Michigan Votes Forum

Introduced in the House on February 26, 2008, the House version of the Fiscal Year (FY) 2008-2009 Department of Transportation budget. This would appropriate $3.424 billion in gross spending, compared to $3.360 billion, which was the FY 2007-2008 amount enrolled in 2007. Of this, $1.316 billion is federal money (mostly from gas taxes), compared to $1.200 billion the previous year

The vote was 57 in favor, 50 opposed and 3 not voting

(House Roll Call 233 at House Journal 29)

Click here to view bill details.

Rep. Tobocman, having reserved the right to explain his nay vote, made the following statement: “Mr. Speaker and members of the House: Heaven forbid if the maker of this amendment were running homeland security for our state or the southeast Michigan. Asking the Detroit Wayne County Port Authority to take needed economic development dollars and try to engage in security and safety operations is like asking the MEDC to do the job of the CIA, FBI, Customs, of Homeland Security. Dollars for economic development are sorely needed now in Michigan and, if we want additional security, we should allocate funds to security agencies, not economic development ones.”

Rep. Schuitmaker, having reserved the right to explain her protest against the passage of the bill, made the following statement: “Mr. Speaker and members of the House: While I support many programs in this budget, as a whole it has severe problems that need correcting. I cannot ignore the lack of reforms and new structural deficits this bill creates. The FY 2008-2009 budget is dependent on the $1.4 billion tax hike as well as several one-time funding gimmicks which I did not support. If we allow spending to go unchecked, we will have to raise taxes again in the near future. The director of the non-partisan House Fiscal Agency has said we cannot afford the governor’s proposed level of spending. The House budget is even higher than what the governor proposed. I refuse to support spending we cannot afford, especially since doing so will set the stage for another tax hike. Not enough was done last year to cut waste and reform government, and as a result taxes went up. If we want to fix our economy, we need to get our spending problem under control. This budget does not do that. For these reasons and the fact that the H5 was gaveled upon and we were unable to view it prior to voting, I cannot support this bill at this time.”

Rep. Caswell, having reserved the right to explain his protest against the passage of the bill, made the following statement: “Mr. Speaker and members of the House: A last minute substitute was adopted and I have no idea what I’m voting for, so I can’t vote yes.”

Rep. Agema, having reserved the right to explain his protest against the passage of the bill, made the following statement: “Mr. Speaker and members of the House: Common sense- when we vet out a budget and it is substituted at the last minute with another budget and we don’t know what’s in it- you vote No. I didn’t come to Lansing to vote on things that aren’t explained or written with adequate time to determine their merit. This is why Lansing is broken.”

...particularly regarding the amendment to 'protect vulnerable democrats' from voting 'no'. This kind of garbage only confirms my opinion as to the quality of legislators we suffer under in this state. Every citizen has a right-and all legislators a duty-to be open and honest in their voting. We elected you to be our advocates within the system: if you cannot be honest enough to stand by your vote,and eloquent enough to explain why you vote a particular way, we want you gone NOW!

Senator Cherry, under her constitutional right of protest (Art. 4, Sec. 18), protested against the passage of House Bill No. 5814. Senator Cherry’s statement is as follows: I voted “no” for a couple of reasons. One is that there is some boilerplate language in the bill that relates to payments to foster care, and it includes unlimited counseling and therapy. The department was talking about how that will cost this budget untold millions of dollars. So I am voting “no” because if we are doing that but can’t find money for child care and child-care workers, I think that is the wrong direction. My “no” vote reflects that policy.

I am kind of curious about the remarks of the previous speaker talking about how his amendment will allow the DRIC study to go forward. I would like to read the part of the budget bill that he wants to strike. I think he is probably doing just the opposite. The part he wants to strike says, on page 30 of the bill, line 16, “The state transportation department is allowed to finish the Detroit River international crossing (DRIC) study provided the activity associated with finishing the DRIC study shall not bind the state in any way to construction or future action of any DRIC project recommendation.” Now, we were told last year that once the study was finished, they would have to come back to the Legislature and get authorization to do any more building. All this is saying is that the study is going to be finished. But don’t obligate the state to anything more than the study. I fail to understand how he is reading this section as killing the DRIC study. It specifically authorizes the DRIC study to go forward and to be finished. And the agreement that I had with the Director Steudle last year was that we knew we needed to leave about $2 million more to finish the study in state tax dollars that would bring in $17 million in federal tax dollars. And if we didn’t do that, we would have to be paying back the federal government several millions of dollars. So I said, okay, we are going to finish the study. It was going to be around a couple million dollars, give or take a couple hundred thousand dollars, and I said, hey, if it costs more than $2 million and is a couple hundred thousand dollars more, I wouldn’t have a problem with that. The study is going to be finished, and this language authorizes that the study be finished. It just says that before you start to build anything else, you can’t do it until you come back to the Legislature. And perhaps if the previous speaker would refer to Section 384, the specific language that kills the study, I would like to know where it is. Because as you read through Section 384, nowhere does it talk about stopping the study. It basically says finish the DRIC study, but don’t do anything beyond the DRIC study until you come back to the Legislature for authorization to build anything beyond that. If perhaps the previous speaker could clarify where it is in the language and read it to us because as I am reading this language, it says the DRIC study is to be finished. I would appreciate the previous speaker clarifying which section, which words, what page, or what line says the DRIC study is going to be done away with by this Section 384. I don’t think you will find it.

Senator Hardiman’s statement is as follows: I ask that the body not support this amendment. The language in the bill does not prohibit the DRIC study from being completed as the previous speaker has said. So I ask that we turn this amendment down.

Senator Cropsey’s second statement is as follows: I appreciate the Senator from the 8th District getting up and explaining, but he never pointed out where this language—chapter and verse, so to speak, or page and line—kills the DRIC study. It does not kill the DRIC study. It authorizes the DRIC study to go forward and to be completed. I don’t know why he would want to take this language out that says that we need to maintain control of the Department of Transportation through the budget process, and make sure that they don’t go spending money beyond the DRIC study unless we have specifically authorized it. Now, if you want to give up your rights as a Legislature in order to appropriate money to make sure the money is being spent properly, then fine, adopt the Basham amendment. But if you think maybe the Legislature ought to have some say in how monies are appropriated in this state, which I believe is our constitutional duty to do so, then we will want to turn down the Basham amendment. So I would hope that as you take a look at this that you would say, “Let’s keep the current section in there, and let’s not just let this department run wild.” If you recall last year, a major concern that we as a Legislature had was that the previous year we had tried to stop the DRIC study. The Department of Transportation told us, they said, “All that was worded in such a way that we thought we could go ahead and do the study anyway, which they went ahead and did so, in spite of the fact that they knew the intent of the Legislature was not to do the study at that time. And because the Department of Transportation put us over a barrel, where they used a lot of federal dollars, millions of dollars in federal money, we would have to pay that all back if we didn’t get the study completed after they went forward with the study. We said, fine, we will put a couple million of state tax dollars into it to finish the study, but nothing beyond the study unless you come back and get specific authorization from us as a Legislature. So I would urge that we turn down the Basham amendment so that we maintain control of the state purse strings and don’t allow a department to run roughshod over us and try an usurp our authority as a Legislature to appropriate the proper monies

Senator Basham’s first statement is as follows: Another year, another budget—another transportation budget, same issue. This amendment actually strikes language that is very detrimental to the DRIC process. For those who don’t know what the DRIC study is, it is the Detroit River International Crossing study. There has been a member of this chamber trying to kill that study. The study is almost complete, and this is just further language that would stop, basically, commerce in this country. Thirty percent of the commerce between Canada and the U.S. goes across an 80-year-old privately-owned bridge. There are 24 international border crossings in this country, 22 of them are publicly-owned. The DRIC process would be a public-private partnership financed by private equity bonds the same way as the Ambassador Bridge project if it were to proceed forward also. I am not in favor of killing the Ambassador Bridge from double-spanning their bridge if they can get all the permits and get an approval from both Canadian and American governments. But for the Ambassador Bridge folks to kill a public study, public progression of MDOT, and the Canadian government, it’s a bilateral study. The Ambassador Bridge could very well be a bridge to nowhere because they do not have Canadian approval. As a matter of fact, the Canadians have passed C3 legislation actually preventing a privately-owned international border crossing into Canada. Canada is actually our partner, and we need to make sure that when we go forward with any kind of study or any kind of approval for an international border crossing that we include neighbors to the north. They have been good neighbors, and that is why I am wearing a lapel pin today that shows both the U.S. flag and the Canadian flag. This amendment, my amendment, would actually strike the troubling language that is in the transportation budget that essentially kills the DRIC study, a study supported by the Auto Alliance, Automation Alley, the Detroit Chamber of Commerce, the Ontario Chamber of Commerce, the Michigan manufacturers, and others. There is a reason that these business groups support the DRIC process going forward. I would encourage members to think long and hard before not supporting this amendment. This has to do with jobs, commerce, and our country’s future as well as Michigan’s. So I would encourage your support of my amendment. Senator Basham’s second statement is as follows: First of all, the Legislature still retains budgetary review over any MDOT spending on this project. Secondly, if a decision is made to go forward with the public ownership and operator, the Legislature will need to create authorizing and enabling legislation for an authority and would have the opportunity to write in oversight requirements if the Legislature so desires. Thirdly, if the decision is made to go with the public-private partnership route, then the Legislature will need to create legislation to allow that and could write their own oversight rules into this legislation. There is a reason that the Auto Alliance put out a letter supporting this project. And if I may quote them, it says, “The purpose of this letter is to strongly encourage you to continue to fund the DRIC project.” And we are getting hung up on the word “study” leading to a new crossing in the near future. I personally would support if the Ambassador Bridge gets their double span and they get their permits—that’s fine—but certainly not stopping the DRIC project. So we won’t talk about narrowing it to just the study. Let both projects go forward, and let’s support commerce in this great state of Michigan.

Senators Pappageorge and Hardiman, under their constitutional right of protest (Art. 4, Sec. 18), protested against the adoption of the amendment offered by Senator Anderson to House Bill No. 5808 and moved that statements they made during the discussion of the amendment be printed as their reasons for voting “no.” The motion prevailed. Senator Pappageorge’s statement is as follows: You know, the underlying issue here, colleagues, is separation of powers. What these amendments are trying to do is to allow MDOT to proceed as if they have an okay to build a bridge. And the whole time we are deliberating on whether or not we ought to be building a bridge there, MDOT will be spending money to do exactly that. That is why the transportation bill is written the way it is, to assert the fact that there is a separation of powers issue here, and the department should not proceed as if they have an okay to build a bridge until we’ve seen that study and deliberated. So I would urge my colleagues on all of these amendments and all these things about this would be a wonderful place to build a bridge and all the support from various people—don’t be distracted. The issue is separation of powers. We see that study, and then we decide whether MDOT should be spending taxpayer money to start building a bridge. Senator Hardiman’s statement is as follows: Mr. President, I rise to oppose this amendment. There is already language in the bill which allows for the completion of the DRIC study. It simply requires and is pretty tight that the department would come back to the legislature. This has already been stated that that should be the process anyway. We should not allow the department to move forward without that. The language in the bill provides for that, so I would oppose this amendment.