Trends and Transitions

When John Olsrud took a job with the North Dakota Legislative Council right after he graduated from law school in 1967, he assumed he’d be there just a few months because he’d lost his student draft deferment. The council director at the time was a National Guard officer and he got Olsrud into the Army Reserve to keep the young lawyer at the council. Olsrud stayed 40 years, and retired as director, a position he held for 25 years, in November. The council under Olsrud had 33 employees and a biennial budget of $8.8 million. Olsrud was honored for his outstanding service at a gathering at the Capitol.

Carole Hillard, former South Dakota legislator, lieutenant governor and self-described “humanitarian junkie” who traveled the world to promote democracy, died in October in Switzerland. She was 71. Hillard broke three vertebrae when she fell on a sailboat in the Adriatic. She had organized a conference on federalism in Turkmenistan, and was on a boating trip with friends at the time of the accident. She had surgery in Croatia and left for Switzerland a few days later. But a bacterial blood infection, pneumonia and a series of strokes led to her death. Hillard volunteered for the Peace Corps in 1997 to work on elections in the Balkans, and then served as an international consultant for the U.S. State Department and private organizations, visiting 60 countries. In January 2007 she helped oversee elections in the West Bank, and helped create an environment for small business development in Kabul, Afghanistan.

Even in September the Colorado Rockies were a long shot to make it to the World Series. But when they did, fans spent two frustrating days on computers tying to get tickets. When word got out that the executive director of the Colorado Department of Local Affairs had given permission to some 200 employees to use state high speed computers to buy Series tickets, House Minority Leader Mike May demanded that Governor Bill Ritter take action against her. As it turns out, the plan—initially conceived as good for morale—was quashed when the Department of Public Safety found out about it and sent 1,500 emails telling employees not to use the state computers.

Flags flew at half mast in honor of former Idaho Senator Charles E. “Chick” Bilyeu who died in October. He was 90. Bilyeu served in the Senate for 24 years until 1994, and was a professor emeritus in speech and drama at Idaho State University, where he taught from 1950 to 1982. In his last year in the Legislature, he was named “Statesman of the Year” by his alma mater, and in 2005 the university renamed an auditorium the “Diane and Chick Bilyeu Theatre” in honor of the couple. Diane Bilyeu, who served in the Senate for one term in the 1960s, was elected to her husband’s former seat in 2006.”

The Quran is not the first holy book Oklahoma lawmakers have received as a gift. The Baptist Convention of Oklahoma gave all 149 members a copy of the Bible earlier this year. “It’s one of the nicest things I’ve received in my three years in the Legislature,” says Representative Rex Duncan. But when the Governor’s Ethnic Advisory Council recently offered copies of the Quran to lawmakers, it sparked a controversy. “Most Oklahomans do not endorse the idea of killing innocent women and children in the name of ideology,” said Duncan, who along with at least eight other lawmakers returned the book on religious grounds. But many others did accept the gift. “It’s a matter of intellectual exercise,” said Representative Bill Nations, who says he has about 20 Bibles and the Book of Mormon. It is estimated that up to 50,000 Muslims live in Oklahoma.

Hold the Phone, I’m Not Voting
Two-thirds of registered voters received recorded campaign telephone messages in 2006, according to a survey by the Pew Internet and American Life Project. Known as “robo-calls,” this form of political advertisement is becoming increasingly popular as the cost for the technology decreases and the costs for mailing campaign material increases. Some consider robo-calls annoying and an invasion of privacy. But others say they are protected speech under the First Amendment.

States have developed various approaches to regulating a vast majority of telemarketing calls. Most states, for example, maintain a do-not-call list for consumers who don’t want to get them. But political calls are permissible in many states, including to those on the do-not-call list.

Over the last several years, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Carolina and Wyoming have passed legislation to restrict or regulate robo-calls. New Hampshire’s law requires that within the first 30 seconds of the start of the political message, the caller must provide either the name of the candidate or organization and the name of the person or organization paying for the message. The fine for violating the law is $5,000 per occurrence.

Twenty-one states considered regulating robo-calls last year. Iowa, Kansas and Washington introduced measures that will carry over this year. One of the Kansas bills would regulate calls made with an automatic dialing device that take place within 30 days of an election. The Washington bill requires prior consent of the party receiving the call or the use of a live operator before placing an automatic dialing device call.

There have been some challenges to state robo-call laws. In 2006, the Indiana attorney general sued a Virginia-based company making unauthorized robo-calls. The company claimed the state law was unconstitutional. The federal district court determined the law was constitutional and upheld it.

R U DWTing?
A new potentially dangerous driver distraction is creating quite the buzz these days. It’s the activity in our cars known as DWT, or for those illiterate in virtual lingo, “driving-while-texting.” 

Anyone with a teenager knows that text messaging is a wildly popular cell phone function. While it’s unknown exactly how many text messages are sent or received by people who are operating motor vehicles, it’s clear that driving-while-texting is a growing phenomenon, particularly among younger drivers. Experts believe 73 percent of wireless phone subscribers use their phones while driving. A recent Nationwide Insurance study estimated that 20 percent of all drivers send or receive text messages and a Zogby poll found that 66 percent of drivers between the ages of 18 and 24 confess that they drive-while-texting.

Experts estimate that 80 percent of motor vehicle crashes and 65 percent of near crashes involve some form of driver inattention. That means that each year, driver distraction is a factor in as many as 4.9 million accidents, causing 34,000 fatalities, 2.1 million injuries and as much as $184 billion in economic loss.

Despite the obvious distraction potential, texting-while-driving is a relatively new phenomenon and so far, only two states have laws that specifically prohibit it. In May 2007, Washington became the first state to expressly forbid drivers from sending or receiving text messages while operating a motor vehicle. New Jersey lawmakers passed a similar restriction in November 2007, and a half-dozen other states have considered or are still debating texting-while-driving legislation. Phoenix, Ariz., also prohibits the practice.

Broader restrictions on cell phone use in the car may also effectively prevent drivers from texting. California, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Washington and the District of Columbia prohibit all drivers from using a hand-held phone while operating a motor vehicle. California and Maine prohibit all drivers under age 18 from using any wireless communications device. Fifteen more states and the District of Columbia prohibit novice drivers with only a learner’s or instructional permit from using wireless phones.

Oral Health Help
Legislators in Massachusetts have developed the nation’s first Legislative Oral Health Caucus to increase the availability of preventive and restorative dental care statewide. Dental disease is the most common chronic disease of childhood, five times more common than asthma. For adults, dental disease has been associated with heart disease, stroke and diabetes. Dental disease, however, is almost entirely preventable.

Now in its second year, the 40-member caucus has been able to reinstate Medicaid dental benefits to pregnant women and new mothers with children under the age of 3 and has fully restored adult Medicaid dental benefits four years after they were eliminated during a state fiscal crisis. “Restoration of these benefits for hundreds of thousands of residents is an enormous victory for the state and for the caucus,” says Caucus Senate Chair Harriette Chandler.

Other victories include establishing a third-party administrator to manage the Medicaid dental program, and working to strengthen the state’s Office of Oral Health. Finally, recognizing that preventive care is the key to eliminating childhood dental decay, the caucus created BEST Oral Health. This innovative three-year pilot project brings dental education, screenings and treatment to preschools. “Ensuring that children have care early in their lives can prevent disease and save the great expense of treatment costs later in life,” says Caucus House Chair Representative John Scibak.

Currently the caucus is working to include dental benefits in all levels of the state’s new health insurance product, Commonwealth Care.

Lethal Injection On Trial
Recent stays of execution in Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Nevada, Texas and Virginia come on the heels of the Sept. 25, 2007, decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to hear Baze v. Rees sometime early this year. In this case, two current Kentucky death row inmates argue that the three-chemical cocktail used in lethal injections inflicts unnecessary pain and suffering and thereby constitutes cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the 8th Amendment to the Constitution.

Opponents argue that lethal injection does not contain enough anesthetic to relieve pain, prisoners are not properly anesthetized before receiving the injection and that this method of execution is routinely botched.

The case comes to the high court on appeal from the Kentucky Supreme Court, which ruled that lethal injection does not violate the constitution because the prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment “does not require a complete absence of pain.”

Currently there are approximately 3,350 inmates on death row. Thirty-six of the 37 death penalty states authorize lethal injections for executions. Almost all the states use the same three-drug combination: sodium pentothal, to render the inmate unconscious; pancuronium bromide, to paralyze all skeletal muscles; and potassium chloride, to stop the heart and cause death.

(Nebraska uses the electric chair, which is currently under consideration by the Nebraska Supreme Court. Its use narrowly dodged repeal in the Legislature last year by one vote. If declared unconstitutional, Nebraska would be left without a death penalty.)

Last November, the Florida Supreme Court ruled that lethal injections can proceed, after being on hold for nearly a year while under investigation. Since then, new procedures ensure that the first injection renders an inmate unconscious. But later that month, the U.S. Supreme Court blocked the execution of a convicted child-killer five hours before he was scheduled to die by lethal injection.