Michigan prevailing wage law repeal petition will undergo second signature review
The group working to repeal Michigan’s prevailing wage law was dealt a blow Tuesday when the state’s Board of Canvassers decided to reject its request to send its proposal straight to state lawmakers.
Protecting Michigan Taxpayers, the ballot committee spearheading the repeal effort, hoped to convince the Board that a handful of signatures deemed invalid by the Bureau of Elections should be considered valid under a more generous, “tie goes to the runner” philosophy. The group argued that when determining if signatures should be disqualified due to illegible or confusing handwriting, the state should err on the side of considering them valid.
Petition signers “should be given the benefit of the doubt and not be disenfranchised for what amounts to sloppy handwriting,” Gary Gordon, attorney for Protecting Michigan Taxpayers, told the Board Tuesday.
Those handful of signatures are significant because if they were considered valid, the ballot petition would have reached the threshold for it to go before the Republican-dominated legislature, which has said repealing the prevailing wage law is one of its priorities for the year. If lawmakers got the chance to pass the petition from the citizen group, Gov. Rick Snyder — who has opposed such a repeal — would not have been allowed to veto it.
Read more: http://www.bridgemi.com/public-sector/prevailing-wage-law-repeal-petition-will-undergo-second-signature-review
