Lame duck legislators actiing like tenant trashers

An Echo editorial published in Ann Arbor, Michigan (MLive):

Lame duck legislation is like the rental tenants who trash the owner's property before leaving town

The following reflects the opinion of the Michigan Live Media Group Editorial Board.

It was over the thunderous protest of dozens of Michigan residents that Republican lawmakers enacted a controversial bill weakening the newly-elected Democratic Attorney General this week.

It was a scene that has become emblematic of the 2018 lame-duck session, in which lawmakers have worked to undermine, subvert and attack the will of the Michigan voters.

Our state’s citizens spoke loud and clear in the November election. They voted to give all three of the state’s most powerful executive offices – the Governor, Attorney General and Secretary of State – to Democrats for the first time since 1990.

Michiganders also voted through three ballot proposals to legalize recreational marijuana, create an independent redistricting commission and enact sweeping election reforms.

The Republican-led legislature, instead of respecting those decisions, is trying to render them moot by limiting the power of executive-branch officials and making changes to the ballot proposals Michiganders voted on less than a month ago. Michigan isn’t alone, with Republican lawmakers in Ohio, North Carolina and Wisconsin also working to pass legislation to undermine newly-elected Democratic leaders.

Michigan’s legislators need to immediately stop pushing these types of bills through a lame duck session and allow those Michigan voters are sending to office have a voice. 

And Gov. Rick Snyder needs to do the right thing and not sign these into law.

In the last week, lawmakers have also gutted citizen-proposed minimum wage and paid sick time initiatives. Prior to the election, the legislature adopted both initiatives, only to come back and significantly change them following a short break. Those bills have already passed the Republican-led House and Senate, and await the signature of Snyder, who collaborated with lawmakers on some of the changes.

The practice was pitched by Republican leadership as an “adopt and amend” plan, but Senate Minority Leader Jim Ananich, D-Flint, was closer to the truth when he termed the plan an “undo and screw.”

But the legislature isn’t done. Other pending bills would:

• Put new restrictions around the independent redistricting commission created by Proposal 2 

• Re-write the recreational marijuana law Michiganders approved in November 

• Give the legislature the power to intervene in lawsuits, undermining the Attorney General 

• Take away the ability of the Secretary of State to regulate campaign finance 

• Make sure the Attorney General or Secretary of State couldn’t require political nonprofits to disclose their donors

• Tie the hands of the incoming administration on Enbridge’s Line 5 pipeline in the Straits of Mackinac, by jump-starting the process of building a tunnel, like Snyder supports 

Each of these ideas may have merit. But rushing them through in lame duck, when hundreds of bills are flying, sometimes in the dead of night, disrespects the political process and disregards the will of the voters.

Debating them openly and thoroughly in 2019 would ensure citizens, and the new governor they elected by a sizable majority, get to weigh in.

But all signs point to the legislature continuing to act, as one resident who attended a hearing in opposition of one of these bills put it, like tenants trying to trash their rental on the way out.

When it comes to democracy, Republican leaders are better off leaving this institution as they found it.