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.
With only five hours to go before the state government turns into a pumpkin, here’s a rundown of what’s going on.
First, we have two outstanding budget bills that have not passed the House: The general government operations budget, which includes the massive cuts in revenue sharing, and the K-12 school budget, which includes nearly $400 million in cuts to local schools. In both cases, the votes were taken and the bills were decisively voted down by about a 2/1 margin but the leadership pulled the plug on the vote in order to go back and try to change some of those votes and get the bills through.
In neither case are they likely to succeed. With each bill only getting around 30-35 votes in the initial running, they would have to get 20-25 legislators to change their votes. That seems very unlikely. And if those bills don’t pass, we don’t have a budget for the governor to sign and the government shuts down. Unless…
A continuing resolution is signed that keeps the government operating for 30 days while the negotiations for a permanent budget continues. Both the Senate and the House have passed such resolutions, but the Senate did not take an “immediate effect” vote, a procedural vote with a required two-thirds majority to make the bill effective immediately upon the governor’s signature. Without that vote, the bill could not go into effect until March 2010. The House did take an immediate effect vote on their continuing resolution.
Gov. Jennifer Granholm can’t sign a continuing resolution without an immediate effect vote because, obviously, it wouldn’t actually do anything. But at this point, the Senate is refusing to take such a vote because they’re still hoping that the House will pass those last two budget bills and the permanent budget will get done.
Nor is it even clear that Granholm will sign a continuing resolution if the Senate does finish passing one. In 2007, she refused to sign a continuing resolution unless there was a framework in place for the permanent budget. That is what resulted in the government shutdown on Oct. 1, 2007. It is unknown at this point whether she will take the same position this year.
Bottom line: This is a high-stakes game of chicken. And if neither side blinks in the next five hours, the state government shuts down at midnight.
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