This legislative week was dominated by the Governor's State of the State address, with mostly pro-forma sessions surrounding it. A few comparatively minor bills were passed on Thursday.
Y = Yes, N = No, X = Not Voting
Senate Bill 778, Restrict ad hoc road-end “marinas”: Passed 30 to 6 in the Senate
To establish that unless a deed, easement, or other recorded dedication expressly provides for it, a waterfront road end may not be used for boat hoists or docks; for mooring between midnight and sunrise; or for any activity that obstructs access to a lake or stream. Local governments could ban or regulate uses that are not specified in property owners’ deeds, easements, etc.
The AFL-CIO is starting a new public relations campaign and the first ad is, well, interesting. The theme is work as a common experience and as a form of giving to the community. As a statement of the dignity of working men and women, it's not bad. If you can overlook the source it's even moving. That's easier than you would think for an ad put out by the AFL-CIO, because it doesn't say anything about unions. Hardly even hints at them. Which is odd.
A Pontiac movie studio hoping to cash in on Michigan’s film subsidy program will fail to make its February bond payment, according to the Detroit Free Press. The Michigan State Employees Retirement System, which guaranteed the $18 million worth of bonds, will have to make the $630,000 payment.
Cities and school districts where emergency managers have been appointed brought that situation upon themselves, a Mackinac Center analyst told WEYI-TV25 in Saginaw.
Michael LaFaive, director of the Center’s Morey Fiscal Policy Initiative, said “The painful truth is cities with emergency managers today would not have them if they had not fouled their own financial nests.”
Michael LaFaive, director of the Center’s Morey Fiscal Policy Initiative, is cited in a story today at Bloomberg Businessweek about the long-term, nationwide failure of corporate welfare incentives. LaFaive said such programs have been around since the mid-1930s, when Mississippi created a program called “Balance Agriculture with Industry.”
Mackinac Center President Joseph G. Lehman is cited in a column previewing tonight’s State of the State address at The Michigan View.
Lehman called Gov. Rick Snyder’s first term in office the “best year for reform since Gov. Engler’s first term.”
The column, by Henry Payne of The Detroit News, draws a comparison between Gov. Snyder and Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, noting that the former praised the latter as a role model when introducing him at “An Evening with the Mackinac Center” in Lansing last November.
A letter to the editor in The Muskegon Chronicle about taverns losing business due to the workplace smoking ban contains an editor’s note that cites a November 2011 Capitol Confidential story outlining drops in sales that liquor license holders reported to the Michigan Liquor Control Commission in the wake of the ban.
Interesting item in Monday's Midland Daily News: faculty members at Central Michigan University want to know what the totals were after a vote to ratify a new contract, but the union isn't saying.
Negotiations had been contentious, with the university taking a firm line in negotiations and staff at CMU briefly going on strike. The Central Michigan University Faculty Association announced that a contract had been agreed to and ratified last week. The union announced that three-quarters of its membership had voted in the election, but is refusing to release the actual vote totals.
Michael LaFaive, director of the Center’s Morey Fiscal Policy Initiative, was asked by The Grand Rapids Press to comment on what he hopes Gov. Rick Snyder will address in his State of the State address Wednesday night.
“We need to make changes to the personal property tax, which is essentially a tax on tools,” LaFaive said. “In a manufacturing state, I can’t believe we do that.”
If Indiana passes right-to-work legislation as expected, it could force Michigan legislators to do the same, a Mackinac Center analyst told The Detroit News.
“In the past year, there has been a surge of grass-roots activity promoting (right-to-work) here,” Michael LaFaive, director of the Center’s Morey Fiscal Policy Initiative, said. “Watching Indiana drain off Michigan manufacturers may finally force the politicians’ hands.”
The Legislature began the 2012 session in a pro-forma assembly on Wednesday during which no votes were taken, so this report instead contains several newly introduced bills of interest.
Y = Yes, N = No, X = Not Voting
Senate Bill 775: Revise allowable deer hunting guns south of “rifle line”
Introduced by Sen. Michael Green (R), to revise the types of firearms allowed for deer hunting south of the “rifle line” in the Lower Peninsula. In addition to shotguns and muzzle-loading rifles, hunters could use a .35 caliber or larger pistol capable of holding no more than nine rounds, and a .35 caliber or larger rifle loaded with straight-walled cartridges and a maximum case length of 1.80 inches (in other words, not a high-power rifle cartridge). Referred to committee, no further action at this time.
To most people, eliminating artificial caps on the number of Michigan students allowed to benefit from online public charter schools seems like a no-brainer. Indeed, many people I talk to are surprised to learn such caps exist, and puzzled by some politicians in the state House working to stop or water-down a bill eliminating the caps. The legislation has already passed the state Senate.
Suttons Bay School district is small in size — but big on innovation.
This school district in northwest Michigan probably doesn't get much attention outside of Traverse City. That's unfortunate, because it is blazing a trail in education innovation through digital learning.
A Republican state senator plans to introduce a bill that would require the Legislature to keep track of legislators' voting records and make the information public, something the Mackinac Center already does at no expense to taxpayers through MichiganVotes.org's annual "Missed Votes Report."
Questionable spending by government is practically the rule rather than the exception, but some examples can make even jaded, long-time observers scratch their heads in wonder.
Here’s one: The Michigan Department of Natural Resources gives grants to many local governments for public recreation projects and programs. Last year more than $550,000 was expended by the state for this purpose, with the money coming from the voluntary $10 state park passes purchased when drivers renew their annual vehicle registration. All that is fair enough, but here’s where it gets weird: From this pot of money, the DNR also spent more than $1,000 last year to buy those giant “trophy” checks that politicians and bureaucrats love to give away in photo-ops staged for the media.
Right-to-work legislation has been introduced in Indiana and may actually win Gov. Mitch Daniels’ signature by the time Super Bowl Sunday arrives on Feb. 5. The Great Lake State may need to follow suit to compete economically.
Before it does, however, the people of Michigan should note that one city — Bay City —leapt headlong into the labor fray Monday night. Its city commission voted to amend the city’s prevailing wage ordinance to exempt contracts under $100,000 in value. The previous threshold was only $10,000. It also — quite significantly — eliminates the prevailing wage mandate when Bay City shares projects with cities that do not have a similar ordinance, such as Midland. The change requires a second confirming vote which will be made at the next city commission meeting this month.
Drivers are paying more at the pump than they have in any other January. While there are several reasons for the high prices, including increasing demand from developing countries and Iranian saber rattling, the federal government is doing its part to keep gasoline prices high by mandating the impossible.
James Hohman, assistant director of fiscal policy, was interviewed by Fox News Monday about his analysis that each Chevy Volt sold costs taxpayers up to $250,000.
Aside from the corporate welfare, tax favors and other subsidies electric car makers receive, Fox also reported that buyers who can afford the high-priced vehicles receive what amounts to a transfer of wealth from lower-income taxpayers. Russ Harding, senior environmental policy analyst, made this same point some 15 months ago.
Labor Policy Director Paul Kersey in this Detroit Free Press Op-Ed calls for an end to prevailing wage in Michigan. You can read Kersey's study about the effects of the state's prevailing wage law, including additional costs to taxpayers, here.
A merit shop in west Michigan is coming under fire again, being targeted with a negative publicity campaign by the Michigan Regional Council of Carpenters, according to The Grand Rapids Press.
The Mackinac Center has previously detailed this union intimidation tactic, called "bannering," here and here.
Indiana policymakers are poised to pass a right-to-work law, which would make it the first state in the so-called “manufacturing belt” to pass such legislation. While the manufacturing belt isn’t what it used to be, Indiana has the greatest concentration of manufacturing jobs in the country and likely has the most to gain from enacting a right-to-work measure.
Tens of thousands of small business owners who were illegally forced into a union have been denied their ability to recoup millions of dollars in union dues that were taken from them during the scheme.
Patrick J. Wright, director of the Mackinac Center Legal Foundation, told WJRT-TV12 in Flint that a federal judge in Grand Rapids ruled he would not grant class action status, “so the union offered the five class members their couple hundred dollars back and kept the rest for itself.”
Paul Kersey, director of labor policy, was a guest today on “The Frank Beckmann Show” on WJR AM760, discussing right-to-work policies and the impending victory for proponents of the law in Indiana.
Todd Myers of the Washington Policy Center has advanced the cause of environmental protection by writing “Eco-Fads: How the Rise of Trendy Environmentalism is Harming the Environment.” He lays out a logical case as to the causes and effects of the modern rush to embrace trendy eco-fads and does a good job of explaining how most of the fads do not deliver the promised environmental benefits (in many cases they actually do harm to the environment).
