June 13, 1997

Legislative & Political Week in Review

• Odds are that the 21-bill casino regulation package won’t be completed by the Senate this week. Completion of an 18-bill package in the House also is a long shot, although both sides in both chambers are inching toward compromise on the three new Detroit casinos and how they will be taxed, regulated, and so on.
• The Michigan Jobs Commission budget took a $24 million hit in the House, as lawmakers stripped funding for Economic Development Job Training Grants from the proposed $1.62 billion regulatory budget. The chamber’s Democratic majority claimed the training grants constitute corporate welfare and passed SB 166 on a 55–51, party-line vote; a GOP restoration measure went down, 49–54. Another Jobs Commission budget amendment heavy with political implications is the provision, passed 75–27, mandating a two-year wait before departing commission employees may take jobs with corporations that have received a commission grant or loan.
• The Senate gave its nod to a $397 million capital outlay budget that is $50 million slimmer than Executive Branch recommendation. Gone is construction funding for a proposed Hall of Justice, where the state’s supreme and appeals courts would be housed; instead, senators tucked in $350,000 for planning. SB 165 also includes $1 million toward the state’s long-planned Vietnam veterans’ memorial.
• In a decision applauded by both sides, the Michigan Supreme Court ruled this week that state-mandated special education costs must be reimbursed to the school districts incurring them. The 16-year-old case arose from the so-called Headlee amendment to the state constitution, and its resolution by the high court leaves state officials and local school boards uncertain about what happens next. The state could be liable for more than $3 billion in past claims; one method of payment would be a tax cut for residents in the affected districts. Parties in the venerable suit have three weeks to respond to the court’s questions about the scale of monetary relief and to whom it should be paid.
• As the early-retirement dust settles behind some 5,500 departing state employees, a temporary injunction has been filed to halt the potential out-sourcing of many of those jobs. Ingham County Circuit Court Judge James Giddings sided with the Michigan Coalition of State Employee Unions, which sued to block new rules approved by the state Civil Service Commission that boosts the limit on individual private consulting contracts from $5,000 to $500,000. According to an Associated Press account, Giddings ruled that the new procedures violate a 1940 constitutional amendment establishing civil service guidelines to prevent a political spoils system.
• Five of the 20 wealthiest African-American communities in the nation have Michigan zip codes, according to a study by the Detroit News. All five are in Oakland County: Farmington Hills, Troy, West Bloomfield, Bloomfield Township, and Southfield. In West Bloomfield, African-American income surpasses that of other residents by a greater margin than in any other comparably sized U.S. city, the News reports, citing an analysis of 838 communities with populations greater than 25,000 and African-American populations of at least 1,000.
• A bipartisan advisory committee on elections released its report this week, calling for more absentee ballots and fewer elections. The blue-ribbon team empaneled by Secretary of State Candice Miller favors removing all restrictions on who may use absentee ballots, limiting state and local special and regular elections to no more than four days annually, streamlining the candidate qualifying process, and instituting vote-by-mail programs for small local elections.