Proposal 5: Supermajority rule on taxes

Of the many laws Republican Gov. Rick Snyder has championed during his first 21 months in office, few have proved as divisive as the one that gave emergency managers sweeping new “superpowers” allowing them to dismiss elected leaders and rip up union contracts to help balance budgets in financially distressed cities and school districts. If […]

Michigan has been the scene of historic, sometimes bloody, battles between organized labor and management. Proposal 2 – the ballot effort to include collective bargaining rights in the Michigan Constitution — has lacked physical confrontation. But there’s plenty of bad blood between labor unions, which put the measure on the November ballot, and business groups […]

Consumers Energy President and CEO John Russell caused a stir last month when he marked the dedication of the utility’s first wind farm near Ludington by declaring that renewable energy is “clean, reliable and affordable for Michigan.” Russell’s comments added fuel to the debate over Proposal 3, a proposed constitutional amendment that would require Michigan’s […]

Ask supporters of Proposal 4 what it’s about, and they will answer as one: The registry. Ask its detractors the same thing, and they say: The union. And therein lies the debate. Proposal 4, which would amend the state constitution to create the Michigan Quality Home Care Council and allow home-care workers collective bargaining rights, […]

The list of supporters for the planned New International Trade Crossing in Detroit reads like a roll call of distinguished Michigan stakeholders. Five governors. Five automakers. Twenty-three chambers of commerce. The state’s largest newspapers, corporations and most influential movers and shakers all have signed on in agreement that the state needs a new, modern link […]