Michigan is getting more national attention--for the wrong reason.
Most Michigan residents are familiar with the recall petition drive against House Speaker Andy Dillon (D). The more savvy among them may even be familiar with how petition gatherers were harassed by police, township supervisors, and (naturally) Dillon and Democratic supporters.
Despite these obstacles petition gatherers collected 15,000+ signatures and filed them with the state--only to have them rejected by Michigan Secretary of State, Terri Lynn Land (R).
When I said national attention in the title I meant the attention of nationally syndicated columnist and radio host Paul Jacob. His recent article, The Rule of Law v. The Rule of Land, points out again how Michigan is again seems to be coming up on the short-end of the stick.
Having recently participated in gathering signatures for Ferndale's No PSD initiative and seeing first-hand how some parties directly affected by bad legislation aren't able to collect petition signatures against those same laws.
In the case of the PSD, the business owners that had to pay the Principal Shopping District tax (PSD) aren't allowed, by Ms. Land's rules, to collect petition signatures against it. Business owners had to rely on residents to do much of the work for them. Despite business owners' not-insignificant investment in our community they can not collect signatures because many aren't registered Ferndale electors.
That's not right. It's glad to know the Supreme Court agrees with me. It's disappointing to discover our secretary of state either disagrees or is ignorant of the issue. I suspect that after the appeal of her ruling she'll become more familiar with Buckley v ACLF.
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It shouldn't matter if you live in Dillion's precinct or not when collecting signatures.
ReplyDeleteThis is an issue that affects every resident in MI. and they should all be able to collect signatures since all are affected by it.