Thwarting democracy

About a century ago Michigan voters amended the state constitution to allow for citizen initiatives. This was needed because the governor and legislature were becoming too corrupt. If enough signatures were gathered, the legislature had to give the initiative an up-or-down vote without any amendments and the governor could not veto it. If the legislature didn't approve it, the proposal went before the people. Power to the people!

The Michigan Constitution was rewritten in 1963 and this provision was kept. Over the years the rules have been tightened, such as the requirement that signatures must be gathered within 180 days. That means paid signature-gatherers are essentially required and only deep pockets can afford the expense. In addition, voter turnout had dropped significantly, so that a much smaller percentage of the people are needed to sign the petitions. The rule is still 8% of the number who voted in the last gubernatorial election, but that is now only 3% of the state's population.

Which means, according to Brian Dickerson of the Detroit Free Press, what had been a way for citizens to get around a corrupt government has become a way for a corrupt legislature to get around the citizens and a moderate governor.

This way to thwart democracy has been used successfully six times since the 1963 constitution was enacted. Four of those were by Right to Life to restrict abortion in some way. The other two successes were an effort to kill the single business tax and an effort to block restriction on wolf hunting.

There was a recent push for a citizen petition to raise the minimum wage. It got enough signatures, but the legislature voted in their own bill to raise the minimum wage which had smaller increments and a lower top amount.

The legislature is at it again. This time the issue is local prevailing wage laws that mandate union level wages for taxpayer funded construction projects. The legislature is itching to ban such laws – we'll save the taxpayer money! The Gov. promised a veto. No problem. With big corporate backing and paid signature-gatherers finding 252,000 people wanting to stick it to the workers shouldn't be hard to do. That's all that is necessary to thwart democracy.

To put that in perspective, there are 7.4 million registered voters in Michigan. Last month we had the big vote for road funding. About 350,000 voted for it and it lost.