LANSING – In one of the most blatant political moves in years, the Michigan Republican legislative majorities powered to passage Wednesday a bill that would end the ability of voters to choose a party’s entire slate of candidates with a single selection.
With final passage in the House about 10:30 p.m., SB 13 will soon land on Governor Rick Snyder‘s desk, and while the governor has insisted he has made no decision on whether to sign the bill, it would be an enormous shock if he did not.
Presuming Snyder signs the elimination of the straight-ticket option, it will end a mechanism that on the whole has helped Democrats more than Republicans, especially on the races for the statewide education boards. In recent elections, roughly 52 percent of votes cast statewide were for Democrats.
A Republican source said in addition to ending a key Democratic election tool, it also would provide some defense to House Republicans, seeking to defend their majority this year, in the event Donald Trump or U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas wins the Republican Party presidential nomination. This source said voter recoil at the Republican candidate could prompt heavier than usual straight Democratic voting and cost the GOP its House majority.
Last night marked the last voting session of 2015 for the House and Senate, which called for the sine die adjournment to occur swiftly, at 11:45 a.m. Friday in both houses. Formal sessions will recommence starting January 13.
Two significant issues saw no action this week and will wait until 2016. In the House, there had been some talk of work on major energy legislation, but that petered out, and in the Senate, a bill to extend the sunset on the Health Insurance Claims Assessment remains pending on the floor.
Sen. Steve Bieda (D-Warren) labeled the legislation “the Donald Trump is going to be your nominee and you’re terrified bill.”
Senate Majority Leader Arlan Meekhof (R-West Olive) said, no, Trump’s potential nomination was not behind the legislation.
“That was a pretty funny line, but I don’t think it had anything to do with it,” he said. “In fact, I’m going to call him and tell him that was pretty funny.”
Meekhof said the bill is “a very progressive idea” that puts Michigan in sync with 40 other states that do not offer a straight-ticket option.
“We did a fair amount of checking on (the effect on voting lines),” he said of other states. “There was minimal to no effect on voting lines and things like that, so we thought it was the right thing to do. More and more people don’t identify by party, so not having a party label on it was probably a good idea as well.”
Left in the dust was a separate bill, HB 4724, which would have allowed voters to vote via absentee ballot for any reason, provided they picked up the ballot in-person at a clerk’s office and with photo identification, and its champion, Rep. Lisa Posthumus Lyons (R-Alto). Lyons, the House Elections Committee chair, had insisted on the bill to alleviate longer lines and convinced her House Republican colleagues to tie-bar it to the elimination of straight-ticket voting.
That upset the chair of the Senate Elections and Government Reform Committee, Sen. Dave Robertson (R-Grand Blanc), a staunch opponent of no-reason absentee voting. The question going into this week was who would prevail, and there was no doubt Wednesday night that Robertson was the victor.
House Republicans cast aside Lyons’ insistence on tying the two bills together and concurred in the version of the bill without the tie-bar on a 54-52 vote, the minimum needed for passage. But that was merely the capper on about five hours of wild action.
This story was published by Gongwer News Service. To subscribe, click on www.gongwer.com
