In the ongoing flooding across the state, communities along the Wabash and Tippecanoe Rivers have suffered the hardest. However, the South Bend region - from Elkhart to Plymouth to downtown South Bend is partly underwater as well.
Here is a photo of Howard Park - the line down the middle of the river is actually the balustrade that runs along the river walk in normal conditions.
(image from the South Bend Area Blog)
I took this photo on Friday night to try to show the huge volume of water going over the dam downtown.
Our house is right on the river across from Leeper Park (which also flooded) - but luckily, on our side the bank is a good ten to fifteen feet up and remained high and dry.
The South Bend Tribune has several image galleries of local flooding online: Gallery1, Gallery2, Gallery3.
January 14th, 2008
The legal challenge to the much-debated Indiana “Voter ID” law has finally been heard by the U.S. Supreme Court.
An initial reaction from election law scholar Rick Hasen at Election Law Blog:
“If Justice Kennedy is indeed troubled by certain aspects of the Indiana law (such as the two-trip requirement for indigent voters), the best result from the point of view of discouraging election litigation is to strike down the law, pointing out the flaws with the law, and telling the Indiana legislature to pass a revised law without the objectionable portions. This is what happened, to some extent, with the Georgia voter id law. A court struck it down, pointing to its most vulnerable sections, and the Georgia legislature rewrote the law, making it somewhat less severe.
Some have called this case Bush v. Gore II because of the possible 5-4 split on the Court, with a 5 justice majority seen issuing an opinion that helps Republicans and harms Democrats. I see a different parallel: Just as Bush v. Gore has spawned a great deal of election law litigation (statistics in my earlier cited articles), Crawford too has that potential. It is not a result that would be good for the country.”
Much more commentary is appearing now that oral arguments have concluded. See SCOTUSBlog and Election Law @ Moritz.
January 9th, 2008