LANSING – Voters looked at the dreams of unions, anti-tax activists, environmentalists and Ambassador Bridge owner Manuel “Matty” Moroun on Tuesday’s ballot and stomped them to smithereens.
In a resounding victory for Governor Rick Snyder, Attorney General Bill Schuette, business interests, those wanting to retain flexibility to raise new revenue and backers of a new bridge to Canada, voters by overwhelming margins rejected the five constitutional amendments on the ballot.
Governor Rick Snyder said the defeat of the constitutional amendments sent “a big message.”
“They could’ve derailed Michigan’s economic comeback. We were the sixth fastest-growing state in the nation last year,” he said. “We should be proud of that and I want to keep up a great track record there and this helps make that happen by seeing those proposals go down.”
As for the “yes on 1 no on the rest” campaign, he said he didn’t worry about credit, but thought the campaign was helpful because there were so many misleading ads.
“I continued to get mail at home, yesterday, with misleading ads on these proposals. So that just reinforced what I thought was right to go out and do a bus tour to communicate to our citizens and allow them to ask me questions directly with that information, so I could help clarify and give them better information to make a good decision,” he said, referring to his statewide bus tour in the waning weeks before the election.
Schuette was also pleased with the progress he had been seeing through about 11 p.m., especially as the message to “vote yes on 1 and no on the rest” seemed to carry weight with voters. Schuette played a starring role in many of the ads against Proposal 12-2, the collective bargaining proposal.
He called the apparent defeat of all the proposals “a good spanking for those who want to mess with the Constitution,” and said he thought the concerted effort to defeat Proposals 2-6 had paid off.
“I think that (the defeated proposals) will go down is a statement that people don’t want to go do end-runs around the Constitution, don’t monkey with the Constitution, don’t mess with it,” he said. “If you want to discuss pension reform or health care or energy policy, there’s a way to do it. It’s called the legislative process. Don’t try to end-run the system and embed it in the Constitution. Don’t mess with it.”
Republican Party Chair Bobby Schostak said defeating the collective bargaining proposal was very critical, as “it would’ve been a closed for business sign up on the state,” he said, speaking to members of the media at the election night party at Lansing Center.
Asked if any changes should be made to the process to get items on the ballot, Schostak said he would ultimately leave that up Legislature. He said suggestions he has heard have included changing the number of signatures needed or having distribution through the congressional districts “or something that might be completely representative of the entire state as they gather signatures,” he said.
“We don’t want to be California. We want our Constitution to remain intact,” he said. “It’s the framework of government, it’s not to be the governing body for laws and policy but more the overall structure of our government and I think there are overall down the road, folks will be talking about ways to improve it.”
VOTERS DENY WIDE-RANGING COLLECTIVE BARGAINING RIGHTS: The most anticipated and expensive showdown between unions and business interests over Proposal 12-2, which would have enshrined the right to collective bargaining in the Constitution and blocked any law infringing on that right, went overwhelmingly to business. With 92 percent of the precincts reporting, 58 percent of voters voted no while just 42 percent voted yes.
Both sides spent at least a combined $45 million on the fight.
“We are thankful to the bipartisan coalition of small businesspeople, farmers, educators, manufacturers, job-providers, taxpayers and citizens that protected the Michigan Constitution by standing up against the negative campaign waged by union bosses and special interests,” said Rich Studley, president and CEO of the Michigan Chamber of Commerce, and the one who spearheaded a coalition to stop most of the proposals. “Michigan union bosses have squandered tens of millions of their members’ dollars on misleading, divisive and unnecessary campaigns that served little purpose other than to fuel their partisan agenda and divide our state.”
For unions, it was a massive defeat, and one they struggled to acknowledge in a statement.
“Corporate special interests spent $32 million lying to voters to confuse them, saying Proposal 2 was not about collective bargaining,” Protect Working Families said in a statement. “Working people will continue the fight to ensure a voice for fair wages, benefits and safe working conditions that benefit us all.”
Initially, the proposal was expected to simply pre-empt a right-to-work law. Then the unions surprised everyone with a sweeping, broad proposal that would have erased many of the business-friendly laws passed during the Engler era and the past two years.
Laws that were likely to be challenged in court if the proposal passed were those setting the maximum amount public employers could spend on their employees’ health insurance and barring public university graduate student research assistants from organizing, among many others.
The open-ended nature of the proposal presented a wide target for the coalition of business groups and business executives – which included many members of the DeVos family – to run a devastating series of commercials raising the specter of teachers remaining on the job despite convictions for sex offenses.
RENEWABLE ENERGY PROPOSAL DUSTED: Proponents of Proposal 12-3 vowed to continue their fight despite the election night loss. The proposal would have established a constitutional amendment to increase the state’s renewable energy standard to 25 percent by 2025, up from the current 10 percent by 2015.
“The energy monopolies outspent us 5 to 1. They used fear and misinformation to confuse voters who do support renewable energy,” Mark Fisk, spokesperson for proponent group Michigan Energy Michigan Jobs, said in a phone interview. “Our coalition, which is very broad-based and bipartisan, is committed to staying together until we increase the use of renewable energy in Michigan.”
Asked if he would lobby the Legislature or try to create another proposal for another election year, Fisk said he would not rule anything out at this point.
“We’re going to regroup and talk but there is widespread consensus among the groups to keep advocating and keep fighting. I think the opponents were spewed a poison cloud of misinformation, fear and distortion and put $40-to-50 million behind (the proposal), and I think that did confuse and scare voters,” he said, referring to having not only an opposition group but groups that opposed all of the constitutional amendments and generalized that voters’ decision should be to say no to all of them.
With 92 percent of the precincts reporting, the proposal was failing by a 63-to-37 percent tally.
Clean Affordable Renewable Energy, the group against Proposal 3 that was largely funded by DTE Energy and Consumers Energy, was pleased with the election results.
“The overwhelming rejection of Proposal 3 is an endorsement that the state’s existing energy policy is working. Voters understand that out-of-state billionaires should not be driving Michigan’s energy future,” Howard Edelson, campaign manager for CARE, said in a statement. “They also recognized the state’s hometown energy providers are continuing their commitment to renewable energy projects, and protecting the environment while keeping costs down.”
HOME CARE WORKER PROPOSAL CRUSHED: So annoyed were voters with the rash of ballot proposals that they overwhelmingly rejected Proposal 12-4 to allow the state’s home care workers to unionize and have a registry of those workers despite a lack of concerted opposition. Backers spent $10 million with no direct response from opponents other than the “don’t mess with the Constitution” message.
Their reward was a 57 percent to 43 percent thrashing with 92 percent of the precincts reporting.
The Service Employees International Union poured millions into Proposal 4 after Governor Rick Snyder and the Republican-led Legislature enacted a law barring the workers from unionizing and then defunded the registry in the budget. Critics said the union provided no benefits to the workers, since the state has total control over their wages, and the unionization was nothing more than a way for the SEIU to tap into the taxpayers’ wallets for dues.
“Although we are disappointed in the election results, senior and disability rights advocates across Michigan will continue our efforts to advocate for a strong registry that links home care recipients with trained home care providers who have passed criminal background checks,” said Dohn Hoyle, leader of Citizens for Affordable Quality Health Care. “We look forward to working with Governor Snyder and the Legislature to ensure that seniors and people with disabilities have the choice to direct their own care in their own homes, as an alternative to costly nursing homes and other institutions.”
TAX INCREASE LIMITATION: From early on it seemed evident that Proposal 12-5, a constitutional amendment to require a two-thirds vote from the Legislature or a statewide vote from the people to raise taxes, lacked the firepower to win. Yet, with Michigan’s anti-tax history, it seemed it had a chance.
Rich Studley, president and CEO of the Michigan Chamber of Commerce, said in an interview at the election night event for the Republican Party that his organization had an easy decision to make on that proposal and was pleased to see that voters saw it the same way.
“We have been a responsible leader in Michigan’s tax limitation movement for over 30 years. But this is another example … that these ballot proposals, none of them were genuine grassroots initiatives,” he said of the proposal. “A lot of (the proposals) were bankrolled by either a handful of government employee union bosses or wealthy individuals or out of state interests. I also think that’s part of the reason that it looks like all five of the constitutional amendments have failed.
“Voters recognized that, as they learned more about these proposals, these were out of state groups with national agendas, government employee union bosses or other powerful special interest groups trying to line their pockets by amending the state Constitution,” he said.
Scott Hagerstrom with Americans for Prosperity, which supported the proposal, said the election was not a total loss for the group. While Proposal 5 was defeated, Proposal 2 and Proposal 3, which the group had actively opposed, also were defeated.
“At this point looks like a status quo election,” Hagerstrom said in a phone interview.
He said the loss on Proposal 5 was a credit to Governor Rick Snyder. “The people of Michigan are giving the governor the benefit of the doubt,” he said. “They want to see the rest of his economic plan play out.”
But he said the group would continue to oppose any efforts at tax increases. “We look forward to fighting for limited government and economic liberty,” he said.
The proposal was suffering the worst defeat of the bunch, 69 percent to 31 percent with 92 percent of the precincts reporting.
One surprise with the proposal was that while the Moroun family, owners of the Ambassador Bridge, paid to gather the signatures to put the issue on the ballot, it did not fund advertisements for it. That allowed opponents – from both sides of the political spectrum nonetheless – to carve it up.
‘THE PEOPLE’ MAROON THE MOROUNS ON PROPOSAL 6: The Moroun family dipped into its fortune for more than $33 million to require a statewide vote to build any new international bridge or tunnel in a bid to create a big hurdle to the proposed new bridge downriver from theirs connecting Detroit and Windsor, Ontario.
The record spending on one side of a ballot proposal, in Proposal 12-6, with the endless ads, mailings and phone calls proved futile, with voters dumping the proposal: 60 percent said no and 40 percent said yes with 91 percent of the precincts reporting. Again and again, the mantra was “The people should decide,” but voters didn’t buy it.
The Morouns instead turned their sights to citizens and the Legislature to hold the government accountable on the New International Trade Crossing.
“It is clear the voters resisted amending the Constitution, but it would be a mistake to assume taxpayers support a flawed government bridge that puts taxpayers at risk,” Mickey Blashfield, spokesperson for proponent group The People Should Decide, said in a statement. “Proposal 6 successfully invited public scrutiny of the $3.5 billion government proposal. We have full confidence that the citizens, Legislature, and financial community will continue to hold any bridge to its promises of ‘not one dime of taxpayer money.”
But Blashfield also said he expected other groups with a vested interest in the proposal may step forward before the NITC is built.
“If the governmental proposal doesn’t collapse from the weight of legal and congressional scrutiny, the NITC will never be built over unstable salt mine foundations, where land speculators are lining up to get rich on the government’s tab,” he said.
Canadian Consul General Roy Norton, on hand at the Lansing Center with Governor Rick Snyder, was pleased with early results that had shown the proposal would likely be defeated.
“We saw (the proposal) as self-serving, opportunistic and cynical. But we weren’t surprised at (Moroun’s) behavior. He’s trying to maintain a monopoly,” he told members of the media the GOP election night party. “It looked for a time as if he might successfully snow a lot of people. In the end, the people seemed to have seen through it and it’s a bit of a double-edged sword when you invite the people to decide and the people reject your hypothesis.”
Norton complimented the work of Governor Snyder and Lt. Governor Brian Calley to defeat the proposal and said that his role was rather minimal as compared to theirs regarding the proposal.
“I was there to explain facts. The government of Canada was implicitly accused of lying in these commercials because we said it wasn’t going to cost Michigan money, and more than 30 million bucks was spent to tell Michiganders that it was going to cost you folks a lot of money,” Norton said. “I was there to reassure and stipulate that it in fact was not going to cost Michigan money. So that argument seems to have carried today, not just from me but from the governor who repeated it over and over again, but the lieutenant governor and a lot of other folks.”
Larry Merrill, executive director of the Michigan Townships Association, issued a statement regarding the defeat of both Proposal 5 and Proposal 6.
“The wisdom of the voters prevailed in today?s election with the defeat of Proposal 5 and the upholding of the democratic process of majority rule in Michigan,” he said in a statement. “With the defeat of Proposal 6, it is clear the voters understand the importance of the infrastructure needed to invest in the state’s economy and the positive aspects of completing a second span between Detroit and Windsor. It is reassuring to know the bridge will ultimately be built which will benefit trade for the State of Michigan for the next century.”
Taxpayers Against Monopolies, the group aiming to defeat Proposal 6, also issued a statement regarding the results of the proposal.
“This was a significant win for Michigan and Governor Snyder, who continues to push Michigan’s economic reinvention and understands the NITC is vital to grow jobs, trade opportunities for our employers, travel and tourism, and to establish our position as a hub to the global economy for the rest of this century,” Tom Shields, spokesperson for the group, said in a statement. “We call on Matty Moroun to put down the lawsuits and call off the lawyers and stop this insistent effort to delay this vital project. It’s time to move forward. It’s time we build the bridge.”
The proposal appeared to genuinely anger a broad array of the state like no other.
“I hope I didn’t invalidate my ballot by writing ‘Suck it Moroun’ next to Proposal 6,” Ryan Kazmirzack, a Republican activist, posted from one of his social media accounts Tuesday night.
This story was provided by Gongwer News Service. To subscribe, click on Gongwer.Com
