May 28, 1999

Legislative & Political Week in Review

• The Senate passed its version of carrying concealed weapons (CCW) legislation Wednesday, sending the issue to conference committee. Since differences between the House and Senate versions are slight, we can expect lawmakers to compromise quickly and send a final bill to Governor Engler for signature in time for summer recess, right? Don’t bet on it. The "gun-free zone" provision of the Senate version may prove anathema to CCW supporters in the House, who may succeed in removing it in the conference committee. Without such zones, however, approval of the conference committee report will prove difficult to muster in the Senate. Second, Governor Engler has signaled his wariness to embrace the issue, fearing political repercussions in the wake of recent school shootings and threats. Third, a bipartisan coalition that includes Attorney General Jennifer Granholm, Macomb County Prosecutor Carl Marlinga, and Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson announced that it will fight CCW via referendum if the bill passes the legislature.
• The threat of organized opposition to the CCW law may be enough to encourage Republican leaders to rein in CCW supporters. With so much riding on the 2000 elections—notably, reapportionment, the right to draw new election boundaries following the census—the last thing they want is to do is give Democrats an issue around which they can organize support.
• House Republicans ignored the other side of the aisle and passed legislation providing that the lion’s share of Michigan’s tobacco settlement money will go toward Governor Engler’s merit college scholarship proposal. House Bill 4666 "earmarks" 30 percent of the tobacco money for the scholarship program in the first year, 50 percent in the second, and 75 percent in subsequent years. Lawmakers have taken no action on increased health spending yet, but Speaker Chuck Perricone (R-Kalamazoo Township) has said he supports spending $30 million of the settlement to subsidize prescriptions for seniors. The Speaker shot down a Democrat amendment to HB 4666 that would have dedicated the remaining 25 percent of the money to health programs, ruling it not germane to the bill.
• While Senate Republican leader Dan DeGrow (R- Port Huron) said he expects his colleagues to make few changes to the House bill, he may run into substantial resistance from Senator Joe Schwarz (R-Battle Creek), who is uncomfortable with the 75 percent figure. Look for Republican leaders to signal support for the Schwarz-backed $50 million "life sciences corridor" (an effort to promote and coordinate life-sciences research and technology transfer at the state’s major research universities ) in exchange for the senator’s help in funding the scholarship plan.
• Charter schools will continue to pop up like mushrooms if the legislature passes HB 4705 and 4706, approved Tuesday by the House Education Committee. HB 4705 ups the cap on charter schools from the current 150 to 225 by 2002, while HB 4706 allows an unlimited number of charter schools targeted toward students at risk of academic failure. Although Democrats continue to oppose charter schools (thus, HB 4705’s straight party-line vote), LaMar Lemmons (D-Detroit) sponsored HB 4706, citing dissatisfaction with the pace of reform in Detroit schools.
• An enormous coalition featuring automobile manufacturers, insurance companies, and law enforcement finally overcame a stubborn libertarian streak on the part of lawmakers, winning passage of SB 335, which provides for primary enforcement of Michigan’s seat-belt law. Governor Engler signed the bill, and, starting in 2000, police may stop motorists for not wearing their safety restraint. Proponents of legislation estimate that primary enforcement will save 100 lives and prevent 3,000 serious injuries a year.
• The House Transportation Committee, on a party-line vote, has approved and sent to the floor SB 306, which requires that one’s driver’s-license and voter-registration address be the same. Supporters laud the bill as a step in reducing voter fraud. Political observers point out that because many college students keep their home address on their driver’s license, one result will be that many of them either will vote from their home address or not bother to vote at all—which will reduce the current large concentration of Democrat votes in districts in which college campuses are located.