February 2, 1996

Legislative Week in Review

• State insurers will gain more leeway in setting rates if a controversial bill passed in the Senate this week is upheld by the House and signed by the governor. House Bill 5177 would eliminate current restrictions that require insurance companies to use rating territories and to cap price differences between adjacent territories. Opponents claim that the measure will sharply hike rates of drivers and homeowners with accident records or who live in areas that have high theft and accident rates. Supporters point out that with insurers not mandated to use territorial ratings, insurance costs can be based more on individual risk and less on geographical area, and they argue that the measure will increase competition, which acts to keep rates in line. The bill passed the Senate 29–8.
• Michigan now is one of only two states without a law against incest, but that would change under legislation passed by the House this week. Sex between close relatives, if one of the parties is younger than age 16, is banned under Michigan criminal sexual conduct statutes, but the same prohibition does not now apply if both parties are 16 or older. The discrepancy came about in 1975, when the criminal sexual conduct laws were revised. House Bill 5076, which passed without dissent, prohibits incest between people 16 and older but precludes prosecution if a party can establish that s/he was coerced or controlled by the other party.

Political News

• Today’s word is "ubiquitous" and it describes Gov. John Engler’s placement in the intergalactic network of political career speculation. Never mind that large photo in last week’s New York Times Magazine depicting Engler looking more at home in House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s office than Gingrich did. And leaving aside the London Economist magazine’s admonition to readers not to be surprised if " a roly-poly 47-year-old from Mt. Pleasant . . . one day pops up as president." Now comes the current issue of Time magazine, which proposes Michigan’s chief executive as a likely compromise choice of a deadlocked GOP nominating convention in the wake of a Dole-disappointed primary season. "Flattering, but highly unlikely," Engler’s press secretary told the Lansing State Journal about Time’s expostulation. By any measure, that’s a lot of buzz in a ten-day period.
• Reactions are sharply mixed to a proposed $82-million statewide environmental cleanup project announced this week by Department of Environmental Quality director Russell Harding. That sum would be committed annually for the next 20–40 years to restore contaminated sites, many of them urban. The concept generally is conceded to be the good news; what drew quick protests from environment groups is the plan to fund some $25 million of the annual budget from the Natural Resources Trust Fund, the proceeds of which are constitutionally earmarked for acquiring recreation land for public use in perpetuity. The proposed trust fund transfer—or "raid," depending on which side of this issue one is on—represents the bulk of the fund’s annual revenue, which derives from royalties on extraction of the nonrenewable oil and gas deposits under state-owned property.
• The more things change, the more they... resemble politics. Consider Wyandotte mayor James DeSana, who once was a Democratic state senator (1977–86) until replaced by Christopher Dingell (D-Ecorse). A decade later, DeSana is back, newly Republican, and declaring a challenge for the congressional seat held for the past 22 terms by U.S. Rep. John Dingell (D-Trenton), Senator Dingell’s father.
• An ambitious cooperative program to boost the state’s lackluster immunization rate for toddlers was unveiled this week. State health care providers are teaming with the Michigan State Medical Society and the Department of Public Health in an effort to bring Michigan’s vaccination rate of two-year-olds up from dead last nationally. The current rate is 61 percent, and the goal of the initiative is 90 percent.