Michigan’s 1850 constitution was repeatedly endorsed by voters. A provision in it required that voters consider establishing a convention to modify the constitution every 16 years. Voters approved of such a convention in 1866 but then soundly rejected the proposed constitution that convention created.[54] Voters again rejected — by a three-to-one margin — a new constitution in 1874 after the Legislature initiated a review and a commission appointed by the governor recommended changes.[55] The Legislature continued its attempt to modify the constitution, placing on the ballot proposals to establish a constitutional convention in 1890, 1892 and 1904. Voters rejected these conventions each time. They also rejected conventions in 1882 and 1898, turning down the question that the 1850 constitution required the state to ask every 16 years.[56]
But then in 1906, voters approved the establishment of a constitutional convention. The convention delivered a new constitution, which voters ratified in 1908. But the new document contained only a few important changes.[57]
The change that attracted the most attention and discussion related to the process for amending the constitution; voters were empowered to propose amendments directly.[58] Another important change was the declaration of “home rule” for local governments, providing them with the explicit authority to establish and enforce local laws and means to provide for the general welfare of their residents.[59] A University of Michigan law professor and convention delegate, John A. Fairlie, writing in 1908, summarized these additions: “[T]hese provisions establish the principle of local self-government on a much broader and firmer basis in the state of Michigan than in any state except a few west of the Mississippi river[.]”[60]
The section of the 1850 constitution of most interest to this study was modified by the convention, but not in a substantive way. The language prohibiting the credit of the state being given to any person, association or corporation was kept, as was the language prohibiting state-funded internal improvements. But the latter section was modified to allow for additional types of state-funded infrastructure development. Whereas the 1850 constitution made exemptions only for “public wagon roads” and the “expenditure of grants to the state of land or other property,” the new constitution also exempted spending for reforestation and the “protection of lands owned by the state of Michigan.”[61]
Fairlie called these changes “clearly needed” and went further to question whether the main prohibition was needed any longer. But, he noted, “the convention preferred to act conservatively in relaxing the restrictions of the present Constitution.”[62]