May 17, 1996

Legislative Week in Review

• People who are terminally ill and desirous of not being resuscitated from respiratory or heart failure will get their wish. Governor Engler signed the Do-Not-Resuscitate Procedure Act (SB 452, now P.A. 193), requiring emergency medical personnel to abide by a patient’s formally declared do-not-resuscitate order.
• If legislation overwhelmingly passed by the Senate this week becomes law, deadbeat dads and moms will face revocation of their state-conferred licenses if they fall too far behind in child support payments. All occupational licenses will be fair game.
• As technology evolves, so does criminal activity. A package of bills designed to curb computer/telecommunication fraud passed the House after concerns about the privacy of intellectual property rights were partially resolved. House Bill 5749 allows for seizure of telecommunication property used in illegal pursuits; confiscated computer records would be placed under court supervision.
• Youthful criminals will find it harder laugh off the consequences of "kiddy court," under toughened guidelines in a 20-bill juvenile justice package passed by the House. Among the proposed new provisions are an expanded list of enumerated crimes for which a juvenile can be automatically waived to a higher court and tried as an adult, a lower age, 14, at which a youth may be waived from probate to circuit court and tried as an adult, and authority for probate court judges to try juveniles as adults without regard to age.
• Having already rejected the governor’s original idea to raid the Natural Resources Trust Fund to help pay for environmental cleanup, the Senate has passed a scaled-back version Engler’s cleanup plan. Left out of SB 919 are key but costly proposals that would have addressed leaking-underground-storage-tank problems not previously covered by the financially troubled Michigan Underground Storage Tank Financial Assurance Fund.

Political News

• Candidate filing day 1996, earlier this week, found embattled U.S. Rep. Barbara-Rose Collins (D-Detroit) with six Democratic primary opponents, including one state representative and two state senators. Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick and Sen. Henry Stallings have long been expected to make the attempt at unseating Collins, an incumbent saddled with alleged financial misdeeds. A primary opponent Collins probably hadn’t counted on is Sen. George Hart of Dearborn; Dearborn is not in Collins’s district—the 15th. It’s legit, however: One does not have to reside in a given district to run to represent it. Hart will unveil his strategy at a press conference next Monday.
• It’s official: More than a dozen Michigan House members will not be returning to the lower chamber next January. Democrats are Mike Bennane (D-Detroit), Maxine Berman (D-Southfield), Floyd Clack (D-Flint), Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick (D-Detroit), Joe Porreca (D-Trenton), and Tracy Yokich (D-St. Clair Shores); Alma Stallworth (D-Detroit) is expected also to be pulling out, with the hope that her son, who filed as a primary candidate in her district, will succeed her. Republicans seeking other pastures are William Bryant (R-Grosse Point), Willis Bullard (R-Milford), Walt DeLange (R-Grand Rapids), Jan Dolan (R-Farmington Hills), Carl Gnodtke (R-Sawyer), Speaker of the House Paul Hillegonds (R-Holland), John Jamian (R-Bloomfield Hills), and Susan Grimes Munsell (R-Brighton).
• Rep. Willis Bullard (R-Milford) soundly defeated colleague Rep. Barbara Dobb (R-Commerce Township) in the primary for the state Senate slot left open by the recent resignation of Sen. David Honigman (R-West Bloomfield). Dobb refiled to run for her House seat.