Friday, August 31, 2007

Indiana Senate President Pro Tem David Long Loses Wine Battle

Fort Wayne Observed brings news of our wine laws that took me down blogger memory lane. Readers might remember my outrage at Senate President Pro Tem David Long's attempt to strong arm the IU professor that successfully argued against Indiana's law regarding the shipment of wine.
So now David Long is mad. How dare the US Supreme Court find fault in any of our laws. And the audacity of anyone that challenged them - they must be dealt with. So begins the witch hunt of IU professor Alex Tanford. Tanford has been doing work on the behalf of several wineries and this work led to their victory in the Supreme Court. Now Long wants revenge. For what? I'm not sure as the law was unconstitutional and shouldn't a professor teaching modern litigation be commended for overturning laws that violate our constitutional rights?

Senator Long was involved in rewriting the legislation so that it would conform with the Supreme Court decision. So did he choose the route that would most benefit consumers? I suppose that was a silly question - of course not. He decided to change the law so that only those consumers that had bought wine at an out-of-state winery face-to-face could have wine shipped directly to them. Well looks like he's lost again as a federal judge ruled the new law unconstitutional as well.

Here's a nickel's worth of free advice to Senator Long. Instead of trying to circumvent the Constitution why not go ahead and adhere to it. I know, I know, it's difficult for a modern day Republican but I'm sure you can do it. After all, the 3rd time's a charm.

I'll leave readers with the comments I finished my original post with as they are still quite fitting:
The unconstitutional law at hand, and others, are simply on the books to provide a state-allowed monopoly - distributors - the right to gouge consumers. This is unnecessary, unlawful and certainly un-conservative. When a Republican-granted monopoly replaces the free market and it's called "privatization" - well that's just perverse now isn't it?

US Constitution 2 - Senator Long 0

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