The American Freedom Network

Michigan ConCon Considerations

     Every 16 years, Michigan’s Constitution of 1963 requires a referendum on holding a Convention.  The current Constitution came into being after the State of Michigan was unable to meet payroll in the last of a series of periodic fiscal crises that plagued it since the beginning of the 20th century.  The cause was a very unstable tax base, heavily dependent on excsies of various kinds and subject to significant fluctuation. 
     The product of the constitutional convention of 1960-63 is what is at stake now.  Michigan has survived budget crises since, mainly the result of the state’s economy being over-dependent on the automobile industry.  (No tax system is likely to provide a shock-absorber for the rough ride of a highly cyclic industry.)  Michigan maintained a ‘Rainy Day Fund’ that bankrolled state government when revenues fell short in the past; that fund was exhausted early in this decade, as the pre-9/11 recession never ended here.  What has sustained Michigan since then have been one-time fixes (moving money from special accounts to cover shortfalls, delaying certain payments, cutting revenue sharing to local governments, cutting school aid, tobacco settlement funds, and lastly, stimulus cash).
     The fault lies, in this writer’s opinion, not in the Constitution of 1963, but in our current political leadership.  Any system can be gamed, and even a bad system can be made to work, even if only poorly.  The Inca built their empire as an isolated, totalitarian socialist state, and it might well still be in existence if invaders from what amounts to another world had not destroyed it.  By our standards, it produced a poor existence for virtually all its’ subjects, and stunted their humanity in the process, but it self-perpetuated for many generations.  The Mamlukes ruled Egypt and made her a great power for two and a half centuries using a system based on kidnapping children from foreign lands, making them slaves, and then letting the ablest and most ruthless ascend the ranks of their army, with the throne usually achieved by assassination.  So, it is not necessarily the the particulars of a system, but who runs it that is important.  Michigan’s Constitution is designed for a people capable of self-government, and in particular is suited to the genius of a people who embrace a ‘Protestant work ethic,’ a sense of fair play, a Progressive bent in favoring citizen participation in government, a focus on education (the words of the Northwest ordinance concerning ‘schools and the means of education’ to forever be encouraged appear verbatim in the document), and an abhorrence of the death penalty, which Michigan has never had as a state.  If the people elected to govern fit the system they inherited, they would govern well.
     That Michigan is in crisis is not news; that Michigan’s fiscal problems are not the worst in the nation may be.  Other states, such as California, Illinois and New York,
 are in worse shape, even though they have only experienced hard economic times since 2007, whereas Michigan never recovered from the recession of 2000.  Muddling through deserves no plaudits, but greater censure should be reserved for those who had more resources and have suffered relatively less. 
     Michigan therefore cannot be said to be badly governed.  It could be governed better, and that it is not is due to a failure of leadership in both parties, in all branches of government, and broadly in an electorate that has not risen up to demand better.  To make the Constitution the scapegoat is to ignore the reality of poor leadership that has failed to do more than kick the can from one election cycle to the next.  Even if a new Constitution could be agreed upon and enacted into law, at least two years would be absorbed in the ConCon process, with an ongoing crisis that will demand resolution much sooner.  That resolution may well obviate the reason for calling a ConCon in the first place; a failure to resolve the problems Michigan faces will make the ConCon a sideshow as Michigan joins the list of failed states unable to govern themselves.
    Michigan’s vote on a ConCon is a test.  It tests whether voters will blame the politicians now in office for not better addressing our fiscal woes, or whether they will decide that the system itself is broken.  If it is indeed the latter, look to see the social contract rewritten, with no entitlement sacred.  Michigan may be the first to go down this road, but it will not be the last.  Other states will have to face voter anger over failures of governance, and that anger may crystallize in wholesale rewriting of constitutions deemed perfectly adequate only a few years ago. 
     Tea Party activists may find themselves shut out of partisan elections, but voter anger could propel them into ConCons as delegates, giving them scope and opportunity to take concrete action in support of their beliefs.  This may be one of the most important legacies of Michigan’s ConCon opportunity, if it serves as the platform for a basic reordering of the was state and local governments operate.  Whether for well or ill, we stand on the verge of momentous choices.  May we, for the sake of all who come after us, choose rightly.