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July brings a celebration spirit to the Mackinac Center. Our first senior vice president, the late Joseph P. Overton, cemented the 4th of July’s significance to all Mackinac Center employees by writing in the organization’s operating practices manual that “All staff are encouraged to celebrate Independence Day with passion and verve, remembering it as the signatory day of a document embodying the most sublime of political ideas, an apogee in mankind’s quest for liberty of thought and action, the restoration of which is the vision of our organization.”
Freedom makes what we do possible, and freedom makes it possible for you to support the free-market ideas that the Mackinac Center recommends to make Michigan a better place to live.
Missouri, the “Show Me” state, could soon celebrate becoming the nation’s 26th right-to-work state. The governor vetoed a right-to-work bill, but lawmakers will try to override that veto later this year. Missouri’s lieutenant governor supports right-to-work and co-authored a Washington Times essay with Mackinac Center Director of Labor Policy F. Vincent Vernuccio pointing out how it gives workers more freedom and economic opportunity.
The Mackinac Center celebrated the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to hear the case Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association. Vice President for Legal Affairs Patrick Wright wrote an amicus brief recommending that the high court hear the case and rule in favor of teachers who believe they should not be forced to financially support a union with which they do not agree. The case could mean right-to-work for all public sector employees.
Did you hear the one about an ACLU attorney, a Democratic state representative and a libertarian showing up at a Mackinac Center event? It’s no joke. They all served as panelists, discussing how Michigan’s civil asset forfeiture law should be reformed. Following the event, that legislation moved forward.
State Policy Network has selected Grand Rapids as the site for its next annual meeting. Hundreds of freedom-loving individuals and various organizations will be part of the conference in late September and early October. The theme of this year’s meeting is “Experience Freedom.” The Mackinac Center is proud to have Michigan as the backdrop of this year’s event.
The Mackinac Center has been a consistent critic of corporate welfare, even when it was alone in showing the harms of Michigan’s film subsidy program. The Mackinac Center exposed left-wing filmmaker Michael Moore for receiving Michigan taxpayer money to make the film “Capitalism: A Love Story.” (Ironically, the film condemns those who get sweetheart deals with taxpayer dollars.) The Mackinac Center also showed how Michigan has fewer film jobs now than it did before the film subsidy program started. The result of our work? Film subsidies have ended. IMPACT indeed.
