THE Check the MIballot2012M.orgIflap!ballot2012.org ROAD MIballot2012.org The Magazine of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2013 SHOW Mackinac Center analysis of ballot proposals reaches beyond Michigan Center analysts gave no fewer than 100 talks in Michigan about the recently defeated ballot proposals, logging thousands of miles from Alpena to Kalamazoo. The Mackinac Center’s overall strategy was to educate voters with ballot proposal studies, commentaries, Overall, Mackinac Op-Eds, videos, Web Center analysts gave Right-to-woRk chats, TV appearances some 150 interviews, and a popular Web page drew national media It’s not a war on workers. It’s a fight for more and better jobs MIballot2012.org. attention from coast — Helping Make Michigan Home again. Story on page 10 to coast, and The New A large-scale advertising York Times followed campaign generated up on Proposal 2 4,000 ads from October after the election, FOIA: Protecting the to early November callings its defeat “an Right to Report in Detroit, Lansing, Page 13 embarrassment” for Saginaw, Grand Rapids organized labor in the and northern Lower cradle of unionism. tax v. PRofit Peninsula markets. The Morality of Exchange Page 15 Celebrating in 2013! see other side KEEP TRACK OF THESE AND OTHER MACKINAC CENTER ACTIVITIES ON OUR WEBSITE! Ballot Proposal Roundup: The Analysts’ Perspectives Page 7 Experience the Mackinac Center ANYTIME, ANYWHERE iPhone, Android and More Getting analysis and stories from the Center has never been simpler or more elegant. Download our apps today (or simply surf to mackinac.org on your mobile device). like us on facebook follow us on twitter NOTABLES & QUOTABLES 2013 marks the 25th anniversary of the Mackinac Center! Twenty- five years of fighting to empower everyone with liberty and opportunity! Mark your calendar for Oct. 9, 2013 — we’ll be hosting a gala in Lansing at the Kellogg Center and you’re invited. We look forward to 25 more years to help make Michigan a better place for everyone. Experience the Mackinac Center FROM OUR WEB ANYTIME, ANYWHERE Blog Keep up to date on the latest policy stories from Mackinac Center analysts. mackinac.org/blog MichiganVotes A New Beginning Want to know what your legislator 25 YEARS IN THE MAKING (and others) have been voting for? MichiganVotes.org helps keep Michigan Welcome, readers, to the new Mackinac donor interview (Page 6), thoughts politicians accountable to their constituents. Center magazine IMPACT. In our from our educational St. George, Mike MichiganVotes.org efforts to serve our supporters better, Van Beek, on battling teacher union we took the time to restructure our contract dragons (Page 8), and election CapCon old IMPACT newsletter into a more takeaways from the fiscal, legislative Our flagship news source for the engaging and educational tool for those and labor perspectives of our lead state of Michigan. Breaking news like who love freedom, free markets and a analysts on those respective issues never before. more frequent read. (Page 7). MichCapCon.org This issue holds our latest research, Let us know how you like the new including our lead feature on Michigan’s magazine on the Mackinac Center’s long struggle to adopt a right-to-work Facebook page or Twitter handle law, which was just passed in December (@MackinacCenter)! Our goal is not to What folks are saying (Page 10). This has been an undertaking stop here, but to keep innovating for about the MAckinac Center years in the making, and we hope and inspiring those who inspire us — you enjoy the fruits of the Mackinac YOU. Center’s labor for worker freedom for As always, we wish a warm and “Enormous progress many more years to come. hopefully freer year to one and all this has been made with Our new magazine format allows us one season. state-based think tanks other benefit: letting us get personal. For Liberty, (By the way: Congrats These inaugural pages hold an in-depth Lindsey Dodge, Editor to the Mackinac Center in Michigan!) over the last couple decades. The fight in Washington may Lindsey Dodge REcommENDS “The Machine” be bogged down, but the fights on the ground “If you haven’t seen the short video “The Machine,” created by Reason and the Moving Picture Institute, in the various states go to the Mackinac Center’s Pinterest page and find it are going better than under our “Video” board to watch. It’s 4 minutes and we might of hoped.” 30 seconds that will teach you more about how teacher — Jonah Goldberg, from National unions work than most American History classes.” Review’s online blog “The Corner,” on Michigan’s passage of right-to-work. iMPaCt 3 January/February 2013 mackinac.org PRESI DENT’S MESSAGE LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT Reform Starts in the States, It’s downright discouragingNot to consider in howWashington Board of Directors hard it is to start reforming Washington. Hon. Clifford W. Taylor, Chairman That’s why we have to remember that re- Retired Chief Justice, R. Douglas Kinnan school employee unions by approving Michigan Supreme Court Senior Vice President form doesn’t begin in Washington at all; it Joseph G. Lehman, President and CFO, begins in the states. Washington is where that state’s first charter public school Mackinac Center for Amerisure Insurance Public Policy Edward C. Levy Jr. reform ends. law. Georgia voters also expanded char- Joseph J. Fitzsimmons President, Edw. C. Levy ter public school options. Retired President, Co. The Mackinac Center’s founders under- University Microfilms Rodney M. Lockwood Jr. • Wisconsin voters reaffirmed Gov. Dulce M. Fuller President, Lockwood stood that you can’t make headway in Owner, Woodward and Construction Company, Washington by ignoring where people in Scott Walker’s reform agenda by re- Maple Inc. Richard G. Haworth Joseph P. Maguire Washington come from — the states. Nearly turning control of the Senate to his Chairman Emeritus, President, Haworth, Inc. Wolverine Development every elected official in DC cuts his or her party and retaining his party’s major- Corporation Kent B. Herrick political teeth at the state level. They field ity in the Assembly. President and CEO, Richard D. McLellan Thermogy Attorney, McLellan Law test policies and political strategies there, Offices • This issue of IMPACT contains the good J.C. Huizenga accumulating legislative records that some- President, Westwater D. Joseph Olson news about Michigan voters’ verdicts Group Retired Senior Vice times read more like rap sheets than actual President and General on two ballot measures that would have Phil F. Jenkins Counsel, Amerisure Chairman, Sweepster Inc. accomplishments. enshrined costly union privileges into Companies State-level politicians who win elections in the constitution. Two state Supreme Board of Scholars spite of their support for anti-taxpayer pol- Court justices committed to the rule of Dr. Donald Alexander icies take their habits with them to the fed- law were re-elected. And, of course, the Western Michigan University Dr. Dale Matcheck eral level. Free-market reformers shouldn’t monumental news that the Legislature Dr. William Allen Northwood University then be surprised when it’s difficult to re- got serious about a right-to-work law. Michigan State University Charles Meiser Dr. Thomas Bertonneau Lake Superior form the federal government, because the As I predicted last quarter on this page, the Writer and Independent State University (ret.) Scholar die was cast in the states. Glenn Moots unions’ overreaching November ballot pro- Dr. Brad Birzer Northwood University Hillsdale College Federal fallout is one big reason it’s utterly posals unleashed a loud and overdue pub- Dr. George Nastas III Dr. Peter Boettke Marketing Consultants essential to study state policy and keep an lic conversation about the role of unions in George Mason University Dr. John Pafford Northwood University eye on those who enact it. our economy and government. I wrote the Dr. Theodore Bolema Anderson Economic Dr. Mark Perry unions would likely lose control of the con- Group University of Michigan The Mackinac Center was one of the first - Flint versation they started and that is exactly Dr. Stephen Colarelli free-market think tanks established out- Central Michigan Lawrence W. Reed what happened. The political momentum University Foundation for side the DC beltway. From very humble Andrew Coulson Economic Education of the unions’ 15-point loss on Proposal 2 beginnings in the 1980s, institutes like Cato Institute Gregory Rehmke helped transform Michigan into the na- Robert Crowner Economic Thinking/ ours are now in every state, and the states Eastern Michigan E Pluribus Unum Films tion’s 24th right-to-work state. University (ret.) Dr. Steve Safranek are where we are seeing progress. Here is Dr. Richard Cutler Ave Maria School of Law some very good news from the November Look for a two-year battle to defend the law University of Michigan Dr. Howard Schwartz (ret.) Oakland University elections. from union attempts to overturn it. If the Dr. Jefferson Edgens Dr. Martha Seger Legislature decides to keep pushing free- Morehead State University Federal Reserve Board • Three former state think tank leaders Dr. David Felbeck (ret.) dom-friendly reforms, look for plenty of were just elected to a governorship and University of Michigan James Sheehan ideas from our shop on how to do so. For both (ret.) Deutsche Bank Securities two U. S. Senate seats in Indiana, Arizona Dr. Burton Folsom Rev. Robert Sirico defense and offense, the Mackinac Center is Hillsdale College and Texas, respectively. Acton Institute for the needed now more than ever before. Dr. Wayland Gardner Study of Religion and Western Michigan Liberty • More than 20 state governments (includ- University (ret.) And ask yourself, now that right-to-work Dr. Bradley Smith ing Michigan’s) continue to resist the John Grether Capital University Law is law in Michigan — of all places — then Northwood University School Obamacare takeover.