Spring Break
Students try to change state constitution
By: Liberty Asbury
Issue date: 9/17/07 Section: Voices
- Page 1 of 1
Two Central Michigan University students are scheduled to try and change Michigan's 1963 state constitution.
Swartz Creek senior Andrew Leavitt and Topinabee junior Dennis Lennox II will appear at 11 a.m. today at Saginaw Valley State University before the Senate Campaign and Elections Oversight Committee to talk about an amendment to clean up and update the constitution.
The two are speaking for a classroom of 28 students who worked on problems and solutions to the constitution during their spring class PSC 301: Law and Policy in Michigan State Government.
"We will be speaking about a proposal that would amend the state constitution in several areas, removing archaic and obsolete laws," Lennox said.
The state constitution still says a person must be 21 years old to vote. The federal voting age has been lowered to 18, making the state law obsolete.
It also is in the constitution that only property owners may vote on certain property issues - this has also been changed to allow everyone over 18.
"It just doesn't make sense to have items that are no longer legal written in the constitution," Lennox said.
Another part of the amendment would extend the length of time a person can spend in the state legislature to 20 years.
If the student-started amendment is passed out of committee, it will be put to a vote in the Senate and House of Representatives. It would need to pass each with a two-thirds majority vote. After passing out of the legislature, the amendment would then be put on the ballot for citizens to vote on.
Bill Ballenger, the former Robert and Marjorie Griffin Endowed Chair, split his class of 28 students into a House and Senate representative of the real Michigan legislature. Like the real legislature, it would take a two-thirds majority vote to pass an amendment.
"It is very difficult to come up with a two-thirds majority, you can't just bulldoze through something and shove it down the classes' throats. You have to have bipartisan agreement," Ballanger said.
Once the class had agreed on which amendments to pass, Ballanger sent out press releases to inform Lansing of what his students had found.
A previous class of Ballanger's recommended changes to the Michigan Merit Scholarship. The ideas resulted in a similar committee meeting, and the committee eventually turned many of the recommendations into the Michigan Promise.
Lennox was confident this amendment would pass. Recent polling he cited showed 73 percent of people said they would agree with the changes.
The earliest any changes could appear on the ballot would be Jan. 15 during the presidential primary ballot.
Leavitt was not available for comment as of press time.
news@cm-life.com
Swartz Creek senior Andrew Leavitt and Topinabee junior Dennis Lennox II will appear at 11 a.m. today at Saginaw Valley State University before the Senate Campaign and Elections Oversight Committee to talk about an amendment to clean up and update the constitution.
The two are speaking for a classroom of 28 students who worked on problems and solutions to the constitution during their spring class PSC 301: Law and Policy in Michigan State Government.
"We will be speaking about a proposal that would amend the state constitution in several areas, removing archaic and obsolete laws," Lennox said.
The state constitution still says a person must be 21 years old to vote. The federal voting age has been lowered to 18, making the state law obsolete.
It also is in the constitution that only property owners may vote on certain property issues - this has also been changed to allow everyone over 18.
"It just doesn't make sense to have items that are no longer legal written in the constitution," Lennox said.
Another part of the amendment would extend the length of time a person can spend in the state legislature to 20 years.
If the student-started amendment is passed out of committee, it will be put to a vote in the Senate and House of Representatives. It would need to pass each with a two-thirds majority vote. After passing out of the legislature, the amendment would then be put on the ballot for citizens to vote on.
Bill Ballenger, the former Robert and Marjorie Griffin Endowed Chair, split his class of 28 students into a House and Senate representative of the real Michigan legislature. Like the real legislature, it would take a two-thirds majority vote to pass an amendment.
"It is very difficult to come up with a two-thirds majority, you can't just bulldoze through something and shove it down the classes' throats. You have to have bipartisan agreement," Ballanger said.
Once the class had agreed on which amendments to pass, Ballanger sent out press releases to inform Lansing of what his students had found.
A previous class of Ballanger's recommended changes to the Michigan Merit Scholarship. The ideas resulted in a similar committee meeting, and the committee eventually turned many of the recommendations into the Michigan Promise.
Lennox was confident this amendment would pass. Recent polling he cited showed 73 percent of people said they would agree with the changes.
The earliest any changes could appear on the ballot would be Jan. 15 during the presidential primary ballot.
Leavitt was not available for comment as of press time.
news@cm-life.com
Viewing Comments 1 - 2 of 2
Eric
posted 9/17/07 @ 8:32 AM EST
Term limits are turning out to be a very well-intended but horrible decision we made several years back. Too much youth, inexperience, and political posturing has gotten us a lot of bad lawmaking and fiscal irresponsibility. (Continued…)
Doug Brown
posted 9/17/07 @ 12:46 PM EST
Ah, yes. Term limits. As I said at the time "Term limits are a bad idea whose time has come." There was a great groundswell for them but nobody really thought about what the practical impact would be. (Continued…)
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