A state appellate court voted unanimously to remove a sweeping and controversial government reform initiative from the ballot, the Detroit News reports.
The ballot proposal, backed by Michigan Democrats and called Reform Michigan Government Now!, includes so many provisions that it is a "general revision" of the state constitution, which only a constitutional convention can accomplish, the court ruled in an opinion issued shortly before 6 p.m.The initiative, pushed by a group called "Reform Michigan Government Now," was pitched as series of good-government reforms to shrink and streamline the state government. In reality, the ballot initiative was cleverly designed to shift partisan control of all three branches of Michigan's government, as I discussed here and here."Therefore, the constitutional power of a (citizen-led) initiative does not extend to this proposal," said the order signed by Judges Bill Schuette, William Whitbeck and Patrick Meter. "Consequently the initiative petition does not meet the constitutional prerequisites for acceptance."
The court ordered Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land and the Board of State Canvassers not to place the measure on the ballot.
An appeal of this decision to the state Supreme Court is near certain, as will be motions seeking recusal of the two Supreme Court justices who would lose their seats. I don't know enough about Michigan law to predict an outcome, but it seems clear to me the ballot initiative is an exceedingly cyncial effort to steal a state government, and a bad idea.
UPDATE: The court opinion is available here.
Related Posts (on one page):
- Michigan Supreme Court Keeps "Reform" Initiative Off Ballot:
- Michigan Appeals Court Voids "Reform" Initiative:
- Rewriting a State Constitution for Partisan Advantage:
Naw . . . I lean GOP. But if this were the GOP trying this--it isn't--I'd still think it was lousy.
Think about it on the national scale: Should we be able to get rid of those less-popular rights in the Bill of Rights simply by an up-or-down vote? If so, we don't actually have a constitution, do we?
To borrow a phrase from an earlier post, it's an attempt to exploit the rational ignorance of the voters.
Conservatives and libertarians need to remember that sometimes it's a judge's job to thwart the democratically expressed will of the people.
That's an impressive use of language.
Until about 1990 the unions had absolute hold on government here, then we got state term limits (with term limits good successful people in other fields can run for an open seat, win, serve 6 years, and go back to their fields) and a GOP governor (Michigan technically has open elections for judges but most end up being appointed by the governor for their first term through a set of back room deals and then run for re-election with 'judge' in front of their names)
At the same time the insurance companies started pumping huge amount of cash into the state supreme court race and captured most of that.
The union's hold on that state is slipping fast. The union's stealthly set this up to fix that. The idea is crimping down on state house/senate seats and powerful judgeships and cutting their pay way down. The idea is that with only a few seats and wider area electing those seats the unions can insure that the tail of each district reaches into one of their core dem areas (there are six mostly black cities in the state which always vote 90+ percent dem and have large populations).
Because of favorable rules from when they last ruled the state the unions can bankroll its people while they are in office, even though the offices are full time plus work. That is the reason for trying to cut judge and legislative pay--only union people can be in office and still live upper middle class.
If this passes the unions will have absolute hold on government again and once again raise public employee and teacher wages to the highest rate in the nation, and over spend on public works wages--only now the big three have fled the state and there are no more huge plant complexes to bankroll most of the spending.
This is a huge issue for the state.
I agree that this ballot initiative is cynical and bad policy, even though I detest Republicans. I'm surprised, actually, to learn that Republicans have controlled so much of Michigan government for so long -- that might explain why the state's economy is imploding? My suggestion to Michigan Democrats who are frustrated with Republican control: move out of state. Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota will be happy to have you. Let Michigan rot.
Of the dems who are in office, about 1/5 are black and their first loyalty is either to the Detroit machine, or to the pastor machines in their home cities.
This means a lot of the spending is for welfare and social programs that the machines can control, and less public works and union spending than pre-90s.
The unions themselves are running the Reform Now! and paying for it all themselves. They want to run things again, not share power.
In many states, the problem is limited because of the "single-subject" rule. An amendment is limited to one subject, a unitary purpose, with sections logically related to the specific purpose. The idea is to avoid "log-rolling," forcing voters to accept provisions they don't care about in order to enact something they do. It is not, as argued in Michigan, that voters can't handle complex issues; they do that all the time. It is that you shouldn't force them to make a binding choice that isn't necessary to resolve an issue; let them pick and choose issues and vote on them individually.
Revisions, on the other hand, are intentionally cumbersome, and require the interaction of lots of people, in order to force the drafters to work out the details in advance. They are generally voted on more than once, in committees, by legislatures and then by the public.
Florida (not California) is a great example of an initiative format laboratory (though certainly still not perfect in many ways). Florida has constant initiatives, and recently had a constitutional revision, led by former Univ of Florida law school Dean (and Florida Assembly Speaker) Jon Mills, one of those rare birds, the successful politician who's also an accomplished con law expert. Seeing Mills tap dance in front of the Florida Supreme Court is a thing of beauty, but even he has had amendments struck for violating the single-subject rule. One proposal, for example, which was specifically unitary, was struck because the Florida Supremes said it would have created a fourth branch of government.
It's not always the drafters' fault. The drafting process is not what they teach in school; professional initiative drafting is much like the process depicted in the recent John Adams mini-series. Many of the provisions which are isolated under sizzling microscopes post-passage were drafted with input from pollsters, political consultants, interest groups, and litigators. The constant battle cry: "It won't matter if it's perfect if it doesn't pass." So drafters want concrete guidance, as much as they can get, from a reviewing court.
This opinion doesn't give it. It expressly disclaims enacting a single-subject rule (as if it could do so judicially). Yet it doesn't give much guidance on the distinction. At one point it says that 16 or 18 different changes are too many, but . . . really? Does that mean 15 is ok?
So we get "qualitative" not "quantitative." That just means we have no idea, and we'll decide when we see it. We're not going to give you any idea of what's involved until you spend $100,000 on drafting and polling, and another $500,000 to gather signatures, and THEN we'll decide if you did it right.
Most professional drafters do not try to evade the rules, if only because they fear malpractice claims. But it's tough to color between the lines if the lines can only be seen when the picture is done.
The initiative limiting affirmative action was quite narrow and obviously not a constitutional revision, but they claimed it was.
But the initiative that would make sweeping changes to Michigan's judiciary and governmental structure (among the many other things it would do), may well be a constitutional revision barred from being put on the ballot.
The dems control 1 1/2 branches currently (executive and one house of the legislative).
The big prize was taking redistricting away from the judiciary.
I'm really curious what that proposal was, now.
I know it seems that way, and with my right wing beliefs it sounds silly.
You have to understand that the union up here is a religion. They, for 75 years, did more and were more than a church was. They got people better pay, medical care, a retirement, gave them food and money when times were bad, sent their children to camp, gave their kids money for college, told them how to vote, told them where to live, all with their best interests mostly at heart.
The problem is that it was all based on huge plants employing ten of thousands per plant. That gave the union the ability to demand the wages and bennies from the big three and the tier one through four suppliers. That allowed the high taxes to over pay teachers, public employees, and public works.
The union leadership wants the old days back. I think they can't sustain it without that plants--even though I was raised union, went to their summer camps, got Christmas gifts from them, and they even gave me college money. The unions think they can, if they can just get back in control.
Today they are about two months past-due on having an approved state budget due to about $15 billion in spending programs. This despite the fact that state tax revenues are currently 40% more than they were five years ago! And the Dems are airing ads that blame the Republicans for not going with the "compromise" buget which calls for more sales taxes, more income taxes and more gasoline taxes. Wouldn't a real compromise have a little cost cutting, too?
As an example of how crazy the "progressive" legislature is, there are six tax brackets and you hit the top with annual income of $44,814. Yep, those are the "rich" in California!
This initiative was so far out of the ballpark (or if you prefer, the 'field of application'), there was no reason to provide the guidance you desire. See, e.g.:
Here is the more specific list of what the amendment did:
How the drafters ever thought this was not a revision is a complete mystery.
If this is not a revision, what is? How fundamentally would you have to alter the state government before you triggered the revision process?
According to Annette Nellen of the New America Foundation, the CA income tax doesn't kick in at all for a family of four until $44K. Isn't that about the opposite of what you said?
But when the voters agree to a general revision, they agree to a process by which delegates meet in a convention and everything and anything they wish to change, with no ability by the voters to limit in advance the scope of what the revisers can discuss or adapt.
It seems to me that by these definitions, what was before the Court of Appeals was clearly an amendment. It was a whopper of an amendment, but it was an amendment all the same. It identified specific changes to be made, specific provisions to be changed, and identified the changes to be made.
It seems to me that the Court of Appeals did not attempt to treat the provisions on "amendment" and "general revisions" as containing operational definitions, and as operationally defining an "amendment" or "general revision" by defining what occurs when either is adopted independently of their contents. Instead, they introduced their own concepts of "amendment" and "general revision" to conclude that what was before them was one and not the other.
I think this was a mistake for several reasons. The Michigan Supreme Court cases they quoted held that courts could determine the appropriateness of a ballot initiative based on form and were prohibited from looking into its substance. Although the Court of Appeals claimed to have done this, it's not clear to me that this is so. The fact of the matter is, this particular proposition had the form of an amendment because it met all the stated definitions for what form an amendment should take. One would have to look into its substance to determine if it was too general to represent an "amendment" by the Court of Appeal's imported definition.
Nor did it seem to me that the amendment serves more than one purpose. All its many changes could be described under the rubric of creating a more representative and efficient government by reducing central government officers and authority, reducing appointment authority, and increasing the number and authority of local officers and citizens commissions. One might disagree with such a purpose or whether the initiative would actually achieve it, but one could easily devise a 100-word paragraph that elucidates a single plausible rational purpose, right or wrong, encompassing every single change, as easily as one could come up with an argument that every single provision has some effect, at some remove, on interstate commerce. One only needs a little creativity and a bit of imagination. (Is there a rational basis for the (bi-)Czar? Yes, my son, there is a rational basis for everything...)
Perhaps they are not all that fond of you either?