Rick Pluta

Governor Snyder will deliver his third State of the State speech tonight.

He says he’ll offer a plan to raise a lot more money to fix roads and bridges and improve rail corridors. He says Michigan’s gas tax needs to be updated to reflect the changing realities in how people drive and the vehicles they buy.

"It would likely be a combination of features so you could be talking about fuel tax, but also registration fees because you do have concerns about the long term in terms of people going to electric vehicles and others who won’t be paying in," said Snyder.

The governor says he knows it won’t be easy to sell higher taxes and fees to the Legislature and the public, but he says they’re an investment that will save money over the long term.
    
The governor says he also intends to talk about the Great Lakes in his address, and matching workers’ skills to jobs.

A ballot campaign will launch this week to overturn a new law that allows the state to establish wolf hunting seasons in the Upper Peninsula.

The campaign Keep Michigan Wolves Protected will appear before a state elections board on Thursday to get its petition approved for circulation.

Jill Fritz is the Michigan director for the Humane Society and the leader of the petition drive. She said the gray wolf was only recently removed from the endangered species list.

The 97th Legislature of the state of Michigan began this week, having still not shaken off the hangover of last year, as Republicans forced through controversial issues like right-to-work during last month’s lame duck session. And, it’s probably fair to say that this is more than a double-aspirin hangover.

There are however, some efforts toward mending some of the very hard feelings leftover. “This past year has strained relationships,” state House Speaker Jase Bolger said on the House floor, “however, we can and should leave that past behind us.” Of course, that’s easy to say when you’re not the one still spitting the sand out of your mouth. But, Democrats and Republicans did negotiate for a peaceful opening day.

Yet, Democrats and unions have made it plain that forgive and forget is not in the cards.  They want the last two years, especially everything that happened in December, to be the main topic of conversation in Michigan politics for the next two years. And it certainly seemed like another thumb in their eye when the Michigan Economic Development Corporation paid for an ad in the Wall Street Journal touting Michigan as the nation’s newest right-to-work state under the banner of the very successful and super popular Pure Michigan brand. Democrats say it’s politicizing the brand and some marketing experts are even saying it might not have been the wisest choice.

Over the next two years, the state of Michigan should recover about 40 percent of jobs lost during a nearly decade-long recession, says one University of Michigan economics professor.

George Fulton, director of the Research Seminar in Quantitative Economics, told a group of state officials that Michigan is expected to enter its fourth year of a moderate but sustained economic recovery.

Speaking at the state’s biannual revenue-estimating conference Friday, Fulton said Michigan still has progress to make.

A divided Michigan Court of Appeals has upheld extending health benefits to the live-in partners of state employees.

Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette challenged the state Civil Service Commission agreement with public employee unions.

Among other things, the attorney general says the policy violates Michigan’s constitutional ban on same-sex marriage and civil unions.

But the court’s majority said the policy makes no distinction between people in same-sex relationships and heterosexual live-in partners.        

New drivers in Michigan will soon face restrictions on cell phone use while they’re behind the wheel.

Governor Rick Snyder signed “Kelsey’s Law” Tuesday.

It bans cell phone use by teen drivers who still have their probationary licenses unless they use a hands-free device or are reporting an emergency.

The law is named for 17-year-old Kelsey Raffaele. The 17-year-old Sault Sainte Marie girl died in a car crash two years ago while talking on her cell phone.

Her mother, Bonnie Raffaele, lobbied for the law and attended the signing ceremony.

Michigan Supreme Court Justice Diane Hathaway has resigned.

That news became public just hours after an ethics complaint was filed against her, along with an unprecedented request that she be suspended from the court.

The state Supreme Court had never been asked to take this kind of disciplinary action against a sitting justice.

Before the court acted on her suspension, Justice Hathaway’s attorney said she had already agreed to resign and won’t participate in any more cases. Hathaway’s resignation becomes official on January 21st.

The complaint accuses her of fraud and money laundering in a real estate deal, as well as lying about it to the Judicial Tenure Commission.        

Hathaway still faces a federal lawsuit that seeks to seize her Florida vacation home.         

Hathaway is a Democrat elected to the court in 2008. It will be up to Republican Governor Rick Snyder to name a replacement.

Update 4:26 p.m.

A lawyer says embattled Michigan Supreme Court Justice Diane Hathaway will retire on Jan. 21.

Steve Fishman tells The Associated Press that Hathaway filed the paperwork on Dec. 20. He made the disclosure Monday after a judicial watchdog agency filed a complaint and asked the Supreme Court to suspend Hathaway over a series of suspicious real estate transactions.

Fishman says the Judicial Tenure Commission was told about Hathaway's retirement in December. He says the filing of the 19-page complaint was a "gratuitous" move.

The commission says Hathaway committed "blatant and brazen" violations of professional conduct in the 2011 short sale of her home in Grosse Pointe Park. Hathaway and her husband put a debt-free Florida home in a relative's name, but regained the property when the Michigan sale was completed.

2:48 p.m.

The Michigan Supreme Court will be asked for the first time to suspend a sitting justice for misconduct.

The Michigan Judicial Tenure Commission has filed a formal complaint against Justice Diane Hathaway. The disciplinary board has also asked the court to suspend Hathaway while the proceedings play out.

She has 14 days to respond to the complaint. Hathaway is accused of ethics violations for allegedly using property swaps to arrange a short sale that saved the couple hundreds of thousands of dollars -- a loss that was swallowed by the bank. The U.S. Attorney in Detroit has also filed a lawsuit against Hathaway.

It’s the first It’s Just Politics of the new year and we took advantage of our sabbatical to ponder what might be the big political news in 2013. We say “might” because, well, really, who would have thought at the beginning of 2012 that our biggest political story would be Michigan becoming a right-to-work state? The biggest story out of a year already filled with intrigue, political gossip and bombshells.

Right-to-work consequences

Certainly, there’s already intrigue afoot over how Democrats and labor are going to respond to the passage of right-to-work. It can be argued that the escalation really began in 2011. That’s when the Michigan Education Association, in particular, responded to some Republican anti-union legislation by launching a recall effort. They succeeded in recalling state Representative Paul Scott, then-chair of the state House Education Committee.

Skip ahead to November 2012 and Proposal Two. Prop Two failed, and, then, voila!, Michigan the country’s 24th right-to-work state. Now, that’s just a simple version of what’s a much more complex tale. But, it does give one a sense of how politics is played here in Michigan… kinda reminds us of Sean Connery’s line in “The Untouchables."

Connery: He pulls a knife. You pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital. You send one of his to the morgue.

When talking about Michigan politics, Newton had it right, “to every action there is always an equal and opposite reaction.”

Retaliation

Unions and progressives could try to challenge what happened in the lame duck session on the November 2014 ballot; not just challenging right-to-work but the new emergency manager law, too. The new EM law is a rewrite of the 2011 law that voters rejected via referendum in November. The organizers of that ballot drive are now crying foul, saying the new EM law is similar to the one that voters already said "no" to.

Meanwhile, Governor Snyder and legislative Republicans made it impossible for voters to repeal this new EM law. We’ve talked about this often on It’s Just Politics: lawmakers can make it impossible for voters to repeal a law by adding money – appropriations – into the measure. Voters cannot repeal legislation with money in it. So, lawmakers added appropriations to the emergency manager and the right-to-work laws.

But, that doesn’t mean opponents still can’t go to the ballot.

Governor Rick Snyder says he’s keeping a close eye on the “budget cliff” discussions in Washington and how they might affect Michigan.

Governor Snyder says the state’s finances are already tight, and he’s concerned about the possibility of spending cuts from the federal government.

“There’s a real issue with the fiscal cliff out of Washington as to what could happen and what they could cut at the state level that could create some severe stress,” says Snyder.

LANSING, Mich. (AP) - Gov. Rick Snyder has signed into law abortion regulations supporters say protect women but opponents denounce as a backdoor assault on the right to terminate pregnancy.  Critics contend the new regulations on clinics could force some of them to shut down.

The Republican governor who has said he opposes abortion signed the contentious measures Friday that passed the Legislature this month.

Governor Rick Snyder has signed an updated local emergency manager law to replace the one rejected last month by voters.

The governor says the new law is an improvement because it gives local governments more options to come up with a plan to dig out of a financial crisis.

Critics say it's not very different from what voters said "no" to. It still grants emergency managers sweeping authority over local governments that are taken over by the state.

Governor Rick Snyder held a year-end roundtable with reporters today.  That’s on top of the public bill-signings and one-on-one interviews and meet-ups he’s held with various reporters and editorial boards in the past few weeks. These meetings are a December staple of the Lansing political-journalism culture. But, today’s additional roundtable with reporters raises the question: after hours and hours already spent being interviewed, why is the Governor holding yet another meeting with the press?

A likely answer: The governor wants to reset the conversation, at least a little, and shift some attention from controversies like Michigan’s new right-to-work law and his veto of concealed weapons legislation to some good news stories – or, at least, what he calls good news stories.

“No guns” is a pretty simple and common policy in Michigan schools.

Students are expelled for bringing firearms.  But Michigan law is less clear on what schools can do when adults show up with a firearm.

It’s pretty unusual, but it occasionally happens.         

Now, I’m not talking about an armed aggressor, but a parent or some other adult visitor who carries a weapon – either concealed or openly.         

Governor Rick Snyder has approved an overhaul of how mining is taxed in Michigan.

Right now, mines pay a mix of property taxes, income taxes and sales taxes.

Soon, mines will instead be taxed on the amount of nickel, copper, and other ores are pulled from the ground.        

Snyder said he expects the simpler tax structure will lure more mining operations to northern Michigan.

Governor Rick Snyder has signed a plan to phase out the state’s tax on business and industrial equipment.

Manufacturers, in particular, say the tax discourages investment in Michigan.

Charlie Pryde is a lobbyist for Ford.

“We believe the reform package the governor is signing today will make Michigan more competitive for manufacturing and Ford Motor Company more competitive in the intensely competitive automotive manufacturing marketplace,” Pryde said.