If 2015 was the year that the Michigan legislature decided to flip the bird to democracy, then 2016 is shaping up to be the year they double down on that decision.
We've already seen them overturn the vote of the people on emergency management and straight-ticket voting, but all that looks like child's play compared to the mess that is Senate Bill 571.
The bill, introduced by Rep. Lisa Posthumus Lyons on the last night of the House's 2015 session, was initially only twelve pages and wasn't yet the crushing blow to campaign finance reform it would become by the end of that last session. By the end of the night, the now 53-page bill would include provisions that essentially amounted to a gag order on local officials in regards to ballot proposals for the two months before an election, the doubling of the amount of money PAC's are allowed to donate to political campaigns, and the ability to keep independent expenditures secret until after elections.
Who says this legislature can't get things done when they want to?
First, there's the amendment that would forbid local officials from discussing any ballot proposal within 60 days of an election. Its proponents claim this would prevent taxpayer funds from being spent on propaganda. Never mind that there are already laws on the books that prevent taxpayer money from being spent on propaganda of that sort. Seems a little redundant and more than a little unconstitutional, as the scope of the bill would appear to heavily infringe on the free speech rights of public employees, including teachers, librarians and the like.
Even more sinister, however, is the provision that effectively doubles the maximum allowed amount of political donations a PAC can make to a campaign, by allowing campaigns to accept twice the current amount and apply it retroactively to expenses occurred from a prior campaign. While this has been nearly an entirely Republican supported effort, the scenario described above looks an awful lot like the one that occurred with former Democratic State Senator Andy Dillon, as Brian Dickerson over at the Freep points out. In fact, this bill makes it legal to do exactly what Dillon would eventually be fined for. For what it's worth, Dillon eventually ended up with a position in Snyder's administration, and his then-legal counsel, Eric Doster, is believed to have authored parts of SB 571. Coincidence? Doubtful.
What's somehow even more troubling than the fact that Rick Snyder and the legislature just signed over our state to dark money interests, however, is the number of representatives that had no idea what they were even voting on, which ultimately allowed this travesty to occur. In that same Freep article, Dickerson quotes Rep. Dave Pagel, one of the useless stooges that voted for the bill: "It's troubling when you take a vote and later realize you were ignorant of some facts you should have known." Even Sen. Mike Kowall, the original sponsor of the bill, claimed not to know what was in it, not that it stopped him from voting for the amended bill when it came back to the Senate.
Ignorant is an understatement. Completely negligent in your duty as a representative seems more fitting.
And if that's indeed the case, all but three House Republicans, all but three Senate Republicans, and Democratic turncoat, spousal abuser, and all-around scumbag Virgil Smith, have been completely negligent in their duties. The House Reps who voted no were John Bizon, Ed McBroom, and Paul Muxlow; the Senate Reps who voted against were Rick Jones and Tory Rocca, while the Senator for my district, Mike Green, didn't vote at all. (Our Senator before the most recent gerrymandering, Phil Pavlov, predictably voted yes.)
How is it even possible that one whose job it is to write and pass bills into law, can be allowed to vote on said bills when they haven't read the bills they're voting on? The phrase "we have to pass this bill to find out what's in it" comes to mind, and while it makes as little sense today as it did when first uttered by Nancy Pelosi, it seems to be standard operating procedure in Lansing.
Naturally, once many of them realized just what they'd sent to Snyder's desk, they fell over themselves trying to distance themselves from it, including, inexplicably, the very representative who introduced the amendments to the bill in the first place. Confused yet? You're not the only one. House Speaker Kevin Cotter and Senate Majority Leader Arlen Meekhof were both quick to deny any claims that any legislator who voted for this bill didn't know exactly what they were getting into, while the aforementioned Rep. Lyons said there might be a need for a "follow-up" bill to clarify the original, though one has to question why there should be a need for that when you're the one that submitted the part of the bill that caused the issue in the first place.
Truthfully, I'm not sure what's more mind-boggling in all of this: The legislators that didn't read the bill they voted for, the ones that knew what was in it and voted for it anyway, or the ones who knew what was in it, voted for it, then claimed they didn't know what was in it!
How can this sort of thing be prevented? Some have suggested limiting the length of any bill submitted for a vote, some want a one issue-per-bill limit, others propose a comprehension test on the content of the bills. Personally, your humble correspondent would like to see these bills presented to the public in their final form before any vote is taken on them, for a sufficient amount of time (say, 24-48 hours) so as to allow both lawmakers and their constituents to read and comprehend what they're voting on, and to allow the represented to make their opinions known to their representatives accordingly.
Is it logistically possible? Perhaps not.
Is it better than the current state of perpetual plausible deniability in Lansing? Absolutely.
Would any of these proposals ever see the light of day? As long as there are still elected officials whose self-interest doesn't include reading legislation until after it's been passed, the answer to that question remains a resounding no.
Of course, as always, that last part is easily remedied. Because while the Michigan legislature can overturn the will of the people all day long with their votes, they have yet to find a way to legislate themselves back into office after being voted out.
No comments:
Post a Comment