What motivates legislature?

You have to wonder sometimes what’s driving the Indiana General Assembly.
That’s particularly true when an issue gains momentum without demonstrable public support.
Take, for instance, the push to expand liquor sales to Sundays. As State Rep. Bill Davis (R-Portland) has noted, there’s no great public demand for expanding to seven-day sales.
The push isn’t coming from consumers. It’s coming from large retailers who are already open seven days a week and want to siphon off sales from package stores.
Package store owners, who are for the most part mom and pop small business types, know that expanding sales to seven days won’t increase the volume of their sales.
It will simply drive up their overhead.
So this is really a business vs. business debate, not one that stirs passions with the public.
Or take, as another example, House Bill 1482, which would greatly expand the ability of folks with past criminal records to revise their history of wrongdoing.
Current Indiana law allows for people who have been convicted of certain misdemeanors and Class D felonies to petition the court to seal their records and remove them from public view.
House Bill 1482 would go much, much further.
It would allow judges to expunge some Class B and Class C felonies.
The bill, which has bipartisan support, wouldn’t include sex crimes or violent crimes among those that could be expunged.
But it would greatly expand the court’s authority to revise criminal histories.
So what’s driving the bill?
Are there potential political candidates out there with a need to have their criminal histories expunged?
Do the lawmakers have friends or family who face an awkward career situation because of youthful misbehavior? It’s anyone’s guess.
And here’s another question to consider: If we’re going to make it easier to erase certain misbehavior from the record, shouldn’t we also take a look at how our laws define that misbehavior as crimes?
If, for example, what’s really driving House Bill 1482 is a bipartisan desire to forgive youthful indiscretions involving small amounts of marijuana, shouldn’t lawmakers revisit the laws that criminalize marijuana use?
You have to wonder. — J.R.[[In-content Ad]]