Here’s some advice. If you don’t want to be in the voting booth for an hour next Tuesday, learn something first about the five – count ‘em – five proposals which will be on the statewide ballot.
Proposals like this are often big, very technically worded and often very controversial. Some of them may impact our lives far more than whether or not a particular candidate is elected.
And what many voters don’t know is that while all five may look the same, legally they are in fact very different.
Three of these are, in fact, amendments to the Michigan Constitution. Of the others, one is technically a referendum; the other, a statutory initiative. And while that may mean nothing, it in fact signifies important differences of which you should be aware.
First of all, amendments to the state Constitution are just that – new language inserted into the basic legal and political document of our state. Constitutional amendments appear on the ballot one of two ways. Either two-thirds of both houses of the legislature vote to put them there — or signatures equal to 10 per cent of the total vote for governor in the last general election are submitted.
Currently, that’s 317,757 valid signatures, but because so many signatures submitted are flawed or falsified, more are needed.
Most campaigns hire signature solicitors who get paid a buck or two per signature, and as a result the guys with the clipboards aren’t too fussy about who signs.
The Secretary of State checks a representative sample for validity. As a result, most experts figure it takes in practice around 400,000 signatures to get an amendment certified for the ballot.
The Constitutional amendments that made it to this year’s ballot include one calling for protection of Department of Natural Resources funds and a second, the so-called (confusingly, on purpose) Michigan Civil Rights Initiative. The third is about “eminent domain,” or the law defining when private property can be taken by a public body.
Next we come to the one referendum on the ballot, the one dealing with mourning doves. It is easier to get a referendum to approve or reject a law passed by the legislature on the ballot for voter approval or rejection. For this, you need valid signatures of only five per cent of the total vote for governor in the last general election.
The legislature in 2004 classified Mourning Doves as game birds (as distinguished from song birds), thereby allowing dove hunting in Michigan. Anti-dove hunters collected enough signatures to put Proposal 3 on the ballot to try and ban it.
The third class of ballot proposal is a statutory initiative. To force one of these, advocates must collect signatures are collected that are at least eight per cent of the total votes for governor in the last general election — currently about 254,080.
Once certified, the legislature must then vote to approve or reject the initiative. If it is approved, it cannot be vetoed by the governor, and becomes law. Otherwise, it must go on the ballot. If it is then approved by a vote of the people, it cannot be amended, repealed or changed except by a vote of three-quarters of both houses of the legislature.
The statutory initiative proposal on this year’s ballot, the so-called “K-16″ proposal would amend the State School Aid Act to guarantee that the minimum state funding for public schools, community colleges and universities would be increased by $565 million — and then be increased forever by at least the inflation rate. So what are we to make of all this?
Many scholars admire and advocate citizen ability to amend the Constitution, to conduct direct referendums on acts of the legislature and to force initiation of various sorts.
They argue that such powers embedded in Constitutions represent a check on what can sometimes be unbridled (read: arrogant and unrepresentative) legislatures and governors.
They’re right, up to a point.
But often items are put on the ballot because of legislative cowardice; it’s a lot easier for a legislator caught between a rock and a hard place to argue that “it’s the voters’ right to decide.”
Sure. Why, then should we elect any legislators if they’re going to shrug off their responsibility to vote on the tough ones?
For example, don’t be surprised if next year’s legislature, confronted by tough choices on how to replace the now-repealed Single Business Tax, will avoid taking responsibility and put two (or more?) possible tax ideas on the ballot “for the voters to decide.”
And direct democracy can sometimes be little more than invitation by wealthy out-of-state groups to foist off on an unknowing public a complex, usually far-out, proposal.
We almost had that this year with the so-called Stop Overspending or “SOS” proposed constitutional amendment, which would have placed drastic limits on state spending.
In September, the Michigan Board of Canvassers, voted 4-0 to keep the measure off the ballot because not enough of the more than half a million signatures submitted were valid. The ballot language was in fact incomprehensible.
But it’s anyone’s guess whether or not it will be back.
So where do I stand? For curious readers, here’s my own preference on this year’s ballot proposals:
Number 1: I’d vote yes to protect DNR funding.
Number 2: This is the consciously mislabeled “civil rights” amendment to the Constitution. Voting “Yes” would set back enormously our attempts to build a diverse society. The outrageous way the proposal is mislabeled has people voting “No” if they want to advocate civil rights.
Number 3: I see no particular reason to shoot doves.
Number 4: Governments need the ability to take private property under eminent domain for good public purposes, like a necessary freeway. This proposal, however, would prevent them from taking your house and giving the land to Wal-Mart. I am voting yes.
Number 5: I cannot express just how fiscally irresponsible the ballot-box budgeting set out by the K-16 proposal would be. This would represent an enormous problem for a state already facing a chronic structural budget deficit. The highly respected and non-partisan Citizens Research Council estimates the measure, if passed, would require the state to spend between $565 and $707 million per year more on education. Yanking this amount out of an already paper-thin budget would almost surely produce a legislative and financial train wreck.
But there is a cautionary tale here for the legislature. This proposal is on the ballot because they have been underfunding education, especially higher education. Even if Proposal 5 loses, they should take note.
Phil Power is a longtime observer of politics, economics and education issues in Michigan. He would be pleased to hear from readers at ppower@hcnnet.com. These opinions and others expressed in Phil Power’s columns are individual opinions and do not in any way represent official policy positions of the Center For Michigan.
