Rokita
September 8th, 2009 at 10:16 am by Jim Shella under Jim Shella's Political Blog
Todd Rokita will make headlines today with his plan to take politics out of redistricting. He will also be criticized.
Two things to consider:
1) Rokita wants to be elected to higher office (governor, or, according to last week’s rumor, U. S. Senator) and he needs headlines to get there. Give him credit for staying in his realm with this plan, if not within his authority. As the state’s chief election officer, it is his role to comment on matters that influence elections. Remember when Evan Bayh was Secretary of State and wanted to talk about education?
2) Rokita is seeking to advance a political career and that requires political skills. He is a Republican and GOP leaders in the General Assembly are speaking out against his plan even before he makes his first public presentation. Maybe he should have brought them into the tent sooner.
Tags: Evan Bayh, Todd Rokita
Todd spent $50,000 for outside help to draw his maps. He was ripped off this could be done in a day. Who got this contract and how can we get them to return most of the money.
Critics of Rethinking Redistricting have started to focus on the cost invested in this initiative.
In Tuesday’s Indianapolis Star article, the cost of the Rethinking Redistricting initiative was identified at a total of $110,000 – $50,000 for the development of the conceptual maps and $60,000 for the development of the website, creative, collateral materials, etc…
The key thing here is that the Secretary of State’s office spent no new money. As our office has usually been able to do, we were scheduled to give back over $300,000 from our budget to the state’s general fund. Instead, we reverted almost $210,000 and set the rest aside for this project, all blessed by the State Budget Agency.
But to fully complete the picture of the true cost of this initiative, there’s even more you should know. The $50,000 is a “contractual not to exceed” amount and the true cost of the maps will come in at a fraction, approximately two-thirds.
In regards to the $60,000 allocated to getting the message out to voters and taxpayers, less than half was used for the development of the Rethinking Redistricting website. The remaining amount was used to develop the necessary resources to help better alert and inform the public on this matter.
In his continued commitment to fiscal stewardship, Secretary Rokita turned in a biennial operating budget earlier this year for the Secretary of State’s office that is the same, unadjusted for inflation, as the budget approved for the Secretary of State in 1987. Under Secretary Rokita’s leadership, the Secretary of State’s office has been able to reduce costs by adopting innovative business practices and technologies to deliver services more efficiently. In fact, we were able to reduce the physical footprint of government by reducing the physical office size by over 30,000 feet this year alone.
The reality is that the redistricting process can and should be improved through a core set of criteria, increased transparency of the process, and the use of Hoosier common sense. It’s not rocket science, as the conceptual maps clearly show. That’s not to say the conceptual maps are the ideal but that they are at least a roadmap to something a whole lot better than what currently exists today.
Scott Bowers
Deputy Secretary of State & Chief of Staff
Indiana Secretary of State Todd Rokita