LANSING – Supporters of repealing the requirement that retailers place a price tag on all goods they sell are nearing the end of a decades-long journey, and it seems remarkably anti-climactic for how charged the issue has long been.
The Senate Economic Development Committee, with little resistance, approved the bill (HB 4158 ) on a 5-1 vote as all five Republicans voted yes, one Democrat voted no and the other abstained.
Sen. Mike Kowall (R-White Lake Township) attributed the ease with which the bill is moving to a broader base of support. Although unions still object out of concern the legislation will lead to layoffs of workers charged with placing stickers on goods, the AARP supports the bill, as does former Attorney General Frank Kelley, a longtime defender of the item-pricing law. Kelley’s lobbying firm represents Wal-Mart, a supporter of the bill, but Kelley has said he had long since decided technological improvements rendered the item pricing law obsolete and his view had nothing to do with having Wal-Mart as a client.
Kowall said AARP’s position “gave it a great deal of comfort.”
“Those were the major roadblocks years ago,” he said of AARP and Kelley.
Kowall said he expected the bill to come up for a final vote in the Senate on Thursday. Presuming the Senate makes no amendments – it has not amended the bill so far – Senate passage would send the legislation to the desk of Gov. Rick Snyder, who called for the Legislature to move on the issue in his State of the State address.
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