Eight days to Halloween. (The kids need costumes!) And another eight to Election Day.
Tired of the countdown? Probably.
This is the weekly review of Michigan politics stories and a couple aren’t directly linked to that exhaustingly referenced, exceedingly analyzed event in November. (As if politics are ever about anything but elections, right?)
Pivot now to another fast-approaching date far less likely to be the all-consuming topic of newsmakers but hotly anticipated nonetheless in this outdoorsy state – the start of firearm deer season on Nov. 15. (Bow season already is underway.)
Hunters, be warned
As Jordyn Hermani reported on Thursday, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer rejected a proposal to reduce the penalty for failing to report a deer kill within 72 hours, a misdemeanor punishable by up to 90 days in jail or a fine ranging from $50 to $500.
House Bill 6354, sponsored by Rep. Michele Hoitenga, R-Manton, would have removed the possibility of jail time while also lowering the fine to $150.
READ HERE: Changes to Michigan’s 72-hour deer kill reporting laws shot down – for now
At issue is whether hunters should be required at all to make such a report. In June, Michigan’s Natural Resources Commission amended the Wildlife Conservation Order requiring mandatory deer harvest reporting beginning this season.
Hoitenga said she believed the new change exceeded the commission’s scope of authority. She is concerned too with the short timeline. There is no internet at deer camp, she noted.
Whitmer supports decriminalization, but says the bill was amended to limit state authorities’ ability to collect timely, high-quality information on deer harvests. This helps the state manage the deer population.
Hoitenga expects lawmakers will reintroduce the bill after the election.
Just like that, back to the election.
Canvassers, challengers and a clerk
It seems we can agree the election process has been more closely examined since Former President Donald Trump falsely claimed fraud led to his proven 2020 defeat. (More on that here from the Upper Peninsula Republican who led a report debunking stolen election conspiracies; it likely cost him any shot at statewide office.)
RELATED: A Michigan senator’s sermon and the sin of pushing stolen election lies
Some election authority news:
Simon Schuster reported Thursday: Southfield City Clerk Sherikia Hawkins pleaded no contest to one count of misconduct in office, four years after she tried to cover up an apparently accidental failure to count 193 absentee votes in the 2018 election.
READ HERE: Southfield City Clerk resigns after allegedly covering up miscounted 2018 votes
She also agreed to immediately resign her position as clerk following the plea.
Hawkins was first charged in 2019 and is one of several individuals in the states facing charges for small incidents of election irregularities.
And, from Reporter Ben Orner: Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson faces judicial scrutiny.
READ HERE: Michigan election challenger rules invalid, improperly enacted, court finds
Judge Brock Swartzle of the Court of Claims on Friday found Benson and others “exceeded their authority” when they made rules for election challengers published in a manual updated in May. This makes the rules invalid as the election fast approaches.
Among the rules, a ban on cell phones and electric devices at absentee vote counting boards.
Poll challengers are appointed by political parties to watch for wrongdoing, like whether a voter is registered or election workers are following law.
“This is an incredible victory for election integrity and the rule of law in Michigan,” Michigan Republican Party co-chair Ron Weiser said in a statement. The MIGOP and Republican National Committee brought the suit.
Speaking of Republicans, two Republican members of the Michigan Board of State Canvassers may not have acted in the “public trust” when they did not certify two ballot initiatives, now called Proposal 2 and Proposal 3, wrote Christina Grossi, chief deputy for Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel. They could be at risk of legal liability and removed from office due to violations of their clear duty, Grossi concluded.
A Democratic state senator had asked Nessel for her opinion.
READ HERE: State canvassers could face legal consequences, removal from office, AG office says in opinion
Richard Houskamp and Tony Daunt sided with opposition groups and took issue with line spacing and other concerns. They voted against advancing the proposals, which would expanding voting rights and amend the state constitution to include a right to make decisions about abortion and other reproductive care.
It took subsequent Michigan Supreme Court action to put the proposals, which garnered more than sufficient signatures, on the ballot.
Discourteous discourse
Nessel, up for reelection, supports Proposal 3 and abortion rights, staunchly.
Her opponent, Matt DePerno, has said he would prosecute under the state’s 1931 ban on abortion, now unenforceable by court order.
Life begins at conception, he told MLive after a recording revealed he said Michigan should disallow the morning-after pill, a contraceptive sometimes inaccurately confused as an abortion pill.
Throw out another issue and these two will have divergent opinions. They agree on, well, nothing.
READ HERE: Michigan AG race embodies ‘uniquely awful’ moment for campaign incivility
“I think Dana Nessel is a liar,” DePerno said.
He also calls her corrupt, incompetent and a coward.
“I find him to be so unworthy of this position, that it pains me to have to struggle to think of something that we can agree on,” said Nessel, who refers to DePerno as a “fundamentally flawed human being.”
This is the political space we inhabit.
Incivility peaked – or cratered – in the 1850s as the country hurtled toward civil war, one expert, Susan Herbst of the University of Connecticut, told Orner.
Aided by social media, people are even less courteous since she wrote a book, Rude Democracy, in 2008, and it’s “uniquely awful here in 2022.”
Let’s put culture war in another headline
Enter fervid conflicts over sex education, sexual orientation and gender.
Michigan House Republicans recently introduced legislation, House Bill 6454, to criminalize consenting to or assisting with a child’s gender transition procedure. The offense would be first-degree child abuse, punishable by a maximum of life in prison.
READ HERE: Michigan parents may face life in prison for providing minors gender-affirming care under bill
One of the bill’s co-sponsors, Rep. Beau LaFave, R-Iron Mountain, said he believes the legislation would prevent adults from making decisions for children too young to understand what it means to make “permanent, life-altering decisions on their bodies.”
“In the state of Michigan, you’re not old enough to have sex until you’re 16, but apparently you can chop off your genitals,” LaFave said. “I think that’s child abuse.”
This alarms some members of the LGBTQ communities.
“If you really take it for what it is, now we’re finding a way to demonize, and vilify parents who are just figuring out how to love and support their child as an individual, which is what we all need and want,” transgender rights activist Jey’nce Poindexter told Alyssa Burr.
Equality Michigan called the bill “disastrous” for transgender youth and their families.
The state legislature also has moved to ban drag queens in schools and transgender children in sports.
RELATED: Will anti-LGBTQ rhetoric by some in Michigan GOP raise cash, incite base?
Republicans are bottling the fervor.
Candidate for governor, Tudor Dixon, for one, is a supporter of such measures, like protecting girls sports and banning discussion of gender identity before fourth grade.
A new campaign ad says she will “put your kids first.”
There isn’t new money, though, to broadcast it in any spot that isn’t already devoted to the campaign.
READ HERE: Republicans still waiting on advertising cavalry for Tudor Dixon
Dixon continues to be vastly outspent in her attempt to unseat Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
Whitmer’s campaign and the Democratic Governors Association alone have spent or reserved a combined $39.4 million in broadcast advertising since the primary, according to AdImpact. By comparison, the Republican Governors Association and Michigan Families United have spent about $6 million.
“Isn’t that sad that Democrats have to spend so much money?” Dixon said in September.
Among other races with lopsided fundraising results, U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin, D-Lansing, raised $8.8 million and spent $6.5 this election cycle. Her challenger, Republican state Sen. Tom Barrett, R-Charlotte, raised $2.1 million, and had spent nearly all of it by the end of September.
READ HERE: Michigan’s closest U.S. House races report lopsided fundraising
Messing with the math
Ope. Remember when I said this wasn’t all about the election?
Schuster also this week completed our final detailed look at Michigan ballot proposals.
Proposal 1 would rejigger term limits and require elected officials make financial disclosures.
READ HERE: Proposal 1 aims to shake up Michigan government, but for better or worse?
Legislators can currently serve up to six years in the House, via three two-year terms, and eight years in the Senate in two four-year terms. That’s a 14-year lifetime limit.
The proposal instead would institute a single, 12-year limit that’s irrespective of chamber.
Proponents tout 12 being smaller than the current combined 14, while critics emphatically retort 12 is still way bigger than six or eight.
If passed, details of the financial disclosure requirement, watered down since its drafting, would have to be worked out by the legislature itself.
If you missed earlier links to the other two ballot proposals, they are here: Proposal 2 and Proposal 3.
Need details on how to vote?
Orner has your back. Find his guide here.
More from Michigan politics this week:
Whitmer’s resolve competes with Dixon’s cuts at Detroit economic forum
Whitmer vetoes GOP-backed legislation to limit governor’s emergency power
Probe into Shirkey-tied nonprofits continues; $2.33M conciliation agreement declined
Ex-House Speaker Lee Chatfield suspected of criminal enterprise, embezzlement
Bill emphasizes forestry firefighters inclusion for job-related cancer coverage
Students are academically recovering from the pandemic. Their test scores still haven’t.
Ballot preprocessing too late to speed up results, Michigan officials say
Law to draw in retired corrections officers may be the solution for strained MDOC staff
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October 23, 2022 at 07:00PM
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Deer kills, gender-affirming care, discourteous discourse: Your guide to Michigan politics - MLive.com
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