Maybe you’ve recently been asked to sign a petition. Did you know that petition circulators in Michigan aren’t legally required to tell the truth about the contents of their ballot proposals?
Think you’re signing in favor of one issue? It could be you’ve just endorsed the exact opposite.
State Senator Jeremy Moss (D-Southfield) has been trying to do something about the issue for nearly a decade and has, again, introduced legislation to curb petition fraud. The bills were recently approved by the state Senate Elections and Ethics Committee.
On this week’s It’s Just Politics, Moss joined Zoe Clark and Rick Pluta to discuss his bill package.
Right now, some petition circulators are paid by the signature. It incentivizes them to lie, Moss said. “If they can get more and more signatures by any means possible, including by lying, then they get more and more money.”
Outlawing a per-signature payment doesn’t mean circulators can’t be paid. It just means paying them by the hour instead. The current system is “ripe for abuse, and it has been abused here in Michigan,” Moss said.
Another bill would require petition circulators to have to read aloud or share a summary of the petition with signers. But, how would that be enforced?
Moss looks to the media. Back when he first proposed the bills in 2017, he said this came down to stories reported on the news. But now, thanks to everyone having a phone to take video, he said it’ll be a lot easier for people to share if a petition circulator lies.
The bills have critics though, like Republican state Senator Ruth Johnson, a former Michigan Secretary of State.
“I really don’t think they represent, really, an effective deterrent to fraud,” Johnson said during committee testimony on the bills. “I also feel like the legislation addressing false statements and misrepresentations, in particular, could be enforced in a very partisan or political-motivated manner.”
Moss isn’t sure he’ll get Johnson to vote in favor of the package, but other Republican legislators have been open to them, he said.
“This fraudulent activity has kicked Republican candidates for governor off the ballot, so this is evenly applied across the board,” Moss argues.
Meanwhile, Michigan lawmakers might be throwing the marijuana industry a bone.
A state Senate committee is considering a proposal to halt new legal marijuana business licenses. This follows the legislature’s recent vote to create a new 24% wholesale tax on marijuana. The industry is oversaturated, and current businesses want more regulation on new licenses.
The last episode of IJP breaks down the legal questions surrounding the possible new regulations on the marijuana industry.
Dustin Walsh, senior reporter for Crain’s Detroit covering the cannabis industry in Michigan, joins Zoe and Rick to explain what we know, and what’s up in the air right now.
“I think everyone is throwing everything at the board right now,” Walsh said. “They're all very desperate because they do believe this wholesale tax is going to just be an absolute crush on the industry.”
As the new regulations are written today, they’d go into effect Jan. 1 – the same day as the wholesale marijuana tax. But the timeline comes down to what we still don’t know.
“We don't know how this is going to work and whether they have the votes and how much time they've got in the next two months before the Christmas break.”
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