Policies proposed 10 years ago have been realized

Policies proposed 10 years ago have been realized

August 8, 2018

I ran for 68th district state representative 10 years ago, in 2008. Incumbent Joan Bauer beat me in the Democratic primary, but I'm pleased to say that several of the policy changes I proposed have happened. Take a look at my campaign flyer:

Unions. Right-to-work legislation was signed by Governor Snyder in December of 2012. Prevailing wage was repealed in June of this year. And the unemployment rate is down to 4.5%.

I doubt of I had any influence in these matters, but right-to-work was one of 4 proposals in my 2012 ballot initiative that never got off the ground. And I did argue for prevailing wage repeal this last March. Still on my wish list: repealing the Public Employment Relations Act, which forces local governments to engage in collective bargaining.

Right-to-work means employers cannot require an employee to join a union or pay dues or fees as a condition of employment. Michigan's right-to-work law exempted public safety workers; non-union police and firefighters could still be forced to pay dues. That ended in June of this year with the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Janus v. AFSCME, which granted right-to-work to all public sector workers. (source)

Taxes. The much-maligned pension tax went into effect in 2012. It reduced or ended the pension exemption for younger retirees, but continued it unchanged for those born before 1946. Details here.

On this issue, I may have actually had some influence. Nobody else was talking about taxing pensions back then. In November of 2007, I sent a Freedom of Information Act request to the Department of Treasury asking for the totals of each of the “subtractions from income” on the MI-1040. One of those subtractions was pensions. Treasury's response was that the information was not available because they did not collect it from the MI-1040, so I sent a letter to Robert Kleine, State Treasurer under Governor Jennifer Granholm, suggesting that Treasury make the system changes necessary to do so. I said "The information is very helpful to policy makers and citizens like me who are interested making our tax system fair and efficient." This was the response:

Several months later, I wrote a letter to the Lansing State Journal:

Two years later, a similar scenario was used by MSU economist Charles Ballard to defend the proposed pension tax:

"Under the current law, you could have a senior citizen couple with retirement income well over $100,000 and they pay not a penny of income tax. Whereas the 38-year-old single mom trying to make it as a nurse's aide has a tiny fraction of that and yet she pays income tax." (Mlive.com)

What I said earlier about nobody else talking about taxing pensions back then is not true. Paul Roney, who I mentioned in my letter to the LSJ, addressed the issue as early as 1992:

Prisons. Even law-and-order Republicans have come around to the view that locking up offenders and throwing away the key is counter-productive and costly. In May of this year, Attorney General Bill Schuette touted Michigan's criminal justice reforms, highlighting the state's success in reducing the prison population from 51,454 in 2006 to 39,161. "The reduction in inmates resulted in the closing of 11 prisons as well as 20 other facilities since 2000, and reduced the cost of incarceration in Michigan by $221 million from 2010 to 2015." (source) Reforms included limiting incarceration for technical parole violations to 30 days and requiring Corrections to develop rehabilitation programs for prisoners age 18 to 22. Pending legislation would raise the age of adult criminal liability from 17 to 18 and lift the occupational licensing ban, which disqualifies people with a criminal history.

Social Issues. Abortion rights are still under attack by Republicans, but the ban on gay marriage is gone. And in May, the Michigan Civil Rights Commission voted to expand its interpretation of the state's Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act to include protections from discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identification. Bill Schuette disagrees with that interpretation and says the Commission is bound by his opinion. The Commission isn't buying it. (source)

Schuette also fought the effort to end the ban on same-sex marriage, costing taxpayers $2 million in the process (source). The case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court and made same-sex marriage legal throughout the nation. Dana Nessel, who, along with Carole Stanyar represented the Michigan couple who fought the ban, is the Democratic Party's candidate for attorney general.

Send comments, questions, and tips to stevenrharry@gmail.com, or call or text me at 517-505-2696. If you'd like to be notified by email when I post a new story, let me know.

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