By John Lindstrom
Publisher
Posted: June 10, 2014 3:03 PM

Can the Legislature figure out a way to raise transportation taxes, or taxes of some sort for the state’s roads, during an election year? Gosh knows, there is that chance as leaders scramble to find a way to make it happen in the closing days of the 2014 spring session.

They could look back to 1978 to see when it was done, and completed on the last day of the short September session, some five weeks before the election.

No, it wasn’t easy. It raised some serious constitutional questions at the time. And given that the voters were asked to decide on two major tax proposals on the ballot – the Headlee Amendment, named for Richard Headlee, that limited taxes, and the Tisch Amendment, named for Robert Tisch, that would have dramatically slashed property taxes – some lawmakers warned that passing the tax increase would ensure the Tisch Amendment would win. It didn’t, but the Headlee Amendment did.

The tax increases, to the gas tax (taking it from 9-cents to 11-cents) and to the weight tax (vehicle registrations were then based on weight, the change to registrations based on vehicle value came some years later), were part of a major transportation proposal that included changing the state’s Highway Commission to the Transportation Commission we know today.

It was then-Governor William Milliken’s highest priority, for many of the same reasons it is a top priority for Governor Rick Snyder, to help ensure quality roads and promote state economic development.

Supporters of the proposal, including former Speaker Bill Ryan, a Detroit Democrat, along with Mr. Milliken, also saw the package as a critical piece to boosting funding for mass transit in the state.

The two main bills in the package were introduced by Mr. Ryan and Rep. George Montgomery, also a Detroit Democrat. Mr. Montgomery was chair of the House Taxation Committee (they called it what it was back then) and was a craggy, grumpy, short-tempered, sour man who walked with a cane, chain-smoked Pall Malls, and was unquestionably brilliant, direct, caring and beloved by every member of the House. Mr. Ryan was Mr. Montgomery’s intellectual equal, but soft-spoken, personally modest, unfailingly fair and more tenacious than any human being could be considered.

Mr. Ryan was also one of the critical figures in Michigan history. Michigan’s Legislature is what it is -- a powerful independent institution – because he made it so. It was his influence, his intellect, his ability to build coalitions and, yes, his tenaciousness that made the Legislature. And yes, in the end, he too was beloved by every member.

With that combination, it seemed a transportation tax increase was an inevitability. The bills were introduced in March 1978, in a couple days moved to the House floor on second reading, and … and that was it.

The bills were not moving. Mr. Milliken, Mr. Ryan, Mr. Montgomery, Speaker Bobby Crim, anyone and everyone who favored the package could not get it to move. March passed, then April, then May, then June and the Legislature broke in the first days of July to campaign and the package was going nowhere. No. Where. It was dead, everyone said so.

Well, Mr. Ryan insisted it could still pass. But even he was worried the bills had rung down the curtain and joined the choir invisible. I mean, it was summer. The general election was less than six months away. This was a tax increase when everywhere in the nation, following the success of Prop 13 in California, voters were getting ready to murderize all taxes. Nope, even supporters admitted the package had ceased to be.

When the Legislature returned for the brief session in September, there was another attempt at the package, but it gasped to collapse.

But then something happened. A number of House members, Democrats and Republicans both, and almost all back-benchers decided after a Monday night session to retire to a committee room and talk the issue over. They came out with a series of suggested amendments.

As reporters returned from that session to the mostly vacant House floor, Mr. Ryan was there. “Let me interview you,” he said to reporters. When he was told what the proposal was and asked for his reaction, Mr. Ryan smiled and said, “The corpse winked.”

The proposed changes were changed themselves, but by mid-September the House approved the tax increases with two votes to spare.

More changes were needed in the Senate, including a concession to the trucking industry that raised the diesel tax for just one year. Even then the chamber split 19-19 and then-Lt. Governor Jim Damman (who had been tossed from the ticket by Mr. Milliken so he had every personal reason not to help the governor) broke the tie and the package passed.

That vote, though generated a new crisis. Mr. Montgomery insisted that the lieutenant governor could not break ties. He cited a Supreme Court opinion, but that one opinion was based on the 1908 Constitution. Mr. Ryan argued the 1963 Constitution, though it incorporated language from the 1908 document, clearly allowed for the lieutenant governor to break a tie.

The changes went to Mr. Milliken on the exact 56 votes needed from the House.

Times are different, lawmakers are different, but the issues are similar and the political mood similar, and zombies are really big in popular culture these days so maybe once more a corpse will wink.