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.
Today’s story on the would-be reformers of Michigan’s Sex Offender Registry (and the laws that govern how it works) notes an analysis conducted earlier this year from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children which concludes that Michigan’s registry has more people on it as a percentage of the state’s population than any other state.
But a related detail that didn’t make it into the story is that the broad reach of the registry has also reached into the Michigan Legislature itself.
According to Shelli Weisberg, legislative director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan, there are now lawmakers (plural) with more than a passing interest in the registry.
“Another thing — and we knew that it would come sooner or later — is that we do have now two representatives now in the Michigan legislature who have family members that have been affected by the registry,” Weisberg told Michigan Messenger.
She declined to name names, but she did add this: “Not that we wish for anyone to have a family member on the registry but it just goes to show you how pervasive this is becoming.”
As a matter of perspective, the state legislature has 148 members (110 in the House; 38 in the Senate), and so that works out to 1.3 percent of the legislature’s membership with family affected by the registry. Overall, Michigan’s Sex Offender Registry includes nearly .5 percent of the state’s entire population on it. That’s the same as 472 registered sex offenders for every 100,000 Michiganders, according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children analysis.
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