July 8, 2014
Lansing—
Wolf hunting opponents are sounding the alarm about what they believe
could be another effort by state lawmakers to pass legislation making
their petition-initiated November ballot proposals meaningless.
The
fear, they said Tuesday, is lawmakers will pass into law a competing
initiative allowing wolf hunting to continue in Michigan. Backers of the
pro-hunting initiative also went through citizen petition process, but
their 374,000 signatures have yet to be certified by elections
officials. “The Legislature is allowed to
do this, but it’s not good government,” said Humane Society of the
United States President and CEO Wayne Pacelle. “It’s a subversion of the
(democratic) process.”
Together with other
advocacy groups, the Humane Society and an allied organization called
Keep Wolves Protected announced they’re starting the “Let Michigan Vote”
coalition to alert the public about “the Michigan Legislature’s
continued sidestepping of the democratic process.”
The
other groups include Common Cause and Progress Michigan, who say
lawmakers have brazenly subverted the will of voters on issues such as
wolf hunting, state emergency manager rules for local governments and
right-to-work legislation passed in 2012.
Sen.
Tom Casperson, R-Escanaba, has said he wants to pass the pro-wolf
hunting initiative this summer or fall. He led passage of previous
legislation that bypassed a ballot proposition initiated through
signatures collected by Keep Wolves Protected and the Humane Society.
The chief spokesman for Republican House Speaker Jase Bolger of Marshall declined to speculate on what would happen. “We
don't even have such an initiative before us, so it would be difficult
to know what we would be voting on,” Bolger press secretary Ari Adler
said Tuesday.
Once state election officials
have reviewed and certified the signatures from the pro-wolf hunting
petitions, the Legislature has 40 days to pass it into law or allow it
to go before voters in November.
“Until the
matter moves further through the process, there is nothing for us to do
or say, so any alarms people are sounding are just to garner publicity
for their cause,” Adler said.
Amber McCann,
spokeswoman for Senate Majority Reader Randy Richardville, R-Monroe,
said members of that GOP caucus haven’t yet discussed the wolf hunting
propositions. Lawmakers also had the option
of passing into law the second of two petition-initiated proposals from
the anti-wolf hunting groups, but didn’t because the GOP majority
favors continuing wolf hunts in Michigan.
Michigan’s
first wolf hunt was held last fall and ended with the killing of 22
wolves, half the number targeted by state natural resources officials.
The
pro-wolf hunting group, Citizens for Professional Wildlife Management,
turned in its petitions and signatures in late May. It’s made up of
groups such as Michigan United Conservation Clubs, Michigan Bear Hunter
Conservation and the Safari Club. Its
proposal would reaffirm the authority of the Michigan Natural Resources
Commission to designate a game species, as it did last year in
authorizing the first state wolf hunt in three zones of the Upper
Peninsula.
Action on the proposal by the
Legislature prior to the Nov. 4 election theoretically would trump two
Keep Wolves Protected/Humane Society ballot proposals. The
Citizens for Professional Wildlife Management initiative also calls for
a $1 million state appropriation toward keeping Asian carp out of the
Great Lakes and for a reduction in the cost of fishing licenses for
veterans from $1 to zero.
Those provisions,
the Let Michigan Vote Coalition charges, have nothing to do with
hunting and were thrown in to make the proposal immune to any further
challenge by wolf hunting opponents. Generally, legislation containing
appropriations can’t be overturned.
Legislative
passage “would silence Michigan voters,” said Vicki Deisner, Midwest
legislative director for the American Society for Prevention of Cruelty
to Animals, which is also in the coalition. She said all future hunting
decisions would be left to “a panel of political appointees.”
The
seven-member Michigan Natural Resources Commission is made up of
governor’s appointees. It’s intended to provide citizen oversight for
the Department of Natural Resources.
In a
confusing set of developments for state voters, petitions have been
turned in for three wolf hunting-related initiatives — two opposing it
and one favoring it.
The first Keep Wolves
Protected effort in 2013 was a referendum on a 2012 law passed by the
Legislature and signed by Gov. Rick Snyder to allow wolf hunting.
That
proposal will be on the ballot, although subsequent legislative action
appears to make it moot. Lawmakers and Snyder hastily adopted
legislation to put the Natural Resources Commission in charge of wolf
hunting decisions, which led to last fall’s hunt.
Keep
Wolves Protected then turned in a second batch of petitions this spring
for a ballot initiative to counter the 2013 legislative action. That,
too, will be on the Nov. 4 ballot.
If the
Legislature allows the pro-wolf hunting proposition to go before voters,
rather than pass it into law, it will be the third wolf hunting
proposal on the ballot.
The proposal gaining the most votes would win.
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