MICHIGAN TRUTH SQUAD ANALYSIS: Pro-Right to Work ads Who: Michigan Freedom Fund What: Radio and TV ad Truth Squad call: Technical foul The debate over Right to Work legislation has spilled out from the State Capitol and onto the state’s airwaves. Michigan Freedom Fund is backing both TV and radio ads supporting passage of RTW. […]
Michigan Government
Citizens cannot do their job of running their government if they don’t know what their public servants are doing.
Posted inMichigan Government
Legislature poised to lock in strict time limits on cash aid to needy families
Michigan’s massive welfare reform, which removed 15,000 families from cash assistance in its first year, was never the law of the land. That may be about to change. Senate Bill 1386, which would codify the Department of Human Services’ controversial time limits on cash assistance, is rushing through the Legislature this week, in what appears […]
Posted inMichigan Government
Mining tax could spur more U.P. mining
State lawmakers and Gov. Rick Snyder are poised to approve a new tax structure on metallic mining operations that could spur development of new mines — like the controversial Eagle Mine near Marquette — across the western Upper Peninsula. The state House of Representatives, on Nov. 29, approved legislation authorizing a 2.75 percent severance tax […]
Posted inMichigan Government
Bills would turn Michigan into 'super choice' state
Michigan Board of Education President John Austin calls it a “nuclear bomb.” National education reformer Diane Ravitch proclaims “Michigan is on its way to ending public education.” Michigan Future Inc. President Lou Glazer warns that local school districts won’t survive. Welcome to education reform in Michigan, circa 2012. A coordinated series of draft and introduced […]
Posted inMichigan Government
Retirement lawsuit bites into school budgets
When legislative reform of the Michigan Public School Employee Retirement System promised to cap school districts’ contributions at a flat 24.46 percent of payroll, many administrators reached for something else to uncap, in celebration. However, months later, with challenges to the reforms working their way through the courts, the bottle being opened might be holding […]
Posted inMichigan Government
Next time, a tougher road to the ballot?
Looking to change Michigan’s Constitution? Reaching the ballot is as easy as $1-$2-$3 if you’ve got a big enough checkbook. Collecting 322,609 valid petition signatures (10 percent of the votes in the 2010 gubernatorial election) for grassroots groups who might want to, say, create a nonpartisan legislative redistricting process, would be an imposing challenge. But […]
Posted inMichigan Government
$152 million, and not even a T-shirt?
For $152 million, you could buy dinner and a cocktail for every Michigan voter who cast a ballot in the Nov. 6 election. Or you could give every man, woman and child in Michigan their very own Chia Obama or Chia Romney, depending, of course, on their political persuasions. Or you could have spent that […]
Posted inMichigan Government
Money doesn’t buy happiness – or amendments
Michigan voters did something Tuesday that caught some by surprise: They made their own decisions. More than $33 million in advertising by one motivated billionaire, including out-spending his opposition by twenty-fold, couldn’t get a ballot proposal passed. Persistent campaigning by the governor for another ballot proposal didn’t work either. After months of robocalls and fliers […]
Posted inMichigan Government
Bid to head off ‘Right to Work’ may propel its adoption in Michigan
While voters defeated proposals to lock collective bargaining rights in the constitution and restore bargaining rights to home health workers on Tuesday, the battle over labor rules is far from over in Michigan. The defeat of Proposal 2, the collective bargaining ballot issue, clears the way for a possible Right to Work bill to be […]
Posted inMichigan Government
Political winds bolster bridge, fuel-tax review, but not renewable energy
On energy, bridges and taxes, voters spoke volumes on Tuesday. Defeat of Proposal 3 means, for the foreseeable future, that Michigan will pursue a more limited investment in wind power and renewable energy than neighboring states. Defeat of Proposal 5 means a simple legislative majority remains the threshold for statewide tax increases, perhaps opening the […]
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