March 19, 1999

Legislative & Political Week in Review

• After a nearly 15-hour marathon House session, lower chamber lawmakers emerged with a Detroit schools takeover plan remarkably different from one passed last week in the Senate. The House plan (substitute H-8 to SB 297) would leave the locally elected school board in place but strip it of most of its responsibilities; primary authority would be vested instead in a five-member "district accountability board" appointed by a monitor picked by the governor. Conspicuously absent from the House plan—which emerged from exhaustive debate and periodic caucusing—is any role whatever for Detroit Mayor Dennis Archer. Under the version of the bill passed by the Senate, Archer would play a key role: He would be empowered to appoint a new school board to replace the current, elected panel. The two versions are headed for House-Senate conference committee, probably next week. Early odds favor the Senate plan, with many observers predicting that a compromise between the two disparate approaches is unlikely. Many Detroiters who initially criticized the Senate plan as high-handed in its transfer of control from Detroit to Lansing now find the House version—which completely removes the city’s mayor from any involvement with the process—even more so. Political analysts opine that Archer’s visit to the House Democratic Caucus during the exhaustive debate may have hurt rather than helped the cause: Archer, they report, appeared to some as overconfident and impatient. The current legislative standoff—with Detroit Democrats apparently preferring a Republican governor over the locally elected mayor of their own party to lead the reform of their city’s troubled school system—was summarized thus in the Detroit Free Press: "The weirdness continued . . ."
• The Senate buckled down on seat belt use enforcement this week. Senate Bill 335 would make not wearing a belt a primary offense—meaning that a police officer may pull motorists over and ticket them for that infraction alone. Failure to wear a safety belt currently is a secondary offense in Michigan; that is, people may be ticketed only if they are pulled over for some other reason. The 21-16 vote reflects a sharp division of opinion as to whether the new measure should be applied only to minors. As passed, all must buckle up . . . or else. And unlike the current law, which has force only for those in front, the new measure applies both to front- and rear-seat passengers.
• Police personnel would choose from an expanded arsenal under a Senate bill passed last week that would permit law-enforcement officers to carry and use short-barreled shotguns, switchblades, and stun guns. Short-barreled arms are more convenient when police are conducting raids in close quarters, lawmakers were told before voting 29-1 for passage of SB 334. Although such shotguns are permitted for police use under federal law, current state statute prohibits them.
• The outcome was less surprising than the turnout in the 13th Senate District this week, where former Rep. Shirley Johnson (R-Royal Oak) won the seat vacated by Michael Bouchard with voter participation of less than 8 percent in the heavily Republican district. Senator-elect Johnson becomes the fifth woman currently serving in the upper chamber, the highest number in history.
• It was a busy week for the Senate Appropriations Committee, which approved five agency budgets and a generous supplemental appropriations bill totaling $1.3 billion. Noting the state’s booming economy and faster-than-anticipated revenue accrual, lawmakers boosted the governor’s recommended $93 million in supplemental spending to $165 million. The one-shot funds cover a wide variety of expenses, from deferred building maintenance to new technology acquisition. Lawmakers so far are making good on their announced schedule to report all state spending plans to their respective chamber floors for action prior to the spring recess, which begins March 29.