Damn Arbor voting guide: State proposals and the Federal Election

Gentle Readers, there's an election just a week from today. Some friends have asked for a voting guide so this is my attempt at that. In general, I'm going to try to stay as apolitical as possible and just provide information.

If you know your county, city/township/village, ward and precinct you should take a gander at a sample ballot on the Secretary of State's website.

Let's start by looking at the proposal part of the ballot, even though it will be at the end. Voters in the State of Michigan will be faced with six statewide proposals. One a referendum on the Emergency Manager Law (Public Act 4) and five proposals to amend the Michigan Constitution. Here are the proposals with links to the Michigan Radio descriptions of the proposals:

Proposal 1 in Michigan: Emergency Manager Law Referendum

Proposal 2 in Michigan: Collective Bargaining

Proposal 3 in Michigan: Renewable Electricity Standard

Proposal 4 in Michigan: Home Health Care Workers

Proposal 5 in Michigan: Tax Hike Supermajority

Proposal 6 in Michigan: The Bridge Vote

If you are having trouble making up your mind on the ballot proposals, the Michigan Radio articles are pretty good. I've made up my mind so far on all the proposals except for Proposal 4. I think reasonable people could probably disagree about Props. 1 through 4. Proposals 5 and 6 are bad news. Proposal 5 would make it difficult for the state to restructure taxes and for the state to be responsive to changing economic situations. It would allow a small number of lawmakers to hold the state hostage. Bad news. RySny, and the Chamber of Commerce are against it.

Proposal 6 would require a public vote on building a new Bridge to Canada. WHY STOP THERE? Why not require a public vote for all infrastructure projects in the state? Because that's why we hire a government, to make boring infrastructure development decisions for us. The proposal has been bankrolled by Matty Moroun, the evil troll who owns the Ambassador Bridge. You've probably been seeing a lot of commercials supporting Proposal 6. They are basically all lies. Canada is covering Michigan's portion of the construction costs. The bridge is a really good idea and it all reasonable people in the state are for the bridge, which means against Proposal 6. Oh yeah, one last thing: Bill Clinton endorsed Proposal 3.

So after the Presidential section of the ballot comes the U.S. Senate section. Here we have 2 term Junior Senator Debbie Stabenow (D) running against former U.S. Representative (MI-2) Pete "Turtle Fence" Hoekstra (R). Two interesting facts about this race:

1. On his campaign website Pete Hoekstra's favicon is a bicycle. Is Hoekstra a secret hipster? No! He was just born in the Netherlands.

2. Pete Hoekastra's 59th birthday is today. Happy birthday Pete!

The Green, Natural Law, Libertarian and U.S. Taxpayer's Parties are fielding candidates for this race too. Is there lack of mention tantamount to an endorsement of our two party system? Not necessarily, 538 gives Debbie a 99.2% chance of winning at this point.