Mr. Rasmusen Goes to Indianapolis

S.B. 202, Part III

Figure 1: Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

In Mr. Smith Goes to Washingon, the naive Senator Jefferson Smith (Jimmy Stewart) goes to Washington and stands up speaking for 25 hours straight in a filibuster, ending up a physical wreck and fainting on the Senate floor. In the House Education Committee Hearing, the naive Professor Eric Rasmusen goes to Indianapolis and sits for 6 hours in the House Chamber after which, broken down from headache, hunger, and boredom, he gives a 3-minute speech and collapses.

Well, not quite, but it was a learning experience.

The bill I was testifying about, S.B. 202, addressed radical marxism in the public universities— DEI (Diversity-equity-and-inclusion); political correctness; suppression of the speech of moderate and conservative student; faculty, political discrimination in hiring; and so forth. The bill recently passed the Indiana Senate (hence, Senate Bill 202) and was under under consideration by the House Education Committee. I substacked about it recently in Parts I and II. The bill has some good and some bad features, and could have been much improved by some simple amendments. In this Substack I won’t go over those again. Instead, I’ll talk about the experience of testifying.

Figure 2: Mr. Rasmusen Goes to Indianapolis

I’d heard about the bill while it was in the Senate, but I procrastinated reading it, since it’s long, with many sections. When I did start reading I realized that I should try to do something, because it contained some things I might be able to get changed for the better, e.g., by an amendment to remove a loophole the bill’s authors hadn’t noticed. If I could bring this to their attention, I thought, they’d see the problem and make the fix.

This is the best sort of lobbying— pointing out something to the government official that is an obvious improvement from his point of view, if only he knew about it. That kind of lobbying just requires access to the official, not convincing him that it’s desirable or having to worry about the political impact, so even a nobody with no political power can be effective at it. Such improvements are a major reason for the notice-and-comment period required for federal regulations. I’d been able to get some minor changes made in the proposed tax whistleblower regulations, and maybe a major change, though other commenters pointed out that defect too. I used to teach regulation in the business school, and I emphasized to the students that lobbying is usually a win-win activity: the lobbyist doesn’t bribe the official, he just provides facts and ideas the official is too busy to come up with himself.

The American Association of University Professors (the AAUP) had told us members that the House would hold a public comment hearing during which anyone who signed up in time could make a 3-minute speech. Having waited too long, that was only two days away. I was teaching that morning, but I thought I’d see if I could get someone to deliver my point, perhaps someone who lived in Indianapolis and wouldn’t have to drive the 50 minutes from Bloomington. I failed, so the night before, I decided to miss my 9-10 a.m. class and drive up for the 10:30 a.m. hearing. I emailed Mr. Pinkney, our principal, and told him I’d send notes for a substitute later that night, and that the substitute didn’t have to know any math. My notes said to have the students go over the toughest Circles homework problems, talk about a copper mining handout, do drills on the formulas for volume of solids (without explaining the formulas), and watch part of Donald Duck in Mathemagicland.

Indiana makes it very easy to sign up to testify online, but the signup list doesn’t open until the day of the hearing. I stayed up till midnight, which is when we AAUP people thought it would open. Maybe is when it *should* open, since it should be automatic. But we were wrong. I stayed up another half hour and then went to bed. I rose at 7:45 a.m. and signed up online at 8 a.m.. I should have signed up at 7 a.m., I found out later that I’d be one of the last people to testify, since they don’t try to alternative witnesses in favor of the people and against it.

I drove to my school first to check that everything was OK. Zakia Magness would sub for me, which was fine, though she was nervous, being a mom rather than a college grad. I made 20 copies on the school xerox machine of part II of my Substack, put my money in the reimbursement cup, and headed up the highway to Indy. If I’d decided sooner, I might have driven up with a carload of other AAUP professors, which might have been fun even though I disagreed with them quite a bit about the bill. (On the email discussion list, three of us were sympathetic to the bill, while seeing big flaws, and everybody else was strongly against it.) But I drove alone. I rehearsed my three-minute statement to myself in the car and thought about what I’d include in a handout I might be able to write on my computer once I arrived.

Getting there was easy, as was finding the State Capitol. A parking garage was just across the street, so I parked there. That was a mistake— it was under afancy hotel and ended up costing me $53.00. I walked up to the big doors of the Capitol Building, only to find that they were closed and I had to go to another side, something to remember for the future. I walked around and entered, going through moderate and reasonable security screening that did NOT require taking off shoes and belt.

Figure 3: Lobby and Lobbyists

Once inside, I asked the secretaries in the Dept. of Education where the House Chamber, coffee, and xeroxing were. They were very friendly and offered to xerox a little for me, but my handout wasn’t written yet so I declined. The House and Senate chambers are upstairs, and they have coke machines right outside, and coffee in the basement. There were lots and lots of people in the lobby, giving me a concrete feeling for what a “lobbyist” is. Lot of schoolchildren too.

Figure 4: The Democratic (left) and Republican (right) Representatives, in the First Two Rows, and Moira and Me in the Fourth

When I arrived, I found that not only was the committee hearing in the Chamber of the House of Representatives but the public would be sitting in the same chairs as the members sat in when all the Representatives were present. I was late enough that I had to sit close to the front, in the fourth row at a seat with a stuffed animal on the desktop (see Figure 4). I was two seats away from Moira Marsh, President of the Indiana State AAUP Conference (of which I am chair of the academic freedom committee), and I saw other people I knew from Bloomington. The seats were well-equipped, with outlets for laptops and individual wastebaskets

This was a big day for the Education Committee, with a major bill on grade school education as well as S.B. 202. I didn’t know it, but S.B. 202 was last on the agenda and may have set the record for length of a hearing— seven hours and thirty-five minutes (watch the video, Feb. 14 hearing), and see how you feel by the end). I didn’t want to behave rudely, and I hadn’t shown up enough in advance, so for a long time I was reluctant to get up and get the caffeine and water I desperately wanted. The hearing didn’t stop for lunch, either, though some of the representatives came and went. Most of them were there the whole time, it seemed like. I was very impressed by how hard they work. I had the longest headache of my life, and I hadn’t brought any ibuprofen in my briefcase.¹¹

It was interesting learning about the Representatives and Senators from what they said. Some of the testimony was interesting, too. One of the best witnesses was a little girl. She talked about how her teacher had told her she was probably going to flunk the 3rd grade, but she got tutoring and now the teacher thinks she’ll pass.

Figure 5: A Morning Witness

I also got to see the Secretary of Education, who has a Southern accent:

Figure 6: Secretary of Education Katie Jenner

I wish I’d signed up to testify on the other bills under consideration. I’m sure I would have had something useful to say, and it would have added some interest, like placing a bet with a horse race.

The little girl was very nicely dressed. As you can see from Figure 2, I opted to look professorial, with tweed jacket and tie. Comments welcomed as to whether that was the best thing to do. Marketing Professor Dan Smith, formerly my Dean at the business school, was the most polished witness of the day, both in appearance and speech. He wore a suit, button-down white shirt, and a solid-color tie. He even had a handkerchief in his jacket breast pocket. He is so skinny, though, that the well-fitting suit made him look like the weasel he is.

Figure 7: Dan Smith

The wait helped in another way too. Every speech, however short or long, ought to have a one-page handout with the speaker’s name, topic, date, and contact information, plus his main point and perhaps some quotations, references, pictures, and equations. Here, pictures and equations weren’t relevant, except for a picture of me to help remind them who it was from.

I could escape from my seat to the hallway less obtrusively, I discovered, if I went through a side door to a long corridor. In the corridor was coffee (for the legislators and staff, I presume) and a young staffer with a printer. I asked him if I could print my handout if I emailed it to him, and he happily did so. Everyone I encountered was helpful.

Eventually S.B. 202’s discussion started. Now I had to stay in the room and be alert for my turn. There were two podiums, on the right and the left, and the chairman kept things moving by saying who would be next after the current witness, but I didn’t see a list of all the witnesses. Perhaps if I had arrived early, I would have, an important thing to learn for next time. I waited and waited. One effect of that, fortunate or unfortunate, was that my stage fright wore off; another effect, unfortunate, was that I was getting burned out mentally with the long wait, the suspense, and my headache. I suppose there were twenty or thirty witnesses. Were they all negative, all opposed to the bill? I think so, but maybe I’m wrong. At least, all of the faculty and student witnesses were opposed to it. Everyone was saying there was no problem of politicized faculty or administrators, that students were perfectly at ease in taking the conservative position in class, that they had never heard of someone being persecuted for being moderate or conservative and couldn’t imagine it happening. I think most of them were even sincere, since they live in a bubble, reading regime media publications like the New York Times, whose thick Sunday edition gives them the comfortable feeling of being well-informed while refraining from coverage any stories that might make them uncomfortable. And of course a professor like that hasn’t come across any fearful students or junior faculty, since they’d be scared stiff of voicing a politically incorrect opinion in front of them. Nobody got punished for criticizing Stalin either, after he vanquished his rvals around 1930— they were far too afraid of himf for anyone todo that.²²

So I decided to change my testimony. What I had in mind was to talk about three specific sentences in the bill and suggest small but important changes in wording. But it was more important to give some specifics as to why the bill was needed. Almost none of the Representatives seemed to know how universities work as organizations and what the conditions are like there. So I changed from the original notes on the left-hand side of Figure 8 to the notes in the margin, which I rewrote on the right-hand side of Figure 8.

Figure 8: My Original Notes, and My New Version

I won’t talk about the substance of what I said. Part II talked about that. Instead, I’ll continue to talk about the practicalities. I gave my handout and my Part II Substack copies to a staffer to send around as written testimony. I went up to the podium and said that since we were seven hours into the hearing (!) I knew everybody was tired, so I’d tell some stories instead of going into details of wording. I swayed, spoke too fast, got my timing wrong, and perhaps put in too many parentheticals (which are good for a Substack but bad for a short speech). Chairman Behning had to cut me off, which he did very nicely.

Figure 9: Chairman Behning

So it was just as well that I hadn’t had time beforehand to practice my 3-minute speech at home. First, the Chairman knew it would be a long day, so he had without notice reduced all the citizen testimony to 2 minutes each. Second, I changed my testimony radically anyway.

After I sat down, Senator Deery, one of the Senate authors of the bill (who was there to talk at the start and to watch the witnesses), walked over and told me
”Thank you”. He is the Senator from West Lafayette, where Purdue is, so he knows how faculty are.

I was very impressed with the legislators. They were there for many hours of citizen testimony, most of which added almost nothing to their knowledge. And this was a bill that almost certain of passage, since Republicans control both chambers and the governorship and the bill was supported by the Republican leadership.

I took advantage of this experience to write it up for Substack, the words you are reading now. I should also have written some op-eds (there was much more material than one op-ed could exhaust). I didn’t. Something I did to, though, was to tell my principal that I could talk about it at “Lauds”, the school’s 8:30-9 a.m. starting assembly where they sing some songs, recite some Bible verses that they’re learning, and listen to someone talk. He liked the idea, so I did.

Figure 10 shows my slides, and Figure 11, my handout (remember, I said there should always be a one-page handout). I talked about lobbying generally. I had a good idea: call for answers to questions from specific classes. I asked the 1st and 2nd graders to tell me what “government” meant, 3rd and 4th graders to tell me how the leaders are chosen, and 5th and 6th graders to tell me how the government knows what to do. The last is where lobbying comes in. I told them about the pothole-reporting website that Bloomington has, and some of them told us about the potholes near their houses. Then I told them about going up to Indianapolis, and played the video of the little girl testifying. They seemed to like it.

Figure 10: My Slides for Lauds

Figure 11: My Handout for Lauds

1. I realize I forgot to put any ibuprofen in afterwards, either. I’ll pause my writing and do that right now. See how useful it is to record one’s experiences?

2. Stalin did punish people, of course, but after he vanquished is rivals around 1930 it was because he thought someone *might* criticize him, or just randomly so as to keep everyone on their toes. And he did execute or send to Siberia some people for criticizing him, but that wasn’t because they really did criticize him. His subjects were much too fearful to do that. Rather, criticizing Stalin was a convenient label for punishing people he wanted to punish, much like the labels of conspiring with the Russians he used for generals and sabotaging factories for engineers.