June 9, 1994

Legislative Week in Review

• House lawmakers bit off the first key recommendation of a legislative ethics panel by banning officeholder expense funds. HB 4837, spearheaded by a bipartisan group of 21 first-term legislators, passed 97-3. Supporters hailed the measure as a way to curb potential abuse of monies often perceived by the public as slush funds. Other reforms urged by the Joint Legislative Ethics Committee—including a ban on all cash honoraria and better record-keeping of legislative expenses paid by lobbyists—are likely to receive House approval before the chamber recesses.
• Unanimous rejection in the House of Senate changes in the regulatory budget proposed for the departments of Commerce and Labor sent HB 5266 to conference committee this week. Disagreements over the disposition of cultural grants and the assignment of Commerce and Labor employees to other state departments continue to defy legislative compromise. In other budget bill news, House concurrence in Senate changes to the Department of Agriculture budget (HB 5254) sent that appropriation of just under $43 million in general funds to the governor for signature. It is the tenth of 18 spending bills to clear the legislature for the 1994–95 fiscal year. The Department of Social Services (DSS) budget cleared the House on its second try this week. HB 5264 earmarks $2.2179 billion in general fund spending. The higher education budget also passed the House this week, with representatives approving SB 986 with a general fund spending level of $1.356 billion. Neither the higher education nor DSS appropriations bills attracted an adequate majority to give the measures immediate effect, however.
• Unusually specific legislation passed the House this week concerning the candidate filing deadline for the 4th Senate District seat vacated by the sudden death last month of Sen. David Holmes. HB 4093, which has already passed the Senate and has Governor Engler’s support, extends the filing deadline for the seat. The prime beneficiary of the measure is Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick (D-Detroit) who originally filed for the seat, then withdrew on learning of Holmes’s plan to run again. Holmes died 11 days after the filing deadline. A special election for the seat’s unexpired term running through December 31 has been set, with primary balloting on August 2 and a general election date coinciding with the statewide ballot on November 8. Representative Kilpatrick is reportedly not planning to enter the special election, in which Representative Holmes’s widow has expressed interest. Were Kilpatrick to enter and win the special Senate election for the lame-duck legislative session, her necessary resignation from her current House seat would give that evenly split chamber a one-vote Republican majority during November and December.

Political News

• To the very end, consensus on assisted suicide eluded the state’s Commission on Death and Dying, which sent a final report containing three conflicting recommendations and a sheaf of appendices to the legislature this week. Meantime, the Michigan Supreme Court is scheduled to hear appeals beginning in October in five different cases challenging the constitutionality of the state’s ban on assisted suicide and involving criminal charges against its best-known proponent, Dr. Jack Kevorkian.
• Will State Insurance Commissioner David Dykhouse leave his post? Detroit’s major daily newspapers and Lansing’s legislative reporting services say yes, indicating that the impeccably credentialed Wall Street attorney and Milliken administration Insurance Bureau chief might be an election year liability, due to "lack of political savvy."
• The National Rifle Association will work on improving its image, according to its new national president. Michigan United Conservation Clubs Executive Director Thomas L. Washington was elected to a one-year term as head of one of the nation’s most powerful interest groups. "Clearly, we [the NRA] don’t have the right image, or the image we deserve," he said in a Detroit News interview.