Michigan

In 1981, the Michigan Supreme Court decided one of the most controversial cases involving eminent domain ... the city of Detroit had seized thousands of homes, businesses, and churches in an area called Poletown ... so that General Motors could build a plant on the site. The city claimed that the "public use" limitation was met [because] the new plant would "create jobs" and increase the city's tax base. Opponents contended that this wasn't truly a "public use" because the ... property was simply being taken from them to be given to General Motors. The Michigan Supreme Court ruled in favor of the city ...

The fact that a reform-minded governor now proposes exchanging one set of politicians for another as a "bold" maneuver suggests we’ve reached the outer limits of what can be done to improve the schools within Michigan's constitution. Detroit parents instinctively know this, as reflected in a recent Detroit Free Press poll that showed 77 percent of them support amending the constitution to allow for tax credits for tuition at nonpublic schools. Parents seem to be saying they would rather pick their children's school than pick the politicians who run the schools.

The case ran into a snag in the trial court, however. The judge was persuaded that in passing the Civil Rights Act (CRA), the state legislature did not mean to include unmarried couples in the class of people "protected" by the law. The reason was that an old Michigan statute made unmarried cohabitation a misdemeanor. Reasoning that the legislature would have repealed that statute if it had meant to "protect" unmarried couples against housing discrimination, the trial court dismissed the complaint. The plaintiffs appealed, but the state court of appeals affirmed the decision of the trial court.

The U.S. Supreme Court will soon decide on the constitutionality of state sodomy laws and, as a Michigan state legislator, I support repeal of this state's laws. Violators of Michigan's felony law can be penalized with 15 years of imprisonment and can even be sentenced to five years for engaging in oral sex.

In 1980, the cities of Detroit and Hamtrack, Michigan, evicted 3,400 families from an area known as Poletown, bulldozed their homes, and gave the razed area to General Motors ... One hundred and fifty businesses, 16 churches, and 1 hospital were driven off their land ... Most of the evicted businesses received only minimal compensation ... The Michigan Supreme Court upheld the action because the city governments claimed that the destruction of private homes was necessary in order to save jobs. (General Motors had threatened to move its Cadillac plant to some other state if Detroit did not clear space for it.)

In Michigan, a tiny number of out-of-state sellers have been "approved" to sell and ship to Michiganians: They are the ones—surprise, surprise—that agree in advance to comply with state regulations and promise not to undercut the prices charged by in-state producers ... He notes that Michigan wineries that have Web pages can and do sell wine legally over the Internet to Michigan residents! ... the Michigan Liquor Control Commission does make an enforcement effort. In a state of nearly 10 million residents, the Commission seized more than a hundred packages of illegally shipped wine, beer, and liquor last year.

The Mackinac Center for Public Policy in Michigan ... devotes its energies to education, the environment, and regulation ... "The federal leviathan absorbs people and money and produces very little change," said John P. Overton, senior vice president of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. "States and state policy organizations are leading the way with education reform, welfare reform, term limits, tax limits, and a number of other issues. [That's why] there has been this incredible growth—because the action is in the states."