Kathleen Gray | Detroit Free Press

Robert Killips, Lansing State Journal

While the Legislature is voting on bills that would make changes to ballot proposals that were overwhelmingly approved by voters on Nov. 6, Republicans also are trying to put restrictions on the process of gathering signatures for future ballot proposals.

A bill introduced last week by state Rep. James Lower, R-Cedar Lake, would:

Invalidate signatures gathered by a petition circulator who was found to have misled people about a ballot proposal

Mandate that no more than 10 percent of the signatures gathered could come from any of the state’s 14 congressional districts. There is no such restriction in current law

Require circulators to prominently display if they are a paid or volunteering to collect signatures

Lower said the bills are needed to increase transparency and accountability in the ballot initiative process.

“We will strengthen the grassroots lawmaking power of our citizens by preventing deception and improving transparency,” he said. “We can’t let out-of-state special interests parachute in and unfairly influence our petition process.”

His bill — HB 6595 — comes on the heels of three successful ballot proposals that were overwhelming approved by voters in November, but were opposed by many Republicans. They include Proposal 1, which legalized marijuana for adult recreational use; Proposal 2, which changed the way federal and state legislative district lines are drawn, and Proposal 3, which increases access to voting. Republicans in the Legislature are in the process of tweaking Proposals 2 and 3 and have introduced legislation to significantly change the marijuana legalization.

Lower's bill also was introduced after Republicans in both the House and Senate voted to gut bills that would hike the minimum wage to $12 per hour by 2022 and require employers to provide paid sick time to employees. Those proposals came about after activists gathered enough signatures to get them on the ballot, but the Legislature voted to adopt them in September in order to keep them off the ballot. One of the first actions taken by Republicans in the current lame-duck session was to significantly change the proposals. Those bills are awaiting a signature from Gov. Rick Snyder.

The newest bill is a way to circumvent the state's constitution by making the ballot proposal laws too burdensome., said election law expert Mark Brewer, the former chairman of the Michigan Democratic Party.

"They’re essentially trying to take away the right of the initiative," he said. ""You’re going to disqualify signatures because of something that the petition circulator did or didn’t do. It just puts more obstacles into place."

While the bill would also impact ballot proposals that Republicans might like — such as the measure to repeal Michigan's prevailing wage law, which requires union-scale wages on public construction projects — those types of measures have been much less frequent in recent years.

"The latest ballot proposals have mostly come from our side because we haven’t been in control of the Legislature," Brewer said. "On balance, it will affect Democrats and progressives far more."

The bill is scheduled for a hearing in the House Elections and Ethics committee at 8:15 a.m. Wednesday. Republicans are hoping to get much of the controversial legislation passed before Gov.-elect Gretchen Whitmer, an East Lansing Democrat who will have veto power over bills passed by the Legislature, is sworn into office on Jan. 1.

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