Michigan's Constitution Amendment Process

[David Edward Bloch]

On Tuesday October 2, I attended the Lapeer County Tea Party Patriot’s meeting regarding the six ballot proposals.  After the speaker, Vinny - from the Mackinac Center, finished his presentation, I asked him the following question: “How is it that the Michigan Constitution can be amended by a simple majority vote on a petition submitted by group of people?”   Vinny responded by saying he basically agreed that it was a good idea for the people to be able to directly change the Constitution.  I was not satisfied with the speaker’s response, so I decided to do some online research.  What I found was very interesting.  The following information I obtained from the website:

 http://crcmich.org/PUBLICAT/2010s/2010/rpt36003.html

 

Michigan has had four distinct constitutions.  In 1805 Michigan became an organized independent territory of the U.S. under its first constitution.  In 1835, Michigan adopted a second constitution just two years before it became a state in 1837.  In 1908 Michigan adopted a new third constitution.  In 1963, Michigan adopted its fourth and present constitution. The reason Michigan adopted a new constitution in 1908 was because the “Progressive Movement” that appeared in Michigan in the late 1800’s agitated and pressed for it.  The Progressives were unable to push their agenda through the legislature so they campaigned to change the constitution in order to bypass the legislature (this is exactly what is happening with prop 2 & 4 today).  After a dozen or so years of agitation, the Progressives succeeded in changing the Michigan Constitution to allow amendments, which are superior to legislative statutes, to be made by simple majority votes on ballot initiatives. This is referred to as “direct democracy.” In the first half of the twentieth century Progressives were successful in changing constitutions to have “direct democracy” in 18 states, including Michigan. Progressives have since abandoned this strategy of changing state constitutions to allow direct votes on constitutional amendments, after being denied by the other 32 states.  But, in Michigan we still live with this Progressive legacy which has resulted in the following:

1. Beginning in 1910, 161 amendments were submitted to Michigan voters and 69 were approved.
2. All of this amending resulted in a “patchwork quilt of excessive and trivial detail” which resulted in a constitutional convention.  From that convention the 1963 Michigan Constitution was adopted.
3. Since 1963, the Michigan Constitution has been amended 31 times, from 68 attempts, almost doubling the number of words in the document.
4. Incorporated in the 1963 Constitution was a requirement that every 16 years there must appear on the ballot a proposal to hold another constitutional convention. This was done in 2010 and rejected by the voters.  The next time this proposal will be made is not until 2026.

What Michigan has done with its constitution is exactly opposite to what our Founding Fathers did with the U.S. Constitution.  The Founding Fathers made it very difficult to amend the U.S. Constitution: (1) The U.S. House and the U.S. Senate must pass by a supermajority (2/3 vote) to pass a proposed amendment, (2) 75% of state legislatures must ratify the proposed amendment (interestingly, the President is not involved in the amendment process).  The U.S. Constitution has been amended only 27 times in 225 years since its adoption by the U.S. Constitutional Convention in 1787, including the Bill of Rights which are the first 10 amendments.

The Founding Fathers gave us a CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC, not a democracy.  The word democracy is not even mentioned in either the Declaration of Independence or the U.S. Constitution.  “Direct democracy” is associated with mob rule.  Madison and Jefferson expressly warned against pure democracy or “tyranny of the majority” which is why Constitutions are adopted and normally difficult to change – they protect the minority.  Constitutions should not be changeable by the whims of mobs or by the fashion of the day.  This topic is expertly explained by W. Cleon Skousen, in The 5000 Year Leap, chapter 12.

It may be nice to be able to directly vote on tax issues or to prevent taxes from being imposed.  But, there is a very dark side to “direct democracy.”  As the numbers of public government workers grow – as their union expands in numbers, their voting strength also grows.  With a large voting block and a well-funded propaganda machine, the union may very well be able to surreptitiously impose its will or promote its interests at the expense of all others.  Taxpayers will be the slaves to the new masters – the unions.  All this will be accomplished in the name of “democracy.”  And even if the union backed constitutional amendment proposals are defeated this election, the unions can simply wait a couple of years and try again.  What is really needed is a constitutional convention that provides a new constitution that makes Michigan a Constitutional Republic type of government, ending the progressive/socialist hijacking of the Michigan Constitution.