by Gongwer News Service
June 6, 2008

It’s been about a year since Michigan Taxpayers Alliance first got voters’ attention by parking a giant pink pig float on the Capitol lawn that decried legislators who planned to vote for a tax increase and threatened to oust any lawmaker who didn’t heed the “no new taxes” warnings.

The warnings of potential recall attempted to become reality against nine lawmakers who supported higher taxes last fall, but ultimately shifted to garnering support to eject one symbolically important leader: House Speaker Andy Dillon (D-Redford Twp.). That effort effectively fizzled this week when Secretary of State Terri Land ruled that MTA didn’t have enough signatures to put the speaker’s recall on the ballot.

But Leon Drolet, executive director of the Michigan Taxpayers Alliance, isn’t giving up his fight, which ended 776 signatures short of ballot placement, just yet. He’s challenging the decision in the Ingham County Circuit Court, saying he believes that 2,053 of the thrown-out signatures will be found valid based on a U.S. Supreme Court case that says petition circulators need not be registered voters.

From the beginning, when he began handing out stickers that said “Recall 1983?” eluding to a successful recall that year of two Democratic senators for their votes to raise taxes, Mr. Drolet has maintained his enthusiasm for what he has said is a “grassroots effort” by people who are tired of government overspending and tax increases.

But what started as a call to remove nearly a dozen legislators from their positions ran into roadblocks, which whittled the group’s plans down to a concerted effort against Mr. Dillon.

There were court challenges over the clarity of the petitions, whether the people gathering names were qualified to do so and allegations of fraudulent signatures on the petition. Bad weather and a lack of petition circulators finished off efforts in other districts, and from there it became clear that MTA would harness all of its remaining energy to oust Mr. Dillon.

While Mr. Drolet has repeated over the last year that his efforts are a genuine push toward change and nothing else, leaders in the Democratic Party have countered his enthusiasm with allegations that the recalls are nothing more than a political tactic meant more as a distraction than as a means of true civic engagement.

Indeed, many legislators said that while their efforts should have been focused solely on the issues still before them, for the last year they have felt like they were running a campaign against an invisible opponent, struggling in an off election year to raise money and support to stay in their post.

Rep. Marie Donigan (D-Royal Oak), who in the Court of Appeals successfully challenged the petition to eject her as unclear, said she threw herself into her defense because she had no plans of going down in infamy.

“(The recall) doesn’t change what I do; it intensifies what I do,” Ms. Donigan said in January. “I’m not going to be the legislator who is talked about for 24 years.”

Mark Brewer, chair of the state Democratic Party, called this week’s ruling “the final nail in the coffin” for MTA’s campaign.

But not everyone is so sure that the issue is ready for a burial.

There’s still the matter of how far Mr. Drolet will take his case to have the petition against Mr. Dillon certified and whether a judge will ultimately side for the MTA or for the lawmaker.

Further, even if the official recall effort comes to a close in the coming weeks or months, the question remains: if a 25-year-old recall has so deeply penetrated the minds of lawmakers that it was a factor even as they voted a tax increase up or down in last year’s budget, what will be the lasting legacy of recall attempts this year?

Mr. Dillon said that unsuccessful recalls may actually help the democratic process in the long run, now that lawmakers that will face tough budget decisions in the next few years have confirmation of what Democrats suspected all along: that the recalls had little grassroots support.

He said he thinks legislators will get back to making those decisions with the threatening cloud of recalls now lifted from the atmosphere.

The threat of a recall first loomed in the 94th Legislature on February 8, 2007, when Mr. Drolet showed up at the Granholm administration’s budget presentation handing out stickers that said, “Recall 1983?”for the governor’s proposal to balance the budget with a 2-percent sales tax on services.

MTA activists protested outside Governor Jennifer Granholm’s town hall gatherings, arguing for “no new taxes,” and soon the group acquired the pink pig float, which was driven through lawmakers’ districts and finally parked for weeks in front of the Capitol as the legislature and governor grappled over how to balance the budget.

A couple weeks after the votes came down to increase the income tax from 3.9 to 4.35 percent until 2011 and to expand the 6-percent sales tax to services, the MTA filed recall petition language against a number of Democratic lawmakers. Several legislators protested that the language only talked about how they voted and didn’t explain that the income tax rate increase was temporary. The petition language also talks about their supportive votes for the service tax, which was abolished by the legislature in December — some 15 hours after it went into effect — and replaced with a surcharge on the new Michigan Business Tax.

Targets for the efforts included: Rep. Robert Dean (D-Grand Rapids); Rep. Steve Bieda (D-Warren); Rep. Marc Corriveau (D-Northville); House Speaker Andy Dillon (D-Redford Twp.); Rep. Marie Donigan (D-Royal Oak); Rep. Joel Sheltrown (D-West Branch); Rep. Ed Gaffney (R-Grosse Pointe Farms); Rep. Mary Valentine (D-Muskegon) and Sen. Gerald Van Woerkom (R-Norton Shores). But each effort except for that against Mr. Dillon failed to either get enough signatures or survive a court challenge.

Unless Mr. Drolet is successful in the courts, recall opponents will be able to declare a clean sweep against the anti-tax group.

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