Convenience stores in Indiana have gone to court in an effort to win the right to sell cold beer.

Convenience store owners represented by the Indiana Petroleum Marketers and Convenience Store Association announced a federal lawsuit against the state Alcohol and Tobacco Commission Tuesday.  They accuse the commission of violating their constitutional rights  with a rule that permits the sale of warm beer but prohibits the sale of cold beer.

“My customers are unable to buy cold beer, said Greg Cobb of Freedom Oil.  “They can buy cold wine which is 13 percent alcohol.  They can’t buy cold beer  which is, little bit, about 4 percent alcohol.”

A bill to permit cold beer sales in convenience stores died in the General Assembly earlier this year.

Mayor Greg Ballard will have new power on July first thanks to a bill signed by the governor over the weekend.  That same bill will eliminate the four at-large seats on the City County Council now held by Democrats.

Democrats took to the airwaves on talk radio to make the case that Mayor Greg Ballard changed the rules in way that is unfair.  “This is a power grab,” said Council President Maggie Lewis on the WTLC program “Afternoons with Amos.”  “I believe that the Administration did not want to deal with the Democrats on the Council so they went to the Statehouse to ask them to fight their battle.”

The bill backed by Ballard not only eliminates four seats on the City County Council, it also gives the Mayor budget powers that will reduce the authority of Democratic officeholders including the Sheriff.  “He chose not to work with us in a bi-partisan way,” said At-Large Councillor John Barth, “but to take his argument in a partisan way to the Statehouse and that’s just now how people want things to get done.”

The mayor was unavailable but Republican party leaders reject the Democratic allegations.  “It is not a power grab,” said Marion County GOP Chairman Kyle Walker.  “It’s all about accountable government and the fact of the matter is the average voter does not know their at-large councillor.”

Some Democrats, however, believe that the bill passed by the GOP controlled General Assembly and signed by a Republican governor will become a political asset for them in the next election.  “The strategy for something like this is pretty simple,” said Marion County Democratic Chairman Joel Miller.  “You tell the truth.  You trust the public to be intelligent and informed and you make sure that everybody knows exactly what the Republicans are up to.”

One thing you can say:  Republicans created the at large seats and now they’ve taken them away.  The four Democrats who hold at-large seats will remain in office until the end of their terms on December 31, 2015.  After that the council will be comprised of 25 members rather than 29.

Robert Vane is in the Republican chair today.  The Indiana Week in Review panel will tackle these topics:

• Notable bill signings by the governor
• Vetoes
• Doc Bowen’s legacy
• School referendums
• The Pence policy on Sagamores of the Wabash
• Sen. Jim Merritt’s smart phone app

The governor still hasn’t decided if he will sign the bill that Marion County Democrats labeled as a Republican power grab.  The bill to give the Mayor more budget authority and to eliminate the 4 at-large seats on the City County Council, seats currently held by Democrats, is still being examined by the GOP governor and his aides.  It must be acted upon by Saturday.

Mike Pence held another public bill signing Thursday afternoon, this one dealing with a bill to expand the school voucher system, and afterward he talked about the Marion County government bill.  Pence says that he is taking to people on all sides the matter, though he wouldn’t identify who they are.

“So we’ve been taking our time to listen carefully,” he said, “to study the legislation, to consider the long history of Uni-Gov and ultimately we’ll base our decision on what we believe is the right thing to do, the right thing for Indianapolis and the right thing for Indiana.”

The governor did say that he is not talking to political party leaders.  Mike Pence is also, at least publicly, undecided on the bill to give state assistance to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.  He must act on it by Saturday as well.

Governor Mike Pence signed a bill into law Thursday that will expand Indiana’s school voucher system.

Siblings of students who now receive vouchers and students who live in a district with a failing public school will now be able to get a voucher without first going to a public school.  There is also a higher income threshold for voucher families that means some middle class students will qualify.

The governor signed the bill in a ceremony at Calvary Christian Academy on the south side.  Hundreds of children from 7 private schools were on hand.  Calvary Christian currently has 55 students who receive vouchers and Principal Charles Barcus says the new legislation means there will be more voucher students there next year.

“I can see probably 75 or so,” said Barcus.  “It could be more but again we’re trying to grow in a controlled manner.”

“It’s the right thing to insure that our children are not required to attend schools that don’t work for them,” said Pence, “because their parents don’t have the financial means to relocate or send them to a different school.”

Pence also signed a bill that permits teachers to purchase liability insurance through the state.  That eliminates the need to get it though the teachers union.

Mike Pence exercised his veto pen Wednesday.  The governor rejected two bills passed by the General Assembly.  They are both licensing bills and the governor believes that professional licensing, at least some of it, amounts to unnecessary government regulation.

“I am vetoing these licensing bills,” he said, “because I believe they create barriers to the marketplace for Hoosiers and restrict competition.”

The bills applied to diabetes educators, dieticians, music therapists, among others.  It’s the continuation of a philosophy that Pence spelled out on his first day in office in January.  That’s when he signed a number of executive orders including one meant to limit state regulations.

“I’m signing an executive order to establish a moratorium on new regulations,” he said at the time, “in an effort to cut red tape.”

“I want to make sure that we’re putting the best interests of the people of Indiana first,” Pence said Tuesday with regard to his philosophy on using the veto pen.

The governor is still mulling over the possibility of vetoing the bill that would eliminate 4 at-large seats on the City County Council.

Meantime, in Indiana a governor’s veto can be overridden by a simple majority vote in the General Assembly and one of those licensing bills passed the state Senate on a 46-to-3 vote.  The sponsor, GOP Senator Pat Miller, told 24 Hour News 8 she will consult fellow Republicans before she decides her next move.

If you want to know what your state Senator is doing there’s an app for that.  At least that’s the case if you live in Jim Merritt’s district.

The Indianapolis Republican launched a smart phone app four months ago and believes he’s the first state legislator in the country to do so.  You can use it to look up legislation, poll results, and even to purchase Merritt campaign gear.

It’s geared toward constituents.  “I was just struggling to communicate with 130,000 people in the simplest, cheapest way and came up with the app,” says Merritt.  “I anticipate many legislators around the country doing this.”

Senator Merritt pays for the app using campaign funds.

Governor Mike Pence was surrounded by school children as he signed the bill that will provide new money for the hiring of school resource officers who have law enforcement training, and for the development of school safety plans.

It’s a reaction to the tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut and the product of a task force that began meeting at the Statehouse even before Mike Pence took office.  “We’ve been discussing how to plan for and prevent these tragedies from ever coming to the state of Indiana,” said Pence.

It’s a bill that was almost derailed when a committee in the Indiana House inserted a mandate for guns in every school.  After Attorney General Greg Zoeller objected, the mandate was removed.

The bill signed by the governor calls for a study of school safety measures that will lead to new legislation in coming years but the governor indicated that the gun mandate is gone for good.  “I’m just someone who believes that that ultimately ought to be a decision of the local community and the local school,” he said.

But all of those local schools now have a new incentive to consider hiring a resource officer who may, or may not be armed. Under the new law matching grants of up to $50,000 dollars are available to any school.

The bill also calls for better communication among state agencies to identify threats.  For example, schools are to be notified if there is any arrest of a student who is suspected to have mental problems.

Former Governor Otis “Doc” Bowen died over the weekend at the age of 95.  He will be remembered as one of the leading Indiana and his legacy will live on at, among other places, Ball State University.

In 2007 Otis Bowen donated many of his papers and other belongings to what is now the Bowen Center at Ball State.
It is a record of a remarkable life.  At the Bowen Center you can learn how Doc Bowen rose from Marshall county coroner to Cabinet Secretary without changing his approach.  “He knew how to diagnose problems,” said co-director Ray Scheele, “and that turned into a very good political diagnostician.”

The campaign materials in the Bowen Center date back to the ’50′s, to the time before Bowen became Speaker of the Indiana House, and a 2-term governor.  You can find lots of photos, and important letters.   You can even find a note with a face drawn on it, something President Reagan doodled and then handed to Bowen during a meeting.  “Students, the public, anybody can access it,” says Assistant Dean John Straw.

One of the things you can find here is a letter from Otis Bowen to Ronald Reagan written in 1981.  In it, Bowen turns down a Cabinet appointment, something that was never reported at the time.  He wrote the letter just 9 days after his first wife, Beth, died of cancer.
He told President Reagan that he was crushed by her death and needed time to recover.  Bowen took the job when it was offered again four years later.

Through it all you learn the essence of the man.  “And here was this wonderful person who just went far beyond the name,” said co-director Sally Jo Vasicko.

And you also learn that he faced a lot of struggles.  “But he always had a fair way of trying to deal with them,” says Scheele, “and I think that that’s really a strong lesson in any walk of life but particularly if you’re going to be in public affairs.”

It’s a lesson that will be taught at Ball State for decades to come.

Former governor Otis Bowen is being remembered today as a successful politician who served the nation in Washington, DC but one who always returned to his hometown of Bremen in northern Indiana.

Reverend David Kahlenberg will preach at Bowen’s funeral on Friday in Bremen.  He shared some of this memories with News 8 this morning.  “He was in a way, one of a kind,” said Kahlenberg, “because he was a politician with a heart and with a soul and a desire to please as many people as he could, not everybody but as many people as he could.  He was a man who was just  full of integrity and full of honesty as a politician and I wish we had more of them.”

Bowen, who was 95, died over the weekend.  He served two terms as governor before being named as Secretary of Health and Human Services under Ronald Reagan..

Bowen may be best known for championing property tax reform as governor and AIDS funding as HHS Secretary.