Central Michigan Life

Issue date: 4/13/07 Section: News

Media Credit: Casey Shortt Bob LaBrant, Michigan Chamber of Commerce senior vice president for political affairs and general counsel, left, comments on whether Michigan needs a new constitution during the Spring 2007 Griffin Policy Forum on Wednesday evening in the Charles V. Park Library Auditorium. [Click to enlarge]

A former Michigan state senator thinks the process for amending the Michigan constitution should be made more difficult.

"It's too easy to amend the document, which is supposed to be semi-firm," said Tony Derezinski, the former state senator from Muskegon and director of Government Relations for the Michigan Association of School Boards. "It should not be amended easily. It should be a document of limited change."

Derezinski was one of the panelists in a full Charles V. Park Library Auditorium on Wednesday night at the Griffin Policy Forum, which discussed the possiblity of forming a new Michigan Constitution.

The Michigan Constitution is up for review in 2010, when voters will decide whether to create a convention to rewrite it. The constitution was penned in 1963.

Four panelists spoke about the changes needed and how to achieve those changes at the once-a-semester forum hosted by the Robert and Marjorie Griffin Endowed Chair in American Government, the College of Humanities and Social and Behavioral Sciences and the political science department.

If Michigan were to have a constitutional convention, it would cost about $30 million.

Rochester senior Brent McDermott said that price tag is too much.

"It seems excessive to me," he said. "It makes me wonder if they need lunch catered by Domino's (Pizza)."

Bob LaBrant, a panelist and the senior vice president for political affairs and general counsel for the Michigan Chamber of Commerce, doesn't think the common citizen would have much influence on a new constitution.

Continued...

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