| You might have noticed the Right hooting over a Mitchell poll that says a majority of Michiganders like Right to Work. I don't know the first thing about methodology, but I do know that during the presidential campaign the same people hooting over this Mitchell poll were hooting over other Mitchell polls that had Romney up on Obama here in Michigan. Naturally, every other poll had Obama up, which explains much. The question that has to be asked is if Republicans are so confident that they've got the public, why not put Right to Work on the ballot, or remove the appropriation so that a referendum could be called? Mark Schauer. He says the protests are designed in part to prod the Legislature to make a “right-to-work” law subject to voter approval by either putting it directly on the ballot, or at least removing an appropriation that would make the law referendum-proof. It’s a tactic Republicans in Lansing have used on other controversial laws over the past two years to make sure voters cannot reject them the way they toppled the state’s emergency manager law last month. “That’s the least that this Legislature could do and a message that this governor could send is that, if they feel this is good policy, let the public have its say on it,” says Schauer.
The least the governor could do on the issue is exercise a little line item veto on the appropriation and open it up to a citizen's referendum. That is, unless he's really the giant fraud everyone thinks he is. Meanwhile, Henry Payne continues what amounts to today's conservative version of debating the issue. Remember when liberals were pro-choice?
We've seen this before. Republicans are the real environmentalists because of this. Republicans are the real feminists because of this. Republicans are the real friends to immigrants because of this. In this case, the choice already exists. A worker in a union shop can opt to not be in the union. The fee they have to pay to opt out (this is where there's choice), covers the expenses related to the union still negotiating on that person's behalf. Allowing that person to opt-out without paying it is playing a game of makers and takers, with the ironic twist being that Republicans are in this case in favor of welfare bums. |
