Forfeiture Laws Taking Toll
Tina Bennis had a randy husband and a 1977 Pontiac.
She still has the husband. She lost the Pontiac after Detroit police caught the aforementioned spouse having sex in it with a hooker and seized the vehicle under Michigan’s public nuisance law.
That was in 1988. Monday the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the husband’s escapade was legal grounds for taking the car even though Tina Bennis was uninvolved and unaware.
This ruling rests on a 5-4 decision. Earlier, in the Michigan Supreme Court, the vote had been 4-3. Not much of a consensus. Yet some fear the decision will make states all the more aggressive about passing and enforcing forfeiture laws.
Does that scare you or encourage you?
Low-risk political insurance
It’s safe to say Insurance Commissioner Deborah Senn didn’t hurt herself politically by criticizing the huge salaries paid to health insurance executives. After all, the electorate includes a lot more ratepayers, struggling with rising costs, than CEOs of insurance companies. But did Senn oversimplify the issue?
The insurance companies say they pay top executives hundreds of thousands of dollars to be competitive with the rest of the corporate world. How else do you attract the administrative talent to make insurance companies efficient and effective?
High on harmony
When more than 2,300 elementary school musicians gathered at the Spokane Arena this week for their Spring Spectacular concert, a band teacher there sang the praises of music programs as a way to keep youngsters away from drugs and other trouble.
“Bagpipes” readers who have witnessed the positive effects that music or extracurricular school activities have had on kids are invited to tell us about them.
What is he Hyding?
Like a good conservative, U.S. Rep. Henry Hyde of Illinois tends to favor states’ rights - except, maybe, when the might of federal government can be used to advance a cause he favors. For instance, he is a renowned advocate of federal restrictions on abortion. Now he backs a federal study of the economic and social impacts of gambling, traditionally a state concern.
Speaking as a federal lawmaker, Hyde said “we” need more and better information about gambling and its impacts. Is that the same “we” Hyde usually denounces? Is that consistent?
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