The Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs announced Friday the names of its new 21-member Liquor Control Advisory Rules Committee. The committee was created for “identifying obsolete, unnecessary rules and regulations” according to a media advisory released by the state on Friday.
Former Gov. Jennifer Granholm and her husband Dan Mulhern, in an on line article in Newsweek, lament that America is losing manufacturing jobs to China — especially the so-called clean energy jobs. They are right about the problem. During her eight-year reign as governor, Granholm presided over a state that shed hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs. They are wrong, however, about the solution of targeted tax breaks and more public-private partnerships.
An attempt to unionize graduate student research assistants at the University of Michigan is not legal, according to the Detroit Free Press, MLive.com and AnnArbor.com.
Lansing political newsletters MIRS and Gongwer also covered the decision.
The Michigan Employment Relations Commission unanimously rejected a petition from the Graduate Employees Organization to unionize the students because they are just that — students — and not public employees. The Mackinac Center Legal Foundation had filed a motion in the matter on behalf of Melinda Day, a student who objected to the unionization.
Legislative restrictions are preventing Michigan from being a national leader in online education, a Mackinac Center expert told the Detroit Free Press.
“It’s based on this old model of how learning happened when a kid was sitting in a particular seat,” said Mike Van Beek, director of education policy, about the Legislature’s inability to act quickly on the matter.
A Detroit News editorial today agrees with the Mackinac Center Legal Foundation that graduate student research assistants at the University of Michigan should not be unionized.
The MCLF filed a motion on behalf of Melinda Day, one of those students, who is objecting to the illegal unionization attempts. The Michigan Employment Relations Commission in 1981, after 19 days of hearings and thousands of pages of exhibits, ruled that this exact same group of students were just that — students — and not public employees, therefore making it illegal to unionize them.
MIRS News (subscription required) reported last week that a state senator is trying to raise private money to replace 20-year-old carpeting in the Michigan House and Senate chambers. The report describes bids received three years ago that “came in between $70,000 and $120,000 for the House and between $65,000 and $130,000 for the Senate.”
The question of whether to create a state Obamacare insurance benefit “exchange” is a source of great confusion for state legislators and governors nationwide. Proponents of the exchanges, among them Obamacare's ideological supporters and many of the private businesses hoping to profit from exchange contracts, are adding to the confusion by claiming, “conservatives favor creating an exchange.” They often point to the Heritage Foundation, which helped develop the exchange concept and was involved in the creation of “Romneycare” in Massachusetts, cited by some as the prototype for Obamacare.
MichiganVotes.org sends a weekly report to newspapers and TV stations around the state showing how state legislators in their service area voted on the most important or interesting bills of the past week. Because the legislature did not meet this week, rather than roll call vote results this report presents a sampling of recently proposed state laws.
Patrick Wright, director of the Mackinac Center Legal Foundation, was a guest on “The Michael Cohen Show” Wednesday on WILS-AM1320 in Lansing.
Wright discussed the case of Melinda Day, a graduate student research assistant at the University of Michigan who is fighting against illegal unionization. Wright filed a motion with the Michigan Employment Relations Commission on Day’s behalf, detailing that MERC previously ruled such graduate student research assistants are primarily students, not public employees, and therefore cannot be made part of a public-sector union.
The recent announcement by the Obama administration that the CAFE standard for autos and light trucks is being increased to a breathtaking 54.5 mpg has been met with a collective yawn from the motoring public. Why would such a major regulatory change that will drastically alter the types of vehicles that Americans are able to purchase not result in public outcry? Because they do not believe the new standards will actually be implemented.
An Op-Ed that appeared in both The Hammond Times and Evansville Courier-Press today cites a Mackinac Center scholar and a Center study.
The Op-Ed says that Richard Vedder, an adjunct scholar with the Center and a professor of economics at Ohio University, testified before the Indiana General Assembly last week that “right-to-work states have higher rates of employment, productivity and personal income growth.”
The Flint Journal today is reporting on a story that first broke in Michigan Capitol Confidential about attempts by the Michigan Economic Development Corp. to keep a “green” bus company afloat after giving Fischer Coachworks a $1.6 million subsidy.
Right-to-work opponents have long claimed that such laws are not worker friendly. Mark Gaffney, president of AFL-CIO, reiterated this claim in his July 20th Op-Ed in The Detroit News with the moniker right-to-work (for less). But his claims are just plain wrong.
An Op-Ed by Michael LaFaive on Michigan’s three-tier liquor distribution system appeared in the Detroit Free Press Sunday. LaFaive, director of the Center’s Morey Fiscal Policy Initiative, calls for an end to the state’s monopolistic distribution system, which increases costs for consumers.
D. Joseph Olson, a founding member and chairman of the board of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, will be inducted into the Michigan Insurance Hall of Fame later this month, according to the Livingston Daily Press & Argus.
Olson, a Brighton native, served as state insurance commissioner from 1995 to 1997 and retired in 2008 as vice president of government relations from Amerisure Insurance Co.
MichiganVotes.org sends a weekly report to newspapers and TV stations around the state showing how state legislators in their service area voted on the most important or interesting bills of the past week. The House and Senate are in the midst of a summer break, so rather than votes this week’s report instead contains several newly introduced bills of interest.
The Mackinac Center Legal Foundation has intervened on behalf of a graduate student research assistant at the University of Michigan who objects to an illegal attempt to be unionized, according to the Detroit Free Press, the Hawaii Reporter, Washington Examiner, Livingston Daily Press & Argus, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Michigan Daily, the Ashville (N.C.) Citizen-Times and AnnArbor.com.
A multi-million dollar investment heavily subsidized by Wayne County that a Mackinac Center expert warned against more than a year ago has come under fire by auditors, according to the Detroit Free Press.
Wayne County “botched” the $32.5 million project, called an "Aerotropolis," the Free Press reported, and “bookkeeping for the project was so shoddy that auditors couldn’t accurately tally the jobs” created. Jobs that were counted included “UPS delivery persons” and people working at hardware stores.
(Editor's note: This was written in preparation for the Mackinac Center's celebration of "Friedman Legacy for Freedom Day," taking place Friday, July 29, 2011 at the Henry Ford Museum.)
On the bookshelf of an average American patriot, it would be more common to see a collection of Ronald Reagan biographies than books on the life of Milton Friedman. Ask a person on the street who they think holds the most power in America and you have a good chance of hearing “the president.” However, the president is a single man whose power is limited by checks, balances and, depending on his character, his personal desire for re-election. One free man with an idea can prove influential and limitless without holding public office. Milton Friedman was that man.
A Mackinac Center analyst says it is “harmful meddling” for legislators to introduce a bill that would ban employers from considering the current employment status of prospective job seekers, according to The Detroit News.
“Politicians are forever sticking their noses into the business of business,” Mike LaFaive, director of fiscal policy, told The News. “It’s a slippery slope toward the next onerous mandate.”
The number one weather-related killer in the United States is not hurricanes or tornadoes, but rather heat waves. The elderly and poor without central air conditioning in their homes are most vulnerable to the inevitable periods of hot weather experienced in much of the country during summer months. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, under the direction of Lisa Jackson, has launched an all-out war on coal fired power plants, the results of which could be deadly during heat waves.
The draft legislative resolution below* opposing the creation of a state Obamacare insurance “exchange” is on the agenda for the American Legislative Exchange Council’s annual meeting next week. Members of ALEC’s Health and Human Services Task Force will take up the measure, and could vote to make it an official ALEC model for legislatures around the country to consider adopting.
A recent Detroit News editorial calling for more disclosure of campaign spending by beer and wine wholesalers cites Capitol Confidential on the matter, which covered it here and here.
An editorial in The Detroit News today calls on the state government’s employees to come to the bargaining table to offer concessions. It cites an analysis from University of Michigan economist Don Grimes that showed public-sector compensation increasing from $43,450 to $62,237 in the past decade, much higher than private-sector growth. But the state government compensation imbalance is worse than this.
The teacher tenure and teacher evaluation reforms signed into law this week by Gov. Rick Snyder significantly revise the school staffing process. Among other changes, layoffs and recalls will no longer be based solely on seniority, and schools will have to use teacher effectiveness as a guide in making these staffing decisions.
