Recent Columns

The cult’s logical end is off the cliff

May 7, 2021

Have you ever heard of Margaret Chase Smith? She was a four-term, U.S. Representative (1940-1949) and then a four-term U.S. Senator (1949-1973) from Maine. She is famous for a fifteen-minute speech she gave on the Senate floor in 1950 that came to be known as the...

Kwity Paye can help us understand resettlement better

Apr 30, 2021

There are 80 million displaced people in the world. It is one percent of all humanity. It's almost exactly the equivalent of two Californias. It's almost exactly the equivalent of Iran or Germany. Analogous numbers aside, this is a crisis, quite possibly the crisis,...

The red flag law debate feels like a white flag to me

Apr 23, 2021

Author's note: In March of 2020, Brandon Hole's shotgun was not "seized" pursuant to the Laird Law, IC 35-47-14, it was voluntarily surrendered and never returned. A request for it to be returned was never made. Therefore, a warrant to seize the weapon was never...

Calling someone ‘woke’ is never an insult

Apr 16, 2021

Stan Laurel once said, "I had a dream that I was awake and woke up to find myself asleep." That is how I feel much of the time, now that I am almost a full presidential term into my fifties. It's hard to say when Laurel said it, but I'm pretty sure he meant "woke" as...

GOP: Corporations are not people anymore

Apr 9, 2021

At a news conference in Kentucky on Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell made the following remarkable statement: "My warning to corporate America is to stay out of politics." It was remarkable even to him, leading to this later statement in that same news...

How awesome is Joe Biden’s honeymoon?

Apr 2, 2021

There is something strange going on in Washington. The American President has an approval rating that is so lopsided to the positive, it almost feels heroic. So, how popular is Joe Biden? His numbers are so good, one might think the alleged election "irregularities"...

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Keeping the Big Ten Network on the Air

One of Mr. Leppert’s successful projects was his media campaign on behalf of the Big Ten Network in its dispute with cable formats for broad distribution of the network during its start-up years. He wrote and distributed press releases, organized supporters to attend press conferences and traveled the state for media events with both Mark Silverman, the original president of the network and Jim Delany, the long-time commissioner of the Big Ten Conference. Silverman has since moved into an executive position at Fox Sports, and Delany has announced his retirement in June of this year. The media output and related responses to it were vital in moving the stalled discussions to a mutually beneficial resolution between the network and cable formats. The Big Ten Network is distributed widely today and is a model for college sports networks.

The three of us were only flagged for speeding one time during the campaign, fittingly on State Road 37, while racing between press conferences at IU and downtown Indianapolis.

Moving Indiana Forward with Bias Crimes Legislation

Mr. Leppert was engaged by the United Way of Central Indiana to design and implement the campaign in 2018-19 for the passage of new hate/bias crime legislation in Indiana. The foundation of this coalition was built by joining two organizations, the Indiana Alliance Against Hate, and Indiana Competes. After several years of resistance in the Indiana General Assembly, specifically since the RFRA session of 2015, this campaign was the catalyst to passage of the new law and removing Indiana from the list of only five states without hate crimes legislation.

More than 800 members of the smaller merged entities were mobilized. Press events were held throughout the state. Editorial boards were visited. Letter writing and phone banking strategies were implemented. The management of this large group, and the short timeframe available to make our impact was an experience. While the law enacted by the legislature did not include all of the protected classes our coalition sought for inclusion, the establishment of hate or bias as statutory consideration in sentencing was established for many classes. Our campaign proved successful.