments for modifying or even eliminating the Electoral College system even though the College has helped to assuage the constant yin and yang of large states versus small ones. As for me, having spent most of my life, so far, in either Oklahoma or Indiana, I do not wish to rely upon the tender mercies of the few lumbering giant states with huge populations of voters that might deign to turn a deaf ear to my concerns and those of the other residents of the numerous less populous states.
FOOTNOTE: For more Gavel Gamut articles go to www.jamesmredwine.com Or “Like†us on Facebook at JPegRanchBooks&Knitting