I am writing today to announce the closure of the Michigan Messenger. After four years of operation in Michigan, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news into a single site, The American Independent at Americanindependent.com. This is part of a shift in strategy, towards new forms [...]
An abstinence-only presentation provided to numerous school districts in Calhoun and Eaton Counties in October of this year provided false and misleading information to students about HIV, experts allege.
Two county registers of deeds filed a class action lawsuit Monday on behalf of Michigan’s 83 counties alleging that the Mortgage Electronic Registration Services owes millions of dollars in property title transfer taxes.
Despite evidence of the impact of mercury on children and public health, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette last month joined with 24 other state attorneys general in filing a lawsuit to scuttle new EPA regulations that would reduce mercury emissions from power plants.
LANSING – The flap over the vote for the sales tax increase in the wee hours Monday morning has led Senate Democrats to introduce Senate Resolution 114 Thursday to amend the Senate Standing Rules to ensure there are no secret votes.
The trouble began around 3 a.m. Monday when the Senate was voting to give immediate effect to House Bill 5198. The bill to tax certain services had passed earlier with a 19-19 tie broken by Lt. Gov. John Cherry. Since the state government had been shut down at midnight, Cherry called for a vote to give the bill immediate effect instead of the normal procedure that says a bill only takes effect 90 days after the end of the legislative session.
Immediate effect takes a two-thirds vote or approval by 26 Senators. However, those votes are not recorded in the Senate journal, and a photographer from the Senate Democratic Caucus was taking photos of the board. A number of Senate Republicans objected to that, and Sen. Randy Richardville, R-Monroe, then ordered all Senate staff off the floor.
Continued -Subscription-only Gongwer reported, “In the process a news photographer began shooting the voting board – Senate rules forbid photographing a non-roll call vote – and several senators shouted the photographer should be thrown off and one demanded his tape be confiscated. A sergeant stood with the photographer while that portion of the tape was erased.” However, it cannot be verified if that incident actually took place.
Senate Republican leadership says the Senate rules bar the media from taking photos of the vote board during unrecorded votes. In an email response Carol Viventi, the Secretary of the Senate, said “Consequently, no one, media included can take pictures of the board when it is an unrecorded vote.” But that’s news to some regular media that cover the Capitol on a regular basis. Phillip Hendricks, the news director at Lansing TV station WLNS, said he has never heard of that rule.
“I don’t know of any policy that prohibits us filming anything,” he said. “We have never had a problem, and we film what ever we want.”
Senate Minority Leader Mark Schauer, D-Battle Creek, said the caucus photographer was shooting the board at his request, and he and the caucus attorney checked for any written policy that prohibited staff from shooting photos of the board. He said any change in Senate rules must be approved by a vote of the full Senate. Schauer said he received a letter from Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop, R-Rochester, in response to what rules were used to stop the board from being photographed that cited a policy Schauer said he cannot find, and he also said he cited “long-standing custom and usage” as the precedent for banning visual recording of the vote board for non-record votes. Schauer said the so-called long-standing custom violates both the spirit of the Open Meetings Act and the Constitution.
“We have no right as Senators to cast votes in secret,” Schauer said. “I will always error on the side of openness.”
The resolution will amend the standing rules to allow no secret votes, and to allow the press, public and staff to photograph the board at any point in the Senate session.
“Our First Amendment is clear, our Constitution is clear, our rules are clear – the public has a right to know how we represent them in this chamber,” Schauer said in a press release. “The resolution we offer today should not even be necessary, but it will once and for all end any perception that there are secret votes in this Senate.”
The Senate Republican Caucus did not return phone calls.
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