Sunny Day bids Statehouse good night

indystar.com
Opinion
Written by
Dan Carpenter
5:43 PM, Dec. 8, 2011

A fanatically partisan legislature dominated by the right wing of the rival party has to ignite thoughts of retirement in a good pragmatic liberal who bears nearly four decades of battle scars.

Yet State Rep. John Day's choice to make the 2012 session his last comes without bitterness and, as it happens, with a couple of delays.

"I'm 74, I'm lucky enough to be in good health, I'm not mad at anybody," the lifelong Eastsider said after his surprise announcement. "If you let yourself get mad and ruffled, they've won."

They, as in the Republicans, have been on a streak lately; and it's been a mean streak from the standpoint of those who do not deem same-sex couples, illegal immigrants, Planned Parenthood, labor unions or a scarcity of guns to be threats to the state on a par with poverty, lack of preventive health care and unfunded preschool. Such are Day's priorities, as quaint in this climate as his lack of interest in going to lunch with, or work for, the corporate lobbies.

He has seen it before. In fact, he considered retiring after the 2005-2006 session, an acrimonious affair lowlighted by passage of one of the nation's most restrictive voter ID laws, trigger of a Democratic walkout.

"But something possessed me to run, and '07-'08 turned out to be one of the best sessions ever," featuring passage of Day's bills raising the state minimum wage and adding funding to Individual Development Accounts for moderate-income investors.

Then he got active in the Obama campaign and felt quitting his own post would send the wrong signal. Then came 2010 and reapportionment, with its implications for the Near-Eastside seat.

Now, as he said in a letter last week, it is time to give back the "temporary gift" of public office, one he has held since 1974 except for a two-year hiatus in the 1990s.

The letter listed many laws Day has authored in keeping with his goals "to give every child a safe and encouraging start in life, to promote human dignity and to widen the circle of opportunity."

Landlord-tenant relations, school breakfast, newborn deafness screening, state aid to local health departments, expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit for low-income Hoosiers, and on and on.

Virtually all had Republican co-sponsors. "That would not happen nowadays."

The slight, plain-spoken, quip-slinging grandson of Irish immigrants has countless Republican friends, but feels like a relic of the days when lawmakers socialized across lines "and got to know each other as persons, their beliefs and aspirations, away from the partisan silliness."

The silliness is cyclical, he submits; and he's not waiting for the next spin. In the coming session, he intends to introduce bills giving tax credits for child care to working families making under $50,000 (as 34 states do in some form) and imposing a few cents' cigarette tax to fund early childhood education. He's looking for a Republican co-sponsor. He'll introduce the bills in any case.

"It's funny. I'm very relaxed, I feel very free now. I'll try these bills and if they don't pass, someone else can take them up."

What's next? He and his wife, Mary Jo, who have four grown children, will remain involved in their Holy Cross Catholic Church neighborhood and beyond. He'll continue part-time college teaching. And "as long as my legs hold up, I want to keep running every other day."

Running in place, in the best sense. Would that your average politician could get in step.

Carpenter is Star op-ed columnist. Contact him at (317) 444-6172 or via e-mail at dan.carpenter@indystar.com.

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