Zach Gorchow
Gongwer News Service
Gongwer News Service
The end of summer means sneaking in a last trip to the lake, back-to-school excitement and, in even-numbered years, the Michigan Supreme Court settling disputes about whether a group seeking a ballot proposal met all the legal requirements for November ballot access.
It’s high season for election law attorneys, handwriting experts, legions of people working to pass or defeat these proposals, students of the initiative petition process and the rest of us election nerds.
There are two proposals whose fates await a decision from the Supreme Court.
First is the proposal from Michiganders for Money Out of Politics, which would amend the Michigan Campaign Finance Act to bar utilities and state government contractors from putting money into entities that then communicate about candidates. It also would prohibit leaders of those organizations, their lobbyists and their immediate family members from contributing to state candidates. It also would mandate nonprofit groups communicating about candidates to disclose their financial activities on those communications.
A group called Protect MI Free Speech, which opposes the proposal, filed suit Aug. 4 in the Supreme Court, contesting the validity of the group’s signatures.
Then we have the proposal from Americans for Citizen Voting that would require proof of citizenship when registering to vote. It would further require the secretary of state to purge non-citizens from the Qualified Voter File and toughen the voter identification requirement, particularly for absentee voters.
The citizen voting group filed suit Thursday in the Supreme Court.
The Board of State Canvassers, with its 2-2 bipartisan makeup, voted to certify the Money Out of Politics proposal 3-1 in late July. The board, however, deadlocked 2-2 on Monday on whether to certify the citizen voting proposal, meaning it rejected doing so.
It’s been a long time since the Michigan Supreme Court ruled against a group seeking to put an initiative petition on the ballot, 14 years to be exact.
Starting in 2012, the court has had to make seven rulings on whether to allow a proposal onto the ballot. It’s green lit ballot access six of those seven times. The one exception was a casino measure in 2012 where backers flubbed the requirement to list all sections of the Constitution the proposal would have abrogated.
It’s worth noting, however, the current court has not had to rule on this type of question since 2022. Since then, three of the seven justices – Justice Kyra Harris Bolden, Justice Noah Hood and Justice Kimberly Thomas – are new to the bench. The court now has a 6-1 majority of justices aligned with the Democratic Party compared to 4-3 Democratic-Republican in 2022.
The strange thing now is that the court, as of late Friday afternoon, had yet to do anything with the Protect MI Free Speech case, filed 25 days ago. The deadline to finalize the Nov. 3 ballot is Sept. 4, so it’s curious that the court has not yet issued an order of any kind, not even one responding to Protect MI Free Speech’s motion for immediate consideration. It seems safe to say the court unofficially denied that request. It hasn’t set a briefing schedule and certainly given no indication about ordering oral arguments.
It’s no surprise it hasn’t responded to the citizen voting case, as that was just filed late Thursday.
The bottom line is there’s not much time for the court to decide how it wants to handle the situation. The more time that passes, the more it seems the court may issue one of its rote, one-sentence orders declaring it would not hear the case because it was not persuaded the questions raised merited review.
If I were the Protect MI Free Speech group, I’d be feeling extremely pessimistic. No response from the court after more than three weeks, plus a court that politically is aligned with the opponents. And, if you figure the court’s default is to let proposals go to the ballot, that also is working against them.
The citizen voting group situation, however, is harder to guess. They are seeking ballot access, which aligns with the court’s past trend. They have a strong case that, if all the affidavits from registered voters swearing under oath that they signed the petition are counted, they have the signatures. From a political standpoint, it’s not a favorable court. I know, I know, justices decide on the law, etc., etc. But if this were a 6-1 Republican court, the vibes would be much different.
The court has kept a low profile on these matters for almost a month. That won’t be the case this week.
It’s high season for election law attorneys, handwriting experts, legions of people working to pass or defeat these proposals, students of the initiative petition process and the rest of us election nerds.
There are two proposals whose fates await a decision from the Supreme Court.
First is the proposal from Michiganders for Money Out of Politics, which would amend the Michigan Campaign Finance Act to bar utilities and state government contractors from putting money into entities that then communicate about candidates. It also would prohibit leaders of those organizations, their lobbyists and their immediate family members from contributing to state candidates. It also would mandate nonprofit groups communicating about candidates to disclose their financial activities on those communications.
A group called Protect MI Free Speech, which opposes the proposal, filed suit Aug. 4 in the Supreme Court, contesting the validity of the group’s signatures.
Then we have the proposal from Americans for Citizen Voting that would require proof of citizenship when registering to vote. It would further require the secretary of state to purge non-citizens from the Qualified Voter File and toughen the voter identification requirement, particularly for absentee voters.
The citizen voting group filed suit Thursday in the Supreme Court.
The Board of State Canvassers, with its 2-2 bipartisan makeup, voted to certify the Money Out of Politics proposal 3-1 in late July. The board, however, deadlocked 2-2 on Monday on whether to certify the citizen voting proposal, meaning it rejected doing so.
It’s been a long time since the Michigan Supreme Court ruled against a group seeking to put an initiative petition on the ballot, 14 years to be exact.
Starting in 2012, the court has had to make seven rulings on whether to allow a proposal onto the ballot. It’s green lit ballot access six of those seven times. The one exception was a casino measure in 2012 where backers flubbed the requirement to list all sections of the Constitution the proposal would have abrogated.
It’s worth noting, however, the current court has not had to rule on this type of question since 2022. Since then, three of the seven justices – Justice Kyra Harris Bolden, Justice Noah Hood and Justice Kimberly Thomas – are new to the bench. The court now has a 6-1 majority of justices aligned with the Democratic Party compared to 4-3 Democratic-Republican in 2022.
The strange thing now is that the court, as of late Friday afternoon, had yet to do anything with the Protect MI Free Speech case, filed 25 days ago. The deadline to finalize the Nov. 3 ballot is Sept. 4, so it’s curious that the court has not yet issued an order of any kind, not even one responding to Protect MI Free Speech’s motion for immediate consideration. It seems safe to say the court unofficially denied that request. It hasn’t set a briefing schedule and certainly given no indication about ordering oral arguments.
It’s no surprise it hasn’t responded to the citizen voting case, as that was just filed late Thursday.
The bottom line is there’s not much time for the court to decide how it wants to handle the situation. The more time that passes, the more it seems the court may issue one of its rote, one-sentence orders declaring it would not hear the case because it was not persuaded the questions raised merited review.
If I were the Protect MI Free Speech group, I’d be feeling extremely pessimistic. No response from the court after more than three weeks, plus a court that politically is aligned with the opponents. And, if you figure the court’s default is to let proposals go to the ballot, that also is working against them.
The citizen voting group situation, however, is harder to guess. They are seeking ballot access, which aligns with the court’s past trend. They have a strong case that, if all the affidavits from registered voters swearing under oath that they signed the petition are counted, they have the signatures. From a political standpoint, it’s not a favorable court. I know, I know, justices decide on the law, etc., etc. But if this were a 6-1 Republican court, the vibes would be much different.
The court has kept a low profile on these matters for almost a month. That won’t be the case this week.
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