By Kahryn Riley
Michigan’s ban on “ballot selfies” — photos that voters take of themselves and their ballots in the voting booth — was lifted for four days last week before the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals stepped in and put it back into effect, for now.
The brief reprieve occurred after a decision in a lawsuit filed by a Portage man, Joel Crookston, against the Secretary of State. In 2012, Crookston published a Facebook post that featured a photo he had taken of his ballot, where he had written in a friend’s name.
A new study examines the economic impact of government tourism advertising programs. We are the authors of that work, called “An Analysis of State-Funded Tourism Promotion,” which offers empirical support for the hypothesis that these programs are ineffective.
A recent article in Bridge magazine claimed school choice is causing segregation in metro Detroit, but Mackinac Center for Public Policy’s Director of Education Policy Ben DeGrow said there’s more to the charter-school picture.
While determining if “segregation has occurred as the result of numerous voluntary decisions is complicated and controversial,” DeGrow said in a recent op-ed for The Detroit News that some studies have shed light on what happens when choice is allowed.
It might be Halloween, but the ghosts and goblins aren’t necessarily the scariest things roaming our state.
In the spirit of the season, here’s some of the spoooookiest policy ideas we’ve seen let loose recently to terrify the (mostly) innocent people of Michigan:
By Ben DeGrow
Flint’s Northridge Academy is still settling into its new, more spacious Coldwater Road campus. The public charter school has shown significant growth in core academics. Now the opportunity lies ahead to expand its footprint and its range of programming.
As Wayne County exits its direct state oversight, some are continuing the call for more money to local governments. Yet Michigan’s taxpayers already are providing local governments with more revenue.
Cities, villages, townships and counties have two major sources of operating revenues: property taxes and sales taxes. No local government levies a sales tax, but the state shares a portion of its sales tax revenue with local governments, with a portion mandated by the constitution and a portion that lawmakers determine annually.
By Jack McHugh
The Legislature did not meet this week, so the Roll Call Report continues its review of key votes from the 2015-2016 session.
House Bill 4713, Require “culpable mental state” for criminal conviction: Passed 106 to 0 in the House on October 1, 2015
To establish a presumption that if a law does not indicate whether a culpable mental state (“mens rea”) is required to establish guilt for a crime, then this is required (subject to various specified exceptions). This means prosecutors must show that a defendant violated the law “purposely, knowingly or recklessly.” Currently, many complex administrative offenses authorize criminal penalties for actions that a regular person would not know are illegal.
Workers deserve a choice not only when it comes to union membership, but also in whether they will work under a union-negotiated contract.
F. Vincent Vernuccio, director of labor policy at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, and Jeremy Lott, an adjunct scholar with the Center, wrote about Rep. Gary Glenn’s new Worker’s Choice bill in an op-ed published by the Midland Daily News. House Bill 5829 would give Michigan’s government employees the freedom to pay dues to a union and allow it to bargain on their behalf, or not pay union dues and negotiate directly with their employer.
By Jason Hayes
It is getting more crisp and cool in the morning. In Michigan, we’re getting back into the habit of scraping the frost off our windows before we get in the car and head to work. We’re also remembering the location of the thermostat in our homes so we can take the chill off the morning temperatures.
Michigan residents and business owners need more choices when it comes to electricity, but a bill making its way through Lansing would put an end to the limited options that currently exist.
Mackinac Center for Public Policy’s Director of Environmental Policy Jason Hayes and adjunct scholar Ted Bolema wrote about the impact Senate Bill 437 would have in an op-ed published by Bridge magazine. Despite supporters’ claims that the bill would not affect consumers who use Michigan’s limited electricity choice program, Hayes and Bolema cite a report from UBS Financial Services that found electricity choice would “whither organically under the law.”
By Ben DeGrow
A resolution pushing back on proposed new federal guidelines for education funding received broad bipartisan support this week in Lansing. Where a top-down mandate meets resistance, local initiative could pick up slack to address the underlying issue.
Michigan and other states are actively competing to become medical tourism destinations. Whether they succeed depends in large part on opening the state’s medical care delivery systems to competition and innovation and tearing down current protectionist barriers. These same reforms will make health care better and more affordable for our own residents too.
Lawmakers hear odd arguments when attempting to reform the state’s underfunded pension system. The latest argument is that converting Michigan’s school employee pension program to a defined-contribution system will tarnish the state’s credit rating. For evidence that this is unlikely, Michigan can look to its own history, which shows that offering new workers defined-contribution retirement benefits instead of defined-benefit pensions can improve a state’s credit rating.
A ballot measure to increase Wayne County property taxes to fund regional transit is stuck in past, focusing on transportation technology of the 1800s.
During a debate on Sunday’s episode of Michigan Matters hosted by CBS’ Carol Cain, Mackinac Center for Public Policy’s Vice President of Marketing and Communications John Mozena raised questions about the 20-year RTA transit tax plan that would rely on buses and trains.
By Jack McHugh
The House held a pro-forma session with no votes this week, but the Senate passed a number of bills in its final session before the Nov. 8 election.
Senate Bill 979, Authorize .5 mill Flint property tax for spending and subsidies: Passed 36 to 0 in the Senate
During Michigan’s economic “Lost Decade” of the 2000s, state government seemed to have just one response for crushing declines in income and employment that cost about 800,000 residents their jobs between 2000 and 2010: more corporate welfare.
If there was any evidence this approach works to turn around an ailing economy — there is not — it still could not have overcome the massive Michigan business and income tax increases imposed in 2007, and smaller exactions, such as a 2004 property tax hike.
A package of bills that would establish statewide, uniform regulations and an open market for transportation companies has been introduced in the Michigan Legislature. Importantly, it would also restrict local governments’ ability to manipulate this market.
Young entrepreneurs tried their hands at business this weekend at the inaugural Detroit Children’s Business Fair.
The event, co-hosted by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy and Junior Achievement of Southeastern Michigan, challenged children ages 6 through 14 to create a business and set up shop at the marketplace that took place Saturday in downtown Detroit. Approximately 30 children from 11 businesses sold products and services ranging from marshmallow guns, to coffee, to stress balls.
Detroit’s comeback has been promised for decades, but recovery has yet to fully materialize.
Mackinac Center Policy Analyst Jarrett Skorup tackled the topic in an op-ed for The Detroit News, in which he highlighted some of the development projects that were each billed as the thing that would bring Detroit back. Be it the 1977 opening of the Renaissance Center, the 1985 People Mover, or the 2013 arena deal for the Detroit Red Wings, none of the developments have fully delivered on the promised hype.
Parents, lawmakers, media and education officials may now easily find the latest compensation information for the leader of Michigan school districts, thanks to an updated database maintained by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.
In September, the Center announced it had updated its superintendent compensation database, which also includes the contracts under which superintendents work. Ben DeGrow, director of education policy for the Center, said information empowers parents and decision makers to make the best choices possible.
Michigan lawmakers are proud of their fiscal prudence for putting an extra $1 billion into the school employee pension fund. But the extra state payments have been insufficient to pay even the interest on the debt, let alone catch up on the $26.7 billion of unfunded liabilities in the system.
The clerk of Lincoln Township, Michigan — a small township near the tip of the Thumb — publicly criticized a citizen for filing a Freedom of Information Act request. The Huron Daily Tribune reports:
Clerk Irvin Kanaski also called upon township residents at Monday night’s meeting to chide Arlene Schipinski for seeking the information surrounding a $1,100 private donation to the township’s legal fund.
One mid-Michigan charter school striving not to be defined by its past has begun to see the payoff for changing its attitude and approach.
While the state of Michigan still officially recognizes the Saginaw Preparatory Academy as a low-achievement “Priority school,” more of its students are demonstrating the reading and writing skills they need to advance.
Editor's note: A version of this article entitled "Detroit standing in way of own recovery" first ran in the Detroit News on Oct. 14, 2016.
Detroit emerged from bankruptcy in 2014 and it didn’t take long for the hype to begin. A quick search produces a multitude of state and local governments and news sites promoting “Detroit’s Comeback.” But this is nothing new: For decades, city and state officials and local leaders have projected revitalization in Motown.
By Jack McHugh
The Legislature did not meet this week, so the Roll Call Report continues its review of key votes from the 2015-2016 session.
Senate Bill 616, Exempt developers of “Pyramid” building from sales tax: Passed 21 to 15 in the Senate on December 3, 2015
To exempt business equipment purchases made by an internet data center from the state sales tax. The bill originally applied only to the developers of proposed data center in the vacant “Pyramid” building near Grand Rapids, but was expanded to all companies in this particular business.
