Examiner.com article on petitions submitted for ballot initiatives

Volunteers from Raise Michigan showing the receipts from the Board of State Canvassers after submitting their petitions for a ballot measure to raise the state's minimum wage.
Credit: Sam Inglot of Raise Michigan and Progress Michigan (with permission).

Time to follow up on something I linked to in Examiner.com articles on wolf hunt ban and millage elections.

Also, there is the possibility of a pro-hunting measure getting on the ballot or, worse yet, having the legislature approve it, making both anti-hunting initiatives pointless.

This week, that happened, along with a couple of other things.

Petitions submitted for minimum wage, wolf hunt

It has been a busy seven days at Michigan's Board of State Canvassers.

Wednesday, Raise Michigan dropped off boxes of signatures for the ballot proposal to increase the state's minimum wage to $10.10 per hour.

The day before, the pro-hunting group Citizens for Professional Wildlife Management submitted their petitions to allow the wolf hunt to continue and appropriate money to control Asian Carp and other invasive aquatic species.

Finally,  on Thursday of last week the Board of State Canvassers approved placing a measure to approve the legislature's repeal of the state's personal property tax on the August 5 ballot.

Much more about all three measures at the link in the headline.

I've already said what I have to say about the wolf hunting measures.  As for the minimum wage measure, it might get on the ballot, but the result will be moot, as the legislature did an end-run and approved a lower minimum wage increase, repealing the law the initiative would have amended in the process.  I'm not thrilled about this subversion of democracy, but it did show that pressure from the people worked.  I'll also take the half a loaf offered.

As for the personal property tax, that had to go.  My first encounter with it was when I worked at Pre-Historic Forest and the owner was hit with it.  Any item not for sale had to be paid its depreciated value.  His response was to mark everything he could for sale.  that turned out to be prophetic.  The next year, the park closed and just about everything ended up being sold.