COMMENTARY: Idea on disrupting street protests an overreach against free speech

This year, one of those bills would have assaulted the First Amendment and ordered law enforcement officials to do the bidding of legislators instead of prioritizing the safety and security of their communities.

Filed by State Sen. Jim Tomes, R-Wadesville, the bill was summarized this way: “Requires a responsible public official to, not later than 15 minutes after the responsible public official learns of a mass traffic obstruction, dispatch all available law enforcement personnel with instructions to clear the roads of persons unlawfully obstructing vehicular traffic.” Tomes would have given authorities 15 minutes and the power to use any means necessary to clear the roads.

On one hand, protests that block streets are annoying to motorists who want to get to where they’re going.

But civil disobedience, which includes historic incidents of blocking a street or bridge, has led to dramatic and needed change in this nation. Indiana lawmakers are unwise to flex their muscles against such activities, which happen rarely anyway. These notions of a time limit and using “any means necessary” are arbitrary and dangerous.

And they are really off the mark in considering a law that would require a police chief, for instance, to send everyone available to address the issue:

“Hey officer, stop saving that child and go break up the protest! Forget that assault in progress; go clear the streets!”

It’s absurd on its face. Laws already on the books and the discretion of law enforcement officials can handle this, whatever “this” is.

Fortunately, the Senate Local Government Committee amended the bill and wants to send the idea to a summer study committee. The summer committee should study it for half-a-minute and dump the idea.

Kristol on Trump, Pence

Conservative commentator William Kristol has been no fan of President Donald Trump. He was a leader in the Never Trump movement, and on the eve of the election wrote: “In Donald J. Trump we faced a candidate who is a repulsive person, with dangerous prejudices, who’s unfit to be president. Whatever the results tomorrow, I’m proud to have been a part of the opposition to him. We chose to fight, and we were right to do so.”

He continues to challenge the president on television talk shows and as editor at large of The Weekly Standard. But he’s not anticipating the worst of outcomes because he has confidence in the nation’s system of government.

That was one point he made in a short Friday morning breakfast meeting with me and Mike Sample, an Indiana University vice president, before he took part in a series of scheduled events on campus.

He said the system of checks and balances remains strong even though Trump poses some unique challenges. He doesn’t expect the wholesale changes in how the government functions because a man with no governing experience was elected.

“Trump supporters and opponents have probably exaggerated how different things are going to be,” he said.

I wanted Kristol’s thoughts on two other topics, his views on Vice President Mike Pence’s role in the Trump administration and Trump’s attacks on the media.

Kristol was Vice President Dan Quayle’s chief of staff when the Hoosier Republican was elected as President George H.W. Bush’s running mate. I asked Kristol to compare the role Quayle served for Bush to the role he thinks Pence will serve for Trump.

Logically, he said it all depends on what the president wants. Quayle was the youngest person at senior leadership meetings and was much more in touch with the people outside of Washington than the others in Bush’s inner circle. “He was good at getting out of the Republican bubble,” Kristol said.

He said he had no insights into what Trump wants from Pence, but offered a pretty good idea. Pence knows Congress and Washington, and there’s no other true political or government experience among Trump’s senior staff. Pence is the one guy in the room who understands the complexity of working through Congress, and that “getting actual legislation through is really hard.”

He said Washington insiders don’t think of Pence as a governor, like many Hoosiers might, but as a senior legislator. That’s what Trump gets with Pence.

In regard to the media, Kristol said he’s been a critic for a while because of what he called “liberal complacence.” He thinks the well-documented attacks from Trump could be good for the media because they will focus journalists on doing their jobs better and with more focus.

The good news in Trump’s description of key media players as “enemies of the American people” was the reaction to it, he said. The conflict revitalized the debate on the role of the media.