| If we had a media worthy a functioning democracy, we'd see more stuff like this. Proposal 5 is another maneuver by billionaire Ambassador Bridge owner Manuel “Matty” Moroun to try to stop construction of the proposed New International Trade Crossing bridge linking Detroit and Windsor.The proposal made the ballot thanks to the signatures Moroun’s paid workers collected and a state Supreme Court order overturning a Board of State Canvassers rejection of the proposal. That is, we'd see more analysis of the individual ballot proposals, rather than just the lumped, "It's dumb!" that we've mostly seen so far. Each measured based on its merits, and each judged accordingly. Now, you might still come to the conclusion that each individual idea is good but not good enough for the constitution, but at least there's a better chance at some point that someone would have to answer, "So, why do people want all this stuff in the constitution, where it plainly doesn't belong?' The answer, as we've noted here before, is that it's not the citizens' initiative process that's broken in this state, it's the political process. I mean, there's nothing wrong with people bringing a question before the people, and if it's a single person or a single organization doing this, then it's supposed to be the job of the media to identify this so voters know they're being asked to vote to enrich someone's coffers. That's happened before. What's broken is that we have a political process run entirely by one ideology, a small, narrow ideology that rejects ideas out of hand that don't come from within and they've been empowered by the way state government has been shaped through the years, primarily through term limits. That, in turn, has left a wide sweep of the populace feeling unrepresented and with their only recourse to change state law themselves. In addition, this state Legislature is arrogant enough that it feels that it can re-dictate to the people what the people enacted themselves. The other day, f'rinstance, Skubick had a piece about medical marijuana in which Rick Jones wants a redo on the ballot. So, there's a lack of confidence that the Legislature will actually abide by the wishes of the electorate. The solution to that is changing the constitution so the Legislature is compelled to follow laws enacted over its wishes. Again, you can wave off this year's slate of ballot proposals with a "pish-posh," but until you're willing to address the underlying causes that created it, you're doing neither anything useful or substantial. |
