This article originally appeared in the Detroit News May 28, 2024. 

Michigan business and political leaders are gathering on Mackinac Island this week for the Mackinac Policy Conference. The Detroit Regional Chamber hosts a world-class event: It’s in an idyllic setting with prestigious speakers and exceptional food. The event provides access to journalists, entrepreneurs, state lawmakers and members of Congress. Tackling the big issues of the day with civility and good will, the conference gets a strong showing every year.

My most memorable Mackinac Policy Conference was in 2015. Mackinac Center president Joe Lehman and I attended as he was scheduled to talk about road funding.

Roads were the dominant topic of the conference that year, because just three weeks earlier Michigan voters had addressed Proposal 1. Prop 1 would have raised state taxes and spending by $2 billion. Supporters promoted the proposal as a measure to fix the crumbling roads, but only 63% of the new spending actually would have gone to the roads. The additional tax revenue was aimed at a variety of projects, which represented the dealmaking needed to push the measure onto the ballot.

A Who’s Who of politicians, newspapers, labor unions and business associations endorsed Prop 1, including then-Gov. Rick Snyder and Senate Minority Leader Gretchen Whitmer. The “yes” campaign outspent the opposition 27 to 1.

And then voters clobbered Prop 1 in epic fashion, with 80% voting against it. The measure failed in every single county in the state, with opposition topping 90% in two counties. It was the lowest percentage of “yes” votes for any amendment since the constitution was adopted in 1963.

With that context Lehman and I set off for Mackinac Island. As we arrived, we ran into Paul Mitchell, who had run one of the opposition committees. Mitchell later served as a congressman for Michigan’s 10th District before passing away in 2021.

We debated a question that evening: What policy idea would get less than the 20% support that Prop 1 just got? Very few measures have approached that low threshold. In 1976, a proposal that would have allowed 18-year-olds to run for state representative or senator earned 21.3% support. Physician-assisted suicide got 28.9% in 1998.

Our little game developed a reputation of its own. Some weeks later a lawyer in Lansing told me about a fun conversation on the island he had heard about. He may have been a little crestfallen when I said, “Yeah, I know, I was there.”

Throughout that conference, people asked, “What just happened?” Doug Rothwell of Business Leaders for Michigan offered the consensus explanation: Voters rejected Prop 1 because it was “just too complicated.”

To their credit, Snyder and the Legislature pivoted, adopting a road funding package that fall. About half of the road money came from new tax revenue and the rest came by redirecting existing revenue from lower-priority projects — a win for taxpayers. (The package also included a phased reduction of the personal income tax rate, which is now under review by the Michigan Supreme Court.)

I offer a humble admonition for policymakers and influencers: Avoid the trap of ideas that only play well on the island. Take note if an idea is applauded in the ballroom of the Grand Hotel but nowhere else in the state. Those ideas end up in the 20% club. Instead, build consensus around ideas that voters will celebrate.

Most Michiganians will not attend this unique conference. Fairly or not, they may consider the conference attendees to be the “elites.” These neighbors and friends won’t be at the conference, but they will be asked to pay for the policy ideas that emerge.

Permission to reprint this blog post in whole or in part is hereby granted, provided that the author (or authors) and the Mackinac Center for Public Policy are properly cited.