LANSING -- Pretty much everyone in Michigan says they are fed up with the high cost of government and the greed and selfishness of the mitten state's politicians.
Not to worry -- help is on the way, says Dianne Byrum, a spokesman for a mysterious new group called "Reform Michigan Government Now!" They believe they have just the prescription, and are fighting to get it on the ballot in November.
What they are offering is a monster of a state constitutional amendment. Most such amendments seek to change one thing.
This one would rewrite large portions of Michigan's Constitution. It would roll back a legislative pay increase, chopping lawmakers' salaries by 38 percent -- and then roll back the legislature itself. Ten state Senate seats would be eliminated by the proposal. Twenty-eight seats in the lower house would be gone too.
Nor does it stop there. The governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state and attorney general would have their salaries cut by 25 percent. Judicial salaries would be cut by 15 percent. More lower court judges would be added; some court of appeals and supreme court judgeships would be eliminated entirely.
Additionally, the ballot proposal would bring what virtually everyone agrees is badly needed reform to Michigan's redistricting process. It would put the process in the hands of a bipartisan panel. (Currently, districts are heavily gerrymandered in favor of the Republicans; Democrats are hoping to return the non-favor in 2011.)
The Reform Michigan amendment would allow you to get an absentee ballot for any reason. Campaign finance laws would be toughened and improved to increase openness. Anyone who served in the executive branch would be barred from lobbying for two years.
And on and on. Thirty-five sections of the Michigan Constitution would be entirely rewritten. That is, if voters get a chance to vote on this and choose to pass the entire package.
That's not easy to do. In order to get this on the ballot, Reform Michigan Government Now! (hereafter, RMGN) has to present the secretary of state with at least 380,000 valid signatures by Monday. Practically speaking, since some are bound to be invalid, they need a cushion of maybe 70,000 more. That's a pretty tall order ...
Until you learn they have paid canvassers criss-crossing the state, and have had for weeks. Who is paying for this, I asked Byrum, a former Democratic leader in the state House and Senate.
Though she had just been arguing for greater openness, she refused to tell me, saying only, "It will be disclosed at the proper time." Nor was she forthcoming about who was behind the movement, except to claim it's a grass-roots, good-government effort.
State Republicans say it is nothing of the kind, but "a stealth petition drive being pushed by trial lawyers and liberal Democrats," says Saul Anuzis, Michigan Republican state chair.
In fact, the Republican charges are right, says Bill Ballenger, who edits and publishes a non-partisan newsletter, Inside Michigan Politics. "Almost certainly, Michigan Democratic Party Chairman Mark Brewer is the ringleader," said Ballenger.
"He may have even written the proposal himself," he added. The "bipartisan" nature of the movement seems limited to its treasurer, Harland Nye, an 80-year-old retired high school band director who once said he was a Republican, but who now doesn't talk to the press.
Nobody has made copies of the whole amendment available to the public. Newspapers across the state report many cases in which voters said that petition circulators flat-out lied to them about what the amendment would do.
Rich Robinson, director of the non-partisan Michigan Campaign Finance Network, said that while many of the amendment's provisions are attractive, it did appear that fraudulent measures were being taken to get signatures. He added the fact that the group doesn't have to report its financing for weeks is another example of what is wrong with the system.
Yet even if RMGN gets enough signatures, it may never see the ballot. That's because legal challenges are regarded as certain, and the case may ultimately be decided by the Michigan Supreme Court. And ironically, that is where the proposal is at its partisan worst.
The proposal would eliminate two of the seven high justices, and it was artfully written to knock off two of the five Republican justices -- but not Elizabeth Weaver, the only one who occasionally votes with the two Democrats. That means, Ballenger said, that is is certain that a "majority will find a legal reason to invalidate the proposal and rule it off the ballot," if it indeed gets that far. (The proposed amendment would also eliminate seven appeals court judgeships, all but one of whom is now held by a Republican.)
Naturally, if the Michigan Supreme Court did issue such a conflict-of-interest-ridden decision, it could give the Democrats a huge issue this fall, when Republican Chief Justice Clifford Taylor has to run for reelection. They would, however, have one problem:
They still haven't been able to find a candidate to run against Taylor, largely because in Michigan, incumbent judges almost never lose. Stay tuned.
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