LANSING – With an anticipated fight over whether the controversial Reform Michigan Government Now! ballot proposal appears on the November ballot, both sides are preparing with some of the top names in political and legal consulting in the state.

How a fight will proceed is still somewhat speculative because the formal process to determine if the proposal succeeded in collecting more than the 380,000-plus signatures from registered voters needed for a constitutional amendment to appear on the ballot has not been finalized.

Proponents of the proposal turned in nearly 490,000 signatures on Monday, the deadline to turn in signatures. Officials in the Elections Bureau of the Department of State have just begun the process of checking the signatures to establish if they meet form and that names are not duplicated.

A spokesperson for the department could not estimate when that first task would be completed. When it is, then the state will determine how many signatures the petition drive actually has. It will then draw 500 names at random and the process of checking those signatures for validity will occur.

Robert LaBrant, senior vice president and legal counsel for the Michigan Chamber of Commerce, said he was told that process might be completed by July 21. At that point opponents and supporters both could obtain copies of the petitions as well as the names drawn to conduct their own counts and challenges.

In preparation for the challenge on signatures, sources have said Reform Michigan has hired Practical Political Consulting, the East Lansing firm that is one of the best in the nation in terms of analyzing raw voter information and data.

Mark Grebner, CEO of Practical Political Consulting, refused to comment on whether his company had been retained.

Dianne Byrum, spokesperson for the proposal, also refused to discuss what firm the campaign had hired, but said the campaign had anticipated a challenge to the petitions and is prepared for that fight. The campaign had “an active strategy” on the petition drive and the signatures acquired were “clean signatures.”

LaBrant also said hiring Practical Political Consulting blocks anyone else from using the firm to challenge the signatures.

But the Chamber, which will be one of the leading organizations to fight the proposal from ever appearing on the ballot, has retained John Pirich of Honigman, Miller, Schwartz & Cohn to lead the effort to challenge signatures.

A successful challenge may need the state to determine there are actually 475,000 or fewer signatures on the petition, approximately 25 percent more than the 380,000-plus needed, Mr. LaBrant said. Any number higher than 25 percent more than required makes it less likely a successful challenge could occur.

But concurrently with the signature challenge, opponents are preparing a legal challenge to the question of whether a petition that includes so many potential amendments to the constitution even meets constitutional muster.

LaBrant said opponents have already retained Peter Ellsworth of Dickinson Wright and Gary Gordon of Dykema Gossett to lead that fight.

Byrum did not know which lawyers would handle the legal battle for the campaign.

This story was provided by Gongwer News Service. To subscribe, click on Gongwer.Com

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