Protect Our Jobs goes to ballot; Bill Schuette a keen legal mind

by: Eric B.

Thu Sep 06, 2012 at 16:43:36 PM EDT

By now, most of you riveted to the DNC convention in Charlotte know that yesterday the state Supreme Court put the Protect Our Jobs question on the ballot and did it unanimously. And, it was done over the noisy and dumb objections from the Right, which insisted that it was just like Mark Brewer's RMGN proposal a few years back that would have shrunk the state Supreme Court and legislative pay all at the same time. In fact, the Detroit News is still sniffing over this.

The court majority ruled that the casino proposal did not give petition signers sufficient notice that the amendment would limit the constitutional authority of the state Liquor Control Commission.

In our view, the same reasoning that the court's majority applied to the casino amendment would have applied with equal force to the Protect Our Jobs proposal, which limits the authority of the Legislature and local governments to establish rules governing wages and working conditions, and the state Civil Service Commission, which loses similar authority over state civil service workers.

It's called grasping at straws to save face.  They spent the last two weeks braying about the far-reaching nature of the proposal, pointing endlessly to the Court of Appeals dissent rather than the reasoning in support. The attorney general's reasoning was dubious at best, a last best hope to make it good for his real constituents ... Republican primary voters who he wants to reward him with the party nomination for governor when he gets around to asking for it. The ballot question is narrowly tailored to one question, unlike the RMGN question, which asked about six questions all at once. The idea that it should be kept off the ballot because its supporters couldn't immediately identify what impacts it would have on existing law is an attractive one only to people who've never paid attention to the aftermath of a successful ballot question. They're still sorting out the aftermath of the medical marijuana question, which was argued by Schuette during the run-up to its passage was too vague for implementation (Michigan voters supported it by a two-thirds majority anyway).

The only question left is whether any of this ought to be sorted out by constitutional amendment. Stephen Henderson says, "Vote them all down!"

Collective bargaining, for example, is a pretty important tool for labor, one of the only ways for workers to exercise any leverage with management.

But that's not a constitutional right. And putting it into the constitution will handcuff employers, and specifically government employers, as they try to manage their enterprises. It would prevent the Legislature from keeping control of the kind of overly generous benefits or retirement packages that are now crushing local governments.

Let's be serious here. There isn't anything crushing about government benefits that properly investing in government couldn't solve, or getting back for pension funds money looted by Wall Street greedheads.

But, the galling thing about this is that this year's sheaf of ballot questions reflects not too-open a system, but a failure in the political process. Term limits and badly gerrymandered districts has created a state Legislature where dumb ideas rule because they have lots of money behind them. For instance, Henderson takes special issue with the 25x25 ballot question on the grounds that a compromise should be worked out in the Legislature.

The problem is that if the Legislature were to do anything with it, they'd repeal it not improve the program. It was already weak when adopted, and weak because the party now in charge didn't want to do it.

When you consider this year's number of ballot questions, a broken political system has to be part of the conversation. The reason some of this stuff is moving by way of the ballot is precisely the reason it was created ... a way for the people to make decisions their elected leaders were unable or unwilling to make. That's especially the case for 25x25.