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 — Although the national spotlight has been focused on leading Democrats refusing to participate in the Jan. 15th Presidential primary, while Republicans are all on board, another issue is the talk of lobbyists in Lansing.
Ballot issues. And how those ballot issues might impact the primary voting.
“Some of the fallout are that other things are going to be tagged on the ballot,” said Bill Lukens of Capital City Associates. “If they put the tax issue on the ballot, you are going to have all these anti-tax people come out and you will shove the whole outcome to the right.”
Continued -But Bill Ballenger, editor of Inside Michigan Politics and former Republican representative, said he doubts the tax issue is going to be on the ballot.
“First of all I think it is dubious that they are going to put a tax issue on the ballot,” he said. “The only person who has talked about it is Andy Dillon and he has met a stonewall.”
Ballenger said the business community is opposed to such a ballot move.
However, Ballenger said there are two other issues which might appear on the ballot.
The first is a ballot measure to “clean up the Constitution.” The measure would remove items that have been found Unconstitutional.
“It does not involve anything anyone would be concerned about, unless you believe it is a nefarious and concealed plot,” Ballenger said.
The second issue which might find its way onto the Jan. 15 primary ballot is a measure to change term limits. Under the new provision, elected officials could serve no more than 12 years in the state legislature, as either a representative and or a senator. Currently, an elected official could serve as many as 14 years.
The final issue Ballenger thinks might find its way onto the ballot is a move to force the state to pass a budget by June 30 of every year.
“If they don’t meet that deadline they have to stay in continuous session and don’t get paid until they pass it,” Ballenger said.
“These (ballot measures) might bring out a lot of people to punish the politicians,” said Ballenger. “What that would do in a Presidential primary I don’t know.”
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