Editorial Roundup: Michigan

Detroit News. July 12, 2023.

Editorial: Voting expansion should be secure and efficient

Proposal 2 passed in November, enshrining certain voting rights in Michigan’s constitution. Now the Democratic-controlled Legislature has passed bills to institutionalize the expanded rights across the state.

It’s critical to get the nuts and bolts of how Michigan’s new voting mechanisms will work in place as far in advance of the 2024 elections as possible. With the Democratic presidential primary moved up to the end of February, the Legislature has been under pressure to craft the new voting infrastructure — which should expand access for Michiganians — and help clerks implement it.

Still, some of these changes will require more volunteers and more funding, and have the potential to increase voting fraud throughout the state.

Voters expanded rights and access by passing Prop 2, but the onus will be on clerks and new volunteers to ensure election integrity, a contentious issue in Michigan during the past several elections.

One of the most time-consuming, radical changes is that counties will now be able to offer a minimum of nine days of early voting, more if local clerks think their municipality can facilitate it. There is a lot of flexibility in how individual municipalities can handle early voting, which can be beneficial. It may also mean only some residents will reap the benefits of the new system.

It’ll be up to clerks to decide whether or not their municipality can facilitate such an ask, meaning the state will become a patchwork of voting rules by county — or even by city, if local clerks have different resources. Poorer, more rural areas will be less likely to fund and create the same opportunities as more urban ones.

There are also concerns about expanding Election Day for so long before the actual day. Under the bills, clerks are allowed to offer between nine and 29 days of early voting. That could lead to inequal access for all communities as municipalities will shoulder additional early in person voting costs, on top of the millions of dollars it will cost the state to implement. Also, such expanded early voting could disrupt the ease and accessibility people have come to expect when they vote.

Democrats went further than the measures passed in Proposal 2, allowing ballots to be printed on demand at early voting sites and expanding the types of identification voters can acceptably submit to prove their registration. Expanding these terms can lead to fraudulent voting, especially if poll volunteers don’t know what to be looking for on each type of new ID.

These kinds of provisions, not approved by residents, open the door to a looser voting system than Michigan has had and than is even allowed by Prop 2. Such expansive voting procedures might further erode what lack of trust in the system already exists.

Prop 2 required expansion of the ballot drop box system, which means every city or township must have at least one drop box and distribute them equitably throughout a municipality. But this provision, too, could lead to an unequal distribution of resources for more urban areas with higher populations.

As this bill package heads to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, there are more expansive proposals making their way through Lansing, including pre-registration for 16- and 17-year-olds and repealing a ban on paid rides to the polls, as well as a Michigan version of the Voting Rights Act.

Michigan will be contending with massive new changes to its voting system in this fall’s municipal elections, and statewide and presidential elections in 2024.

The Legislature and Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson should prioritize provisions that make it possible for clerks and volunteers to carry out Proposal 2 securely and efficiently.

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Traverse City Record-Eagle. July 16, 2023.

Editorial: Medication in jail means life, not luxury

When judges hand down sentences for crimes, they don’t usually order hallucinations, seizures, headaches and muscle cramps.

That would be cruel.

Yet, too often, inmates experience some extra-judiciary punishment by way of drug withdrawal in jails when they don’t receive their doctor-prescribed medications.

Last week, an emergency hearing convened after a woman, incarcerated in Leelanau County jail for a drug-related conviction, experienced symptoms that she and her mother connected to seizures. For a week, she said she was not given lorazepam, a benzodiazepine used to treat anxiety, seizure disorders and sleeping problems. The drug was reportedly administered about an hour before an emergency court hearing on the matter.

In 2021, a Grand Traverse County inmate had to go to court to get Vyvanse, a medicine used to treat diagnosed attention deficit disorder. In another case, an inmate’s prescription access for suboxone, used to treat substance use disorder, became the basis of a ACLU suit and a $25,000 settlement.

Prescriptions are hardly champagne and caviar for these inmates. They are basic, and potentially life-saving, necessities.

In 2019, Paul Bulthouse, 39, who was incarcerated in Muskegon County’s jail following a probation violation, died after suffering multiple seizures, court records show. Bulthouse was prescribed klonopin, a sedative used to manage seizures and panic attacks; his family said he did not receive it.

In the end, Muskegon County Board of Commissioners settled for $2.4 million with Bulthouse’s family, and the four Muskegon County jail guards pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge of willful neglect of duty.

Not providing medications — especially those used to treat substance use disorder that are shown to prevent withdrawal, relapse and overdose — is a dangerous and pervasive practice.

The Marshall Project found in 2022, that even though the First Step Act requires prisons to provide addiction medications, only 10 percent of 15,000 eligible prisoners get them.

Just this past week, Michigan’s Department of Health and Human Services sent out a notice seeking proposals to expand medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD) programs in Michigan county jails — using opioid settlement money.

In Rhode Island, all three forms of MOUD medications are used in its correctional system, resulting in a nearly two-thirds reduction in statewide opioid overdose deaths.

This U.S Food and Drug Administration-approved, evidence-based method can save lives, preventing relapse and overdose post-incarceration.

Medication should be delivered to the inmates in a controlled, secure way so the medication isn’t abused. But taxpayers shouldn’t have to pay out unnecessary court settlements to the families of the inmates either.

We believe that getting this right will make a difference, not only to prisoners and inmates, but for those in charge of their care.

Let people do the time for the crime the way the judges intended – and just give these inmates their meds.

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Mining Journal. July 11, 2023.

Editorial: Celebrate July as Michigan Wildlife Conservation Month

July is Michigan Wildlife Conservation Month, which reflects that July 1 marks the 85th anniversary of the effective date for the Pittman-Robertson Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration Act. This act ensures a percentage of funds from hunting equipment purchases go toward nationwide wildlife management projects.

To coincide with the 10th anniversary of the law that established the Michigan Wildlife Council, the MWC, which educates the public on the importance of wildlife management and the role hunting and fishing plays in protecting the state’s wildlife and natural resources, unveiled its inaugural “Top 10” list of wildlife management success stories.

MWC’s Top 10 success stories are the Kirtland’s warbler, moose, ring-necked pheasant, osprey, lake sturgeon, wild turkey, ruffed grouse, elk, muskellunge and wood duck.

The Kirtland’s warbler, whose summer breeding habitat mostly is in the northern Lower Peninsula with nests only in young jack pine forests, is a huge success story. Wildlife management practices have increased the population to over 2,000 nesting pairs, more than double the recovery goal.

More than 100 years ago, moose no longer existed in the Lower Peninsula, and only a handful lived in the Upper Peninsula. The Michigan Department of Natural Resources now estimates there are as many as 500 or so in the U.P., although there still is no hunting season on them.

See a lot of wild turkey around? The MWC said that careful habitat management and strategic relocation efforts have led to population increases in Michigan — from 2,000 in 1960 to over 200,000 today.

There’s still more accomplish. Michigan is trying to bring back the grayling to northern Michigan streams after having been decimated by unchecked logging and fishing. (Note the key word is “unchecked.” That’s why wildlife management practices are so important.)

With the grayling, building a brood stock and rearing them are part of the process, which is to include efforts at the Marquette State Fish Hatchery in Harvey.

Even if people don’t hunt or fish, they should realize that license sales from those activities are Michigan’s main source for conservation and wildlife management. That means everyone — even those won’t never pick up a shotgun or fishing rod — benefits from those sales. That’s something they should remember.

Although the standard saying for many issues with months dedicated to them is to urge people to keep them in mind all year, this especially holds true with Michigan wildlife conservation.

Plant native vegetation, support local habitat initiatives and donate to important causes.

You even can buy a fishing license, even if you never cast a lure.

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