By John Lindstrom
Publisher
Posted: June 22, 2017 12:43 PM

These days, grocery store magazine racks cater more to Hollywood breakups or stories of courageous celebrities soldiering on without their hunky half-talented whoever, but those of a certain age remember being compelled to stand in grocery lines with their mother while the magazines had a sob-story feature called “Can This Marriage Be Saved?”

One can hear in the critics of Lt. Governor Brian Calley’s part-time Legislature some of the same frustrated voice that graced those stories.

The “can this marriage be saved” story always put the lie to Tolstoy. Reading these pieces, one recognized that no, every unhappy family is not unhappy in their own way, they all pretty much were unhappy for the same reasons: neglect, abuse, poverty, lack of communication, emotional exhaustion, family pressure and disapproval, emotional distance.

And generally one of the spouses would voice at some point a cry along the lines of what else can I do?

Which is where the frustration at the part-time Legislature proposal comes in. There is a general cynical sense among political observers that, in this political age where no one trusts anyone and where people especially don’t trust anyone who knows what he or she is talking about (could we expect legislation any day to allow for amateur heart surgeons, with full malpractice immunity, to be introduced?), that if Mr. Calley’s proposal does make it to the November 2018 ballot, it will pass. That means in January 2019, Michigan’s 100th Legislature will be limited to meeting for 90 days and they will all still be term limited to boot.

Which has led some observers to look out over the political landscape and say: “What else do you want?”

Over the decades, Michigan has not been lacking, one can argue, in providing the voters what they wanted. Starting with the Headlee Tax Limitation Amendment in 1978. That alone had a massive effect on limiting government operations. For more than a decade, voters said they wanted property tax cuts, big property tax cuts. Big property tax cuts were put on the ballot and the voters voted them down. Nobody ever seemed to figure out why, because they also kept asking for property tax cuts. Finally, the voters approved Proposal A.

Then the voters decided people are in office too long, so they supported term limits. One can quibble, and people do, about its overall effectiveness. But the voters wanted it; they got it.

In most recent years voters decided wanted a more conservative Republican government, and they got it.

Now, do they want a part-time Legislature, too?

Earlier this week, a top Republican official in the state, worried about the PTL proposal, moaned, “They wanted all this stuff. We gave it to them. What do they want now?” They wanted tax cuts, they got tax cuts; they wanted regulatory cuts, they got regulatory cuts; now they want tax credits, we’re trying to give them tax credits; they wanted no motorcycle helmets, we gave them no motorcycle helmets; they want switchblades, who knew they wanted switchblades, but we’re giving them switchblades, the official said.

“What do they want now?” the official said.

It would probably be unfair, though tempting, to say voters want everything at no cost to themselves. But it is fair to ask what do voters really want of their government and why do they think a part-time Legislature will be the answer to that need?

One suspects the answers could be more complicated than paying more attention around the house, being more loving in public, or communicating more. However, there may be both political and policy equivalents to those answers.

So, can the marriage of the public to their government be saved?