Tag: Michigan

Categories
ballot access insider corruption political challengers

Sore Insiders

Party politics is often underhanded.

Many of our country’s founders knew this all too well, and tried to avoid the factionalism of party politics. But still, two political factions emerged, and our politics has been dominated by two parties ever since.

And believe me, the two insider parties work mightily to rig the system in their favor. The presence of “sore-​loser laws” is a case in point.Gary Johnson

Now, political parties are private entities. They can choose whomever they want. Ideally, the ballots wouldn’t even list party affiliation. But “sore-​loser laws” stretch in the other direction, preventing individuals from running in one party after losing a primary as a candidate for another party.

In this way, the parties use the law to secure their own positions. It has nothing to do with “democracy” or “voting rights,” everything to do with privilege.

In Michigan, whilom New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson ran in the primary as a Republican candidate for the presidency. Now, the Secretary of State is disallowing him from running as a Libertarian. You see, he’d filed some paperwork withdrawing his candidacy three minutes too late last November.

An amusing work-​around may be in the offing, with a Texas businessman named Gary Johnson being groomed for the Michigan nomination. Take that, partisan insiders!

But regarding the Secretary of State’s ruling, the Libertarians smell a partisan rat, and are suing. It turns out they may have precedence on their side, since John Anderson had technically run afoul of the same law back in 1980, but nothing had been done to exclude him.

This time, Johnson’s more feared than Anderson was then. And, this time, the Secretary of State is a Republican.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall

Not-​So-​Total Recall

Michigan has a recall law. Citizens can toss out an unrepresentative representative before you can say Ypsilanti — even if that politician hasn’t committed a crime or tweeted lewd photos of himself.

Well, maybe not Ypsilanti-​simple: one must gather enough signatures to reach 25 percent of the contested office’s vote in the previous election.

Since 1954, when the recall provision was added to the Michigan Constitution, only three legislators have been successfully recalled. The first two were Democrats, back in 1983. The third happened just last month. Republican State Senator Paul Scott’s recall was placed on the ballot, largely through the efforts of the state teachers union, and he was voted out.

I wouldn’t have supported Scott’s ouster, but I support the right of citizens everywhere to oust away.

Michigan State Senator John J. Gleason disagrees. To Gleason, three recalls in 57 years are three too many. The Democrat introduced Senate Bill 629, which would gut the right to recall by disallowing it unless the legislator has gone on a crime spree or piled up serious ethical violations.

Just voting our liberties away wouldn’t qualify any longer.

“Nothing unites lawmakers more than making it easier to stay in office,” wrote Mackinac Center for Public Policy President Joe Lehman in the Detroit Free Press. “The voters’ right to recall lawmakers, for expressly political reasons, is a potent check against government overreach that the people should jealously guard irrespective of party.”

Joe’s talking Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
free trade & free markets tax policy

How Not To Be in Pictures

Everybody wants to be in pictures, it’s said. Michiganders, who’ve been funding moviemaking with their taxes for years, should try digital cameras and YouTube. The state’s governor, Rick Snyder, has proposed a new budget slicing and dicing the state’s generous (read: foolhardy) film subsidy and tax credit system.

This is called a “blow to Hollywood.” One nifty headline dramatizes the new situation: “Michigan to Hollywood — Get Off My Lawn,” with photo of Clint Eastwood on the porch of his Gran Torino house, wielding a shotgun. 

Over the top. 

Tax credits and tax subsidies given only to moviemakers are wrong on several grounds, as I’ve argued before (see “Knot Cannibalism” and “Cinema Without Subsidy”). Of course, the red tape and high taxes associated with setting up any business are wrong, too. You may say that the state’s gotta raise funds, but it most definitely shouldn’t kill the geese that lay the eggs, golden or Technicolor. 

Taxes should apply equally, all around. Low taxes evenly spread will entice businesses — including moviemakers — into an area, if other locales remain over-​taxed and confusing.

Some will cry “jobs!” but the word isn’t magic. Real jobs can be measured. Michigan’s subsidies created mainly temporary part-​time jobs for Michiganders. According to a commissioned study, “Michigan spent $378,240.74 per job in 2008; $586,779.18 per job in 2009.” 

No film incentive, it turns out, “has generated as much revenues as it has taken from the treasury.”

Cut. Print.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
free trade & free markets too much government

Chimp-​o-​nomics

Government is almost defined by one kind of business it runs: The last-​use-​of-​force business, such as police and courts and military. Since we don’t pay for these services in fees, contracts, and sales — we’re taxed, instead — we don’t usually call them “businesses.”

But governments have gotten involved in a lot of other more business-​like businesses: Roads, libraries, mass transit, waterworks, garbage collection, etc. Of course, government being government, it supports most such enterprises largely with taxes, not fees for services rendered.

Yet there are exceptions. 

Take Jackson, Michigan. It runs a number of swimming pools, and charges for usage. The pools lose money. Which taxpayers subsidize. Typical. But Jackson also runs a putt-​putt golf course. And it makes money at that business. 

All to the good? A government business that actually comes out in the black — what a deal!

Well, Bill Chrysan, proprietor of Putterz Golf & Games in nearby Ypsilanti, doesn’t think so. He notes that the government golf course doesn’t pay property taxes and has its maintenance done at taxpayer expense. With advantages like this, it’s hard to compete against — and it hardly pays its way like other businesses.

For that and other reasons, this one putt-​putt course provides no model. Governments shouldn’t run businesses, says James Hohman of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, for the “[s]ame reason that chimps shouldn’t drive. Just because some can do it doesn’t mean that it should be encouraged.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall political challengers term limits

Competition in Michigan

Michigan’s career politicians are pushing to more than double maximum tenure in the state house and almost double it in the state senate.

Michigan currently caps service at three two-​year terms, or six years, in the house and two four-​year terms, or eight years, in the senate. Thus the “combined limit” on both chambers is 14 years. The new law would allow lawmakers to serve up to 14 years in a single legislative seat. This of course would drastically weaken term limits and severely crimp electoral competition.

Now, term limits help make possible such refreshing political campaigns as that of Leon Drolet, director of the Michigan Taxpayers Alliance and a former state representative. He is vying for Michigan’s 11th state senate seat, now open because the incumbent is prevented by term limits from standing for re-​election. Another former state representative as well as a current one are also running for the seat.

I bet that when one of these challengers gets elected — and certainly if it’s Drolet, with his strong anti-​tax, anti-​pork message — incumbents will keep moaning about the loss of “experience” wrought by term limits. 

But Drolet has experience, too — fighting governmental assaults on the liberties of citizens. His co-​authoring of a constitutional amendment to curb government’s power to grab private homes through eminent domain is relevant.

It’s just that ample experience in helping restrain government power isn’t the kind that certain politicians applaud.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall

Righteous Recalls

According to Ballotpedia​.org, a wiki-​based website created by the Citizens in Charge Foundation to track ballot initiatives, referendums and recalls, this year voters have already launched more than twice as many efforts to recall public officials than occurred all of last year.

In Flint, Michigan, voters were set to recall the mayor for corruption, mismanagement and more. Ten days before the vote, the mayor resigned. 

In Tuolumne County, California, voters removed an entire school board that failed to account for $16 million in bond revenue.

After failed attempts to remove mayors in Toledo and Akron, Ohio, the Akron city council is now trying to dramatically increase the petition signatures needed to start a recall.

In Kimberly, Idaho, a campaign to recall the mayor and two city councilors for jacking up utility rates fell short of the needed voter signatures. But now the police are investigating whether town officials illegally obstructed the effort.

In Cincinnati, no process yet exists for recalling officials, so the local NAACP is poised to launch a petition drive to establish one. County Republican leaders are “studying” the issue. The county’s Democratic Party chairman opposes recall, saying, “I’d hate to see a situation where the mayor could be recalled any time he made a controversial decision.”

That’s a straw man. Recalls have been used very rarely. Besides, none of our political problems stem from voters demanding too much of politicians.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.