LANSING – A new committee unveiled itself, at least in social media, over the weekend to promote a change to a part-time legislature.
The Committee to Restore Michigan’s Part-Time Legislature was officially formed November 15, but launched its Internet presence over the weekend with a website, Facebook page and Twitter feed.
The website indicates the group intends to begin collecting signatures for a constitutional amendment to make the Legislature part-time, but does not yet have language for that petition posted.
Key players listed for the effort are James Chiodo, the treasurer, a retiree and member of the Ottawa County Patriots from Holland, and Michael Kuras, an engineer from Spring Lake. The committee address is Haveman Law Office in Zeeland. A message left at the committee’s listed telephone number was not returned Monday.
A video on the site indicates that the intention of the move is to return the Legislature to its structure prior to the current Constitution.
The narrator said in a video that the current Legislature is already actually part-time, though paid a full-time salary. “Today our legislators only serve 120 days of that year,” he said.
And he said the Legislature has not, as its members and governors have said, been able to improve the state’s economy.
“Since I have been alive I have witnessed Michigan slowly lose economic dominance,” Cameron said in the video. “History has shown our Legislature cannot solve our economic problems.”
The state can return to economic growth, he said, by returning the Legislature to part-time status.
There have been several low-budget attempts to place a constitutional amendment on the ballot to make Michigan’s Legislature part-time, but all have fallen well short of the minimum signature requirement.
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