| So, last week and the week before that, most of the state's newspapers spoke out in unison against five of the six ballot proposals. We've noted here before that the Very Serious Person ballot on Election Day would be a yes vote on 1, no on everything else. The state constitution, altered in 2008 to enshrine stem cell research, was now a sacred, hands-off document for policy goals (there is a semblance of reasonableness to this, but just a semblance). At the Freep, they referred to a state of Michigan the morning after a successful vote for any combination of them as Michigan the Unmanageable. During the campaign, the ad campaign against it featured talk about drug-dealing teachers and constitutional amendments. One of them even prominently featured the wise words of the Detroit News editorial page to the effect of, "This isn't even about collective bargaining." Yesterday: While Studley said it's up to the Legislature to decide whether to pursue Right-to-Work, he points out that labor tried to ban it before it was ever officially introduced, and he interprets Prop 2's defeat as a statement that voters want the Legislature to have the right to discuss the need for such laws.
That's the Chamber's CEO Rich Studley. The obvious answer is that, no, it is an incorrect interpretation of Tuesday's result that the voters want the Legislature to start talking about Right to Work. Why? Because the campaign against Proposal 2 never said anything about rejecting collective bargaining as a right. In fact, most of the people I know who voted against Proposal 2 think collective bargaining is a good idea. I leave it off that these are the same people generally speaking who were certain that Romney was going to win. |
