By Jack McHugh
Now with one click you can approve or disapprove of key votes by your legislators using the VoteSpotter smart phone app. Visit votespotter.com and download VoteSpotter today!
House Bill 4166, Require voter approval of county promotions tax: 35 to 2 in the Senate
Gary Wolfram, an economics professor at Hillsdale College and member of the Mackinac Center’s Board of Scholars, has just released a new report on Michigan’s electricity industry. The study was published by the Michigan Conservative Energy Forum and provides an overview of the history and current organization of this important industry.
The state is looking to improve its transparency and is targeting its economic development reports, according to MIRS, a Lansing-insider newsletter.
The state received suboptimal ratings from the Public Interest Research Group and is seeking to improve its position. It is good that the administration is looking to make these programs more transparent. Under current policies, private companies will receive roughly $800 million in subsidies in the upcoming fiscal year, and taxpayers will not be allowed to know which companies are receiving their money.
The Mackinac Center is one of several groups hoping to save the state millions and increase the freedom of Michiganders by implementing common sense criminal justice reforms.
Focusing on the problem of overcriminalization (Michigan has over 3,100 crimes on the books), the Mackinac Center has pushed for reforms that would cut the number of crimes and limit the liability of people who unknowingly break them. Executive Vice President Mike Reitz recently discussed the recommendations on a panel in Lansing, covered by MLive:
Civil asset forfeiture — the process of law enforcement confiscating money or possessions from civilians without charging them with a crime — has become an enormous problem in Michigan. The Institute for Justice has ranked Michigan's civil asset forfeiture laws among the worst in the country, but a package of bills in the legislature could help fix them.
“This is just a modernization of Michigan's FOIA Act — long overdue — to provide some additional standardization and transparency.” – State Sen. Mike Shirkey
Michigan’s Freedom of Information Act, passed in 1976 in the wake of the Watergate scandal, is meant to improve public access to government documents.
VoteSpotter, an app created by the Mackinac Center, is making it easier for voters to hold their representatives accountable every day. Project Director Andrew Koehlinger recently joined Frank Beckmann to discuss the app's capabilities and growth. A recording of that discussion is available here.
By Jack McHugh
Now with one click you can approve or disapprove of key votes by your legislators using the VoteSpotter smart phone app. Visit votespotter.com and download VoteSpotter today!
Senate Bill 306, Authorize joining Balanced Budget Compact: Passed 26 to 11 in the Senate
Editor's Note: the following is a transcript of testimony on House Bill 4713 given by Mackinac Center Executive Vice President Michael Reitz before the House Oversight and Ethics Committee on Sept. 17, 2015. Video of his testimony is available via House TV; Reitz's testimony begins at 18:00.
For years, the Michigan Education Association has held that members may only resign from the union in August, a policy commonly known as the August Window. The Mackinac Center Legal Foundation has fought against this policy, arguing that it violates the rights of union members.
The UAW contract with Ford, General Motors and Fiat Chrysler expired on Sept. 14, giving employees in Michigan their first opportunity to resign from the union since the passage of right-to-work in 2012.
Mackinac Center Director of Labor Policy F. Vincent Vernuccio and Terry Bowman, an employee of Ford and founder of Union Conservatives, authored an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal Sept. 16, examining reasons why workers might choose to leave the UAW and the future of the union in the coming years:
By Kahryn Riley
Michigan statutes contain an estimated 3,102 crimes. That number far outstrips that of our neighboring states, as well as that recommended by the Model Penal Code, a seminal resource developed by the American Law Institute to help states codify American criminal law. The quantity and complexity of crimes on our books is so great that a reasonable citizen could not hope to understand most of them, let alone be accountable for knowing and complying with all of them. However, Michigan legislators are taking important steps towards ensuring that our criminal law functions in a sensible and predictable manner.
The Washington Examiner recently published an article discussing Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's labor credentials and plans for moving forward on labor policy as a presidential candidate. Gov. Walker has a history of sweeping reforms in his home state, which are now prompting discussion on a national level.
Opponents of right-to-work policies often point to flawed research to make claims of decreased wages and employment in states with forced unionization.
In a Sept. 15 Editor's Note in The Detroit News, Ingrid Jacques pointed to a critique of some of those claims, backing up national findings with research from the Mackinac Center:
The “Economic Freedom of the World Index” published by the Fraser Institute of Canada measures the degree to which the world’s 157 nations and territories permit voluntary, peaceful economic exchanges between their own citizens and with people in other countries. The most recent index has just been released, and based on data from 2013, it ranks the United States 16th in economic freedom.
The Mackinac Center has partnered with many likely and less-likely organizations in its history, from the ACLU, to the Sierra Club, to other free market think tanks.
On Sunday, Sept. 13, the Midland Daily News published an article describing some of these efforts, specifically the relationship with the ACLU — an association that has recently brought attention to overcriminalization and civil asset forfeiture reform.
Following a tawdry marital infidelity and cover-up scandal that has dominated state Capitol headlines since early August, freshman state Rep. Cindy Gamrat (R-Plainwell) was expelled from the House of Representatives on Sept. 11, 2015. Rep. Todd Courser (R-Lapeer) stayed “one step ahead of the sheriff” by resigning moments before a House vote that would have expelled him too (roll call vote here, text of expulsion resolution here).
By Jack McHugh
Now with one click you can approve or disapprove of key votes by your legislators using the VoteSpotter smart phone app. Visit Votespotter.com and download VoteSpotter today!
House Resolution 141, Expel Reps. Gamrat and Courser: Passed 91 to 11 in the House
On Sept. 14, the United Auto Workers contracts with Ford, Fiat Chrysler, and General Motors will expire for the first time since right-to-work legislation took effect in Michigan, allowing autoworkers to opt out of union membership for the first time.
By Jack McHugh
Now with one click you can approve or disapprove of key votes by your legislators using the VoteSpotter smart phone app. Visit votespotter.com and download VoteSpotter today!
The House and Senate have not cast any votes in recent weeks. Therefore, this report contains several recently introduced bills of interest.
On Sept. 1, Mackinac Center Director of Labor Policy F. Vincent Vernuccio joined the Heritage Foundation as a panelist for their event "Do Right-to-Work Laws Really Reduce Wages? Examining the Evidence." He compared and contrasted Michigan and other right-to-work states against without right-to-work policies:
Click here to find the full results from our 2015 school privatization survey.
This commentary originally appeared in the Austin American-Statesman on September 1, 2015.
Money that could be spent on classroom supplies and textbooks is being lost to the educational bureaucracy, according to a new survey of Texas school districts.
Legislation permitting counties to increase the excise tax on cigarettes was approved by the California Senate Thursday, Aug. 27. Another bill — introduced the day before — would hike the state excise tax by $2.00 per pack. The state legislature should prevent both bills from passing.
The Washington Post’s “Wonkblog” recently ran a piece titled, “What it’s like to be a part of the world’s richest 1 percent, in 15 incredible photos.” This features photos of a man floating in a swimming pool on top of a skyscraper, an in-home cinema, maids, the Opéra de Monte-Carlo, the Hollywood Walk of Fame, a patient about to undergo plastic surgery, a personal chef at a luxury lodge and a gated community.
A recent survey of Pennsylvania’s conventional public school districts by a Michigan-based research institute indicates that 75.2 percent of those districts contract out with private vendors for at least one of the three major noninstructional services.
