Does Democratic Candidate For Gov, John Cherry Want A Redux To Reform Michigan Now? That Would Make Independents Angry In 2010

November 12, 2009

The current Lt. Gov and once and future heir to Gov. Granholm in 2010 says that the Legislature is ‘incapable’ of passing major reforms and the best success lies in a ballot iniative led by outside interests such as the education community.

Reform the systemic structural problems thru a ballot iniative led by the a special interest group such as education. Isnt that fraught with risk and really a redux or redo of the populist ‘Reform Michigan Now’ proposal that garned a lot of votes to be put on a ballot?

On September 15, 2009, the MEA site issued the following communique:

Education groups call for Legislature to fix tax structure, resolve deficit

LANSING, Mich., Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2009 – Today, a broad group of education organizations (listed below) released the following call to action to the Michigan Legislature regarding much needed reform to Michigan’s tax structure:

Michigan’s current tax system is failing its citizens. The state faces a $3 billion deficit.
The economic problems the state has faced during the current decade are the result of a tax system that has simply not served the state well.

Revenues are declining much faster than income and not simply because Michigan’s economy has deteriorated.

According to Gary Olson, director of the nonpartisan Michigan Senate Fiscal Agency and a nationally recognized authority, “There is a fundamental disconnect with how (state) revenues grow compared to the growth of income.”

“The (state’s) tax base, especially the sales tax, is not growing with the economy at all. That’s going to have to be addressed, sooner or later, by the Legislature.”

Further, Olson has pointed out that personal and business income has dramatically declined as a percentage of state revenue during the last decade.

As a result, “revenues are declining much, much faster than income – it’s a concern.” In other words, it’s not the economy. “This is not a problem tied directly to the collapse of the economy.”

Action is needed to preserve Michigan’s quality of life and retain its talent, business and industry into the future. This problem only grows deeper if immediate changes are not made to address the state’s growing structural deficit.

Read the full communique (here)

The Centrist would also put forth this premise for Reform from the Education Action Group (EAG) that was posted on 8.03.09:

John “gov’t streamliner” Cherry pledges status quo to MEA

August 3rd, 2009

John Cherry, you gotta give the guy credit for staying true to his roots. But it does make us wonder what business he has leading a commission on government efficiency.

The lt. governor has been tooling around the state looking for ways to reform government. He had the audacity to show up to the recent MEA conference and pour cold water on House Speaker Andy Dillon’s plan to save an estimated $900 million by putting all public employees into one health insurance pool.

The term ‘brown nosing’ doesn’t quite do Cherry’s remarks justice, which can be found on the MEA’s website.

To Cherry, apparently, it’s more important to protect the interests of his friends and campaign bankrollers than make government work better. Just what Michigan needs!

Cherry makes no bones that state employees have apparently already given up too much. They even have to pay co-pays now! Obviously taxpayers are just going to have to cough up a little more to quench the state government’s insatiable thirst to spend more and not ease up.

Who will join us in calling for a new chairman of the Commission on Government Streamlining? Clearly the Cowardly Lion isn’t going to find the courage on this one.

Centrist Notes: Is Lt. Gov Cherry going to continue to lead Michigan down a path of REFORM that resembles what the independent electorates might refer to as an unrecognizable country? Much like where Healthcare REFORM is leading us?

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In 2008, a REFORM MICHIGAN NOW proposal garnered a lot of populist support and signatures to be placed on the ballot before the electorate. The sentiment for the proposal by its backers and proponents was stated as such:

From Wikipedia:

Several top Michigan Democrats held a conference call on July 5, 2008, with Gov. Jennifer Granholm to express worries about the initiative. One source said Democratic officeholders are worried both about the content of the proposal and the secretive way in which it has been prepared and placed before voters.

According to a presentation on the plan put together by Democrats, both Gov. Jennifer Granholm and Lt. Gov. John Cherry reportedly contributed funds to the effort. Neither has publicly endorsed it. The presentation said the petition drive had a budget of more than $1.4 million.

Via Michigan Chamber of Commerce

July 21, 2008

FUNNY HOW POWERPOINT TECHNOLOGY COMES BACK TO BITE YOU, SAYS MICHIGAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

LANSING, Mich. – When Byrum and Fisk Advocacy Communications and their employee, Thomas Morgan, were creating a PowerPoint presentation on a government reform ballot proposal back on November 21, 2007, at 4:08 p.m., little did they know it would come back to bite them, reports the Michigan Chamber of Commerce.

That PowerPoint presentation – entitled, “Government Reform Proposal: Changing the rules of politics to help Democrats” – was found last week by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy on a United Auto Worker’s Region 1-C website. The creation date, time and author show up on the document properties of the PowerPoint presentation.

The date the PowerPoint presentation was created is significant, notes Bob LaBrant, Senior Vice President of Political Affairs & General Counsel for the Michigan Chamber, because this would have required Reform Michigan Government Now! (RMGN) to both file as a ballot question committee in 2007 and to file an annual report disclosing their contributors and expenditures."

"If the PowerPoint presentation was the ‘smoking gun’ that blew away Diane Byrum’s and Michigan AFL-CIO President Mark Gaffney’s assertion that the ballot initiative was somehow a bi-partisan reform proposal, the creation date of the PowerPoint presentation proves conclusively that RMGN was required to file as a ballot question committee in 2007, not as they did on February 22, 2008 when their statement of organization was filed with the Secretary of State,” LaBrant stated. “If RMGN had registered back in 2007 as required, they would have been required to file an annual report that was due January 31, 2008 disclosing their contributors and expenditures.”

LaBrant noted that both Byrum and Brewer have strangely refused to disclose who the funders are behind the RMGN initiative, cynically saying that they would be disclosed when the committee is required to report in late September or early October …“their post-qualification or, increasingly likely, non-qualification report.”

The PowerPoint presentation contains a slide that discloses that the Washington, D.C. research firm of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner did two statewide surveys and nine focus groups between May and November 2007 testing out the various concepts contained in the ballot proposal.

“A research project of that scope has been estimated by other pollsters to cost at least $75,000-$100,000 or more—well over the $500 threshold that requires registration as a ballot question committee,” noted LaBrant.

The Michigan Chamber is currently preparing a complaint on this campaign finance violation and expects to file it with the Secretary of State later this week.

In recent media reports, Lieutenant Governor John Cherry disclosed that both he and Governor Jennifer Granholm invested some of their political money (Leadership PACs? Candidate committees?) in developing the plan. “We participated in an effort to do research, polling, focus groups, etc.,” Cherry recently told the Detroit Free Press, “We had some concern about the direction it was going.”

“Strangely, a review of JDC Genesee Fund (Cherry Leadership PAC) or the Cherry for Lieutenant Governor Committee, does not show any expenditure in 2007 or 2008 for research,” said LaBrant.

“U.S. Senator Howard Baker, during the 1973 Watergate hearings, is most remembered for his repeated question, ‘What did the President know, and when did he know it?’” said LaBrant. “Perhaps ‘PowerPoint-gate’ will lead to a similar question being asked of the Governor and Lieutenant Governor: ‘When and in what amount did they contribute, and to whom did they write the check?’”

The Michigan Chamber of Commerce is a statewide business advocacy organization representing over 7,100 employers of every type and size in all 83 counties in Michigan. The Michigan Chamber was established in 1959 to be an advocate for Michigan’s job providers in the legislative, political and legal process.

Paid for with regulated funds by Michigan Chamber PAC II, 600 S. Walnut St., Lansing, MI 48933.

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Democratic State Sen. Tupac Hunter said he is "diametrically opposed to the initiative," calling it an effort "to totally rewrite the state constitution. It’s too sweeping."^[17]

Hunter added that the initiative would:

Limit the caliber of people in the state Legislature, cutting salaries and benefits.

Make service in the legislature attractive mostly to retirees and the independently wealthy. * He also said he was furious that the proposal was developed "behind the scenes in a stealth fashion. As a Democratic senator, I would have liked to have had a heads-up.

Via Mlive.com

Richard Studley, president of the Michigan Chamber of Commerce, says "union bosses" who back the proposal want to pack the courts with "liberal activists" who would legislate from the bench.

Republican strategist Tom Shields said Democrats are cynically tapping voter anger with the pay cut provision to grab political power. He said the 100-word ballot statement should read: "A proposal to revise the state constitution to use the public’s very negative mood to change the rules of politics in Michigan to help Democrats."

Tough, says Mark Gaffney, head of the Michigan State AFL-CIO.

He said the proposal is designed to end "gridlock" in Lansing by producing a Democratic majority that would better reflect political sentiment in Michigan. He predicts voter approval in November because the "people who want the Republican way are in the minority."

If Republicans wanted to engineer their own legislative majority, he added, "they could have put their own proposal on the ballot."

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The Democratic leadership and Lt. John Cherry wants to Reform Michigan because they say the Legislature wont.

"A ballot initiative will probably have to be led by outside groups, such as the education community, he said."

Any Reform measures put forth by the Democrats that is tied to special interests will probrably be met with resistance by the business community in Michigan such as ‘Business Leaders For Michigan (BLM) whose mission is as follows:

Via Livingston Daily:

November 12, 2009

BLM has an all-star membership that includes the top leaders of Michigan’s biggest businesses and universities. Together, they account for 300,000 jobs, $1 trillion in annual revenue and 130,000 students. Only the Michigan Chamber of Commerce has clout anywhere near comparable.

Business Leaders for Michigan adopted its name change partly to indicate that broadening the reach of the former Detroit-based group signaled an important step forward: bringing together major institutions with a big stake in Michigan’s future.

Late this summer, the group came up with a turnaround plan, an ambitious, far-reaching and surprisingly detailed blueprint to return Michigan to a position of top 10 national economic leadership.

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The Centrist and millions of independent electorate in Michigan will observe the clash of the Democrats proposals for Reform via a populist ballot initiative led by Lt. Gov John Cherry and the education community vs. groups like BLM who want reform but not at the expense of killing jobs thru taxation and further driving more residents out of Michigan.

But most importantly, it will be the independent electorate of Michigan who will be deciding what manner of reform they want in Lansing come 2010.

A word of caution is that in other special elections held in Michigan (State Senate), VA and NY, independents broke for GOP candidates by a 2:1 margin. Neither party in Michigan who aspires to lead should underestimate the power of the independent voting block and the anger towards incumbents and special interests.

Via Detnews.com

November 12, 2009

Lansing — The Legislature is incapable of passing major tax reforms, so the changes may have to come through a ballot proposal, Lt. Gov. John Cherry said today.

"I don’t think the votes are there" to enact reforms, Cherry said.

He also questioned whether a ballot drive led by the governor or legislators would have much chance of success.

"The public has a jaundiced eye," said Cherry, who is seen as the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination for governor next year. "People are not happy with the capacity of state government to solve problems right now."

A ballot initiative will probably have to be led by outside groups, such as the education community, he said.

"The best thing we (he and Gov. Jennifer Granholm) can do is be supportive," he said.

Reforms might include extending the sales tax to services, moving to a graduated income tax or other changes.