INFORMATION ON MICHIGAN'S FOUR BALLOT PROPOSALS (PROP 1 is tricky)

Secretary of State ^

[Dan from Michigan]

State Of Michigan
PROPOSAL 02-1

A REFERENDUM ON PUBLIC ACT 269 OF 2001 – AN ACT TO AMEND CERTAIN SECTIONS OF MICHIGAN ELECTION LAW

Public Act 269 of 2001 would:

Eliminate “straight party” vote option on partisan general election ballots.

Require Secretary of State to obtain training reports from local election officials.

Require registered voters who do not appear on registration list to show picture identification before voting a challenged ballot.

Require expedited canvass if presidential vote differential is under 25,000.

Require ballot counting equipment to screen ballots for voting errors to ensure the accurate tabulation of absentee ballots. Permit voters in polls to correct errors.

Provide penalties for stealing campaign signs or accepting payment for campaign work while being paid as a public employee to perform election duties.

Should this law be approved?

Yes _____ No _____

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State Of Michigan
PROPOSAL 02-2

A PROPOSAL TO AUTHORIZE BONDS FOR SEWAGE TREATMENT WORKS PROJECTS, STORM WATER PROJECTS AND WATER POLLUTION PROJECTS

The proposal would:

Authorize the State of Michigan to borrow a sum not to exceed $1 billion to improve the quality of the waters of the state by financing sewage treatment works projects, storm water projects and water pollution projects.

Authorize the state to issue general obligation bonds pledging the full faith and credit of the state for the payment of principal and interest on the bonds.

Provide for repayment of the bonds from the general fund of the state.

Should this proposal be approved?

Yes _____ No _____

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State Of Michigan
PROPOSAL 02-3

A PROPOSAL TO AMEND THE STATE CONSTITUTION TO GRANT STATE CLASSIFIED EMPLOYEES THE CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT TO COLLECTIVE BARGAINING WITH BINDING ARBITRATION

The proposed constitutional amendment would:

Grant state classified employees, in appropriate bargaining units determined by the Civil Service Commission, the right to elect bargaining representatives for the purpose of collective bargaining with the state employer.

Require the state to bargain in good faith for the purpose of reaching a binding collective bargaining agreement with any elected bargaining representatives over wages, hours, pensions and other terms and conditions of employment.

Extend the bargaining representatives the right to submit any unresolved disputes over the terms of a collective bargaining agreement to binding arbitration 30 days after the commencement of bargaining.

Should this proposal be approved?

Yes _____ No _____

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State Of Michigan
PROPOSAL 02-4

A PROPOSED CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT TO REALLOCATE THE “TOBACCO SETTLEMENT REVENUE” RECEIVED BY THE STATE FROM CIGARETTE MANUFACTURERS

The proposed constitutional amendment would:

Annually allocate on a permanent basis 90% (approximately $297 million) of “tobacco settlement revenue” received by state from cigarette manufacturers as follows: $151.8 million to nonprofit hospitals, licensed nursing homes, licensed hospices, nurse practitioners, school-linked health centers and Healthy Michigan Foundation; $102.3 million to fund programs to reduce tobacco use, Health and Aging Research Development Initiative, Tobacco-Free Futures Fund, Council of Michigan Foundations and Nurses Scholarship Program; and $42.9 million to the Elder Prescription Drug Program.

Guarantee recipients funding at 2001 appropriation levels plus additional state funds on an escalating basis for nonprofit hospitals, licensed nursing homes, licensed hospices and nurse practitioners.

Should this proposal be approved?

Yes _____ No _____

[Dan from Michigan]

On prop 1
A YES vote bans straight party voting(IE - vote for the ass or the elephant, and all partisan votes are recorded). I could still vote straight party by going up and down the ticket.

A NO vote keeps the system the way it is.

I am voting HELL YES on Prop 1, since it hurts the Democrap Machines in the Cities of Detroit, Flint, Saginaw, Ann Arbor, and East Lansing.

I'm undecided on prop 2. I have to research more on it. The Chamber of Commerce and the unions rarely agree, but both back this.

While I sometimes have union sympathies, I can not back prop 3. State employees already have a ton of perks and I believe don't have to pay into Social Security.

Prop 4 is the worst of all of them. These public health people are the most elitist and arrogant ones around. This bill will take the money that was being used for education. I opposed the tobacco lawsuits anyway, but I'd rather have the money there, than going for these BS "smoking prevention" programs that don't work at all.

[FateAmenableToChange]

Thanks for the breakdown. I like the photo identification requirement in Prop. 1; the state is just going to waste the money under Prop. 2 on pork - DEQ and DNR are absolute jokes, especially under a Granholm administration; unions are bad enough - unions + government workers is a disaster requiring me to oppose Prop. 3; and the tobacco money was extorted from a legal business - once it got in the gubmint's hands it's wasted anyway.

[Portnoy]

For people in Wayne and Oakland COunties, there is Proposal K which will raise your property taxes .5 each year for the next ten years. That's $25 on a $100,000 home. The tax will go to support " the Arts, Parks and Kids"

[Dan from Michigan]

FYI

[Hillary's Lovely Legs]

Prop 1 Yes
Prop 2 Yes
Prop 3 No
Prop 4 No

[an amused spectator]

I'm guessing that the reason for Prop 1 is that it will be physically impossible for the Democrat precinct workers in Wayne County to throw ALL the switches for their non-existent voters. Kind of like the Michigan Supreme judicial races in Wayne. ;-)

[rintense]

I agree with you so far, HLL. Prop2 is especially interesting here in West Michigan, where we continually have problems with water treatment plants releasing raw sewage into the Grand River everytime is rains more than .75 an inch.

[M. T. Cicero II]

Thanks, Dan.

MT from Frankenmuth

[DemsRDumb]

Prop 1 is a definite yes. It's on the ballot because the Dems got enough signatures to force a referendum of this law that was already passed by the legislature (otherwise it would already be in effect for this election). Seeing what is in the bill besides straight ticket tells you everything you need to know about how much Dems really value a fair vote. They were willing to sacrifice all the training and standards for election workers to keep straight ticket. (On the flip side, straight ticket hurts them on judicial races. I watched a Dem worker telling people in line at the polls in 2000 that if they voted straight ticket, they would vote for the Dem Supreme Court candidates - which are on the nonpartisan section of the ballot. Given that I was in a precinct where everyone was a Dem anyway, I let him keep talking...)

On prop 4, no way in hell! I represented tobacco defendants in the suit, which was purportedly to recover monies already spent by the state General Fund on treatment. It is pure BS to say the settlement money was meant for health care - it was to recover tax dollars that had supposedly already been spent. Prop 4 would give these monies to private hospitals and associations, including the Michigan Hospital Association which pays its director $550,000 per year on a contract that limits his hours to less than 40 per week. Prop 4 would also prevent the legislature from reducing Medicare expenditures, leaving education and corrections as the primary discretionary dollars to cut for the budget shortfall. The only way to change this money grab by rich hospital execs would be to amend the constitution again when everything goes to hell in a handbasket if Prop 4 passes.

If this does pass, we're going to need to make constitutional amendments much harder to pass, otherwise any special interest group with enough $ can buy a share of our tax dollars.

[michigander]

Thanks Dan.

[MichaelP]

I'm with you on Prop 1, Yes! I'm voting no on the others....

Mike

[No.6]

1. Yes.
2-4. No.

[Dan from Michigan]

Given that I was in a precinct where everyone was a Dem anyway, I let him keep talking...)

I checked your profile. That's an understatement. I have an apartment(here I "well" not live) on a street where there are 4 Jenny signs in a row.

That's more than my own county unless you count the three on the right-of-ways.

[Dan from Michigan]

"well" = where I "DWELL", not live. Livingston County is still home.

[DemsRDumb]

Livingston - you're a lucky man. I should update my profile, since now I live in Lansing where at least my taxes are lower. Of course, my street too has plenty of Jenny signs, and my Posthumus signs were missing when I got up this morning. Maybe I need to put a 4 x 8 in my yard.

Having seen that you've been active on the CCW issue, can you say where Paul DeWeese stands on this and other gun rights issues? There is no way I would vote for the Dem state Senate candidate (wackball Virg Bernero), but I'm really fed up with DeWeese's anti-Engler and pro-state employee union campaign and thinking about writing someone in. If I could find one issue where DeWeese doesn't seem like a Dem himself, I might reconsider...

[Dan from Michigan]

Lansing is a slight improvement over EL(You mighteven be in Don Vickers district if you are south of Jolly). Vickers has a fighting chance to win.

DeWeese is liberal on a lot of issues, but he is 100% pro-life and pro-2nd Amendment. As for the hothead VIRG!, he even voted against the Vear Bill. Even Alma Wheeler Smith voted for that. Hopefully VIRG!'s temper will do him in. "Leadership you can trust..."(cough Cough bull#$&t)

I'll give DeWeese some more credit. It was gutsy of him to run in a 58% dem district when he could have moved to Livingston and run against Valde Garcia.

BTW to ALL - Can you make the poll watching event tonight at 7? It's in Lansing.(Freepmail me if you can - goes for anyone.)

[Dan from Michigan]

I wondered where I read the poll watching event. You posted it

[Snoopers-868th]

You are absolutely incorrect. State Employees DO pay into Social Security and have no choice. As far as perks--tell me a few?? My increase in pay this year was 2% as opposed to the Legislature's 38%. Engler has effectively torn apart Civil Service which I believe SHOULD set the wage example for the entire state. How many pay anywhere from $60 to $85/month to park your car? At the same time we subsidize the "mass transit" in Lansing. They ride it let them pay for it--no one pays my car payment, parking payment or gas. The City of Lansing rapes each State worker for their city tax to build build build while they half plow the roads in the winter. They certainly don't appreciate the people who converge on this city on a daily basis and pay pay pay.

The State employee is continually hit on to give give give to charitable contributions. Casual for a Cause Fridays is another way to collect from us. And I might add--at all taxpayer's expense, since the Combined Contribution Campaign is handled right through the personnel offices and comes to each employee with their name pre-printed on it. Who do you think printed it? Who do you think takes the time to distribute these forms. Everyone ought to be able to claim a donation for this alone. Currently, there are boxes all over each office collecting Food for charity. And what do you contribute?? Sure the State Employee is an easy touch to the City and the needy of the State. You call that a perk?

Some what, 9000 employees retired!! What does that tell you? They can't wait to get out so they take their "incentive" and run, the state balances the budget (or attempts to) on the backs of the other state employees who are left to do their own work and three of the employees that retired because the replacement is a 1 to 4 ratio. Yea, state employment is just "peachy" and speculation is that there will be more no paid days again. Did you hear that AGAIN to balance the budget. What did you do to balance the State's budget?

I don't mean to take this out on you personally, I am just sick of this attitude. It is begrudging me my job, a job I worked to earn, one that provided benefits. I worked to EARN that privilege. Now people think they breath so they are entitled and the wrath goes to the State Employee because the State pays well. Well, I earn every penny and finance many things that are not in my community to earn it.

You are wrong about State Employees and I intend to vote for it and wish we could STRIKE. Then everyone would realize what the state government provides. It provides what private business did not want to provide (until it could be handed to them in a nice set up package through privatization -- which generally goes out of the state).

By the way, I am a Republican and do not pay union dues for political purposes.

[DemsRDumb]

Oh, waaaaaaahhhhh! Give me a freakin' break!

As someone who was in the private sector for several years before spending the last five working as a state employee, I know darn well there is still plenty of deadweight in state government - and you do too if you'll only take a look around you and acknowledge it.

The perks of a state job (and btw, I paid more to park when I didn't work for the state) include, among other things, 3 weeks of vacation, not even counting the 12 paid state holidays. Of course, that also excludes the 13 days of sick leave every state worker gets - and some abuse. While 2% may not be great in terms of raises, those percentages are going up next year and are hardly something to sneeze at when people are going without work. And you try to find one company anywhere in the world that pays 4% of wages into a 401(k) and matches up to 3% of employee contributions dollar-for-dollar. That's right, sheeple, state employees who contribute just 3% of their pay get 401(k) contribs of 10% of their salary. Only Wayne County execs could do better than that.

It's not the perks that are even the most embarassing part of being a state worker, it's that nobody can ever really get fired for anything short of killing their boss's children. I know of state workers who keep their cell phones on during the day so they can run their side businesses out of their state offices. I know state workers who are too dumb to spell their own name and too lazy to try to learn. That is not to say most fall into these categories, but it does mean the reason many of us work so damn hard is not because of employee cuts, but because of lazy idiots around us who are sustained only by civil service and the wonderful (retch) UAW. Only in the state will you hear managers say "I can't do" because, heaven forbid, my staff would have to work evenings or weekends. Lord help us if professionals actually had to act professional!

Sorry to get on a rant, but the fact is there are lots of state employees who don't deserve a raise, let alone to paralyze the budget through binding arbitration. A job is not a right, it's a privilege you earn. And if you really don't like your situation, there's an easy solution - LEAVE!