Bill Laitner

Detroit Free Press

A campaign to put a marijuana-legalization question on Michigan ballots suffered a setback today that could keep the measure off November ballots.

The petition campaign called MI Legalize failed to submit enough valid petition signatures, according to a ruling by the Michigan Court of Claims.

Although MI Legalize submitted 354,000 signatures — well over the 252,000 required — the court agreed with a State Board of Canvassers decision in June, deciding that “more than 200,000 were collected more than 180 days before the petition was submitted” to the Secretary of State — a violation of state law.

The MI Legalize lawsuit argued that the group had provided a way for state election officials to prove to the Board of Canvassers that the 200,000 “stale” signatures were, in fact, valid. In addition, the lawsuit contended that the 180-day requirement was unconstitutional and unfair. But the court didn’t accept those arguments in granting a summary disposition of the case to the defendants — Secretary of State Ruth Johnson, Elections Bureau Director Chris Thomas and the state Board of Canvassers.

“We’re disappointed but we always figured this would go to the state Supreme Court — and that’s where we’re headed” with an emergency appeal, said Jeff Hank, a Lansing lawyer who is chairman of MI Legalize. Hank and others in the pro-marijuana camp who voiced opinions online held out hope about their chances.

Yet, experts on state election law for months have said MI Legalize is unlikely to succeed this year, and some have testified at hearings in Lansing against allowing leeway for MI Legalize to qualify its "stale" ballots. Others have said that the MI Legalize group took too long to raise money and hire professional petition circulators, relying on volunteers until it was too late to gather the required signatures within 180 days.

"These were very well-intentioned people, good-hearted but very naive — they really needed much more money and much sooner to pull this off" and obtain all the signatures within 180 days, said Tim Beck, a retired health-insurance executive and longtime marijuana activist.

Beck organized and helped to fund successful petition drives for marijuana measures in Detroit, Ferndale and several other cities going back almost 20 years, and he was deeply involved in passing Michigan's medical marijuana act in 2008, he said. The prospect of MI Legalize winning a court fight to change decades-old election law and state practices is highly unlikely this close to an election, said Beck, who now lives in rural western Michigan.

To get the measure on November ballots, the high court might need to override deadlines for printing and distributing absentee ballots. Municipal clerks start getting their local ballots proofed and printed around Sept. 9, and they are mailed to overseas military members around Sept. 24, according to the Bureau of Elections.

“Sometime between those dates, we’d have to have a favorable ruling from the Supreme Court,” Hank said. If that fails, he would file an appeal on First Amendment constitutional grounds with the U.S. Supreme Court, Hank said.

“But then it would be 2018” at the earliest before the measure would get on state ballots. The ballot question calls for “taxing and regulating marijuana like alcohol"; and it specifies that taxes would go toward state road repairs, education funding and local government coffers, according to the MI Legalize website.

Leaders of MI Legalize have said they spent 18 months and more than $1 million in their petition campaign to legalize recreational marijuana.

Contact Bill Laitner: blaitner@freepress.com