Question 1): One proposal for sure will be on the statewide general election ballot next Nov. 3, and it will be Proposal 1 –whether the State of Michigan should convene another Constitutional Convention (Con-Con). The state’s current Constitution mandates that this question must be put to the voters every 16 years. Three previous such questions (in 1980, 1994 and 2010) have been roundly defeated. We’ll see what happens this time, but prospects for passage appear bleak for a variety of reasons.
However, petitions have been circulating for months on a number of other ballot proposals – that’s one of two ways these proposals can qualify for the ballot; the other is by action of the Legislature, requiring a 2/3 majority vote in each chamber to qualify.
Already, one petition effort has pulled the plug — Ranked Choice Voting, which ran into stiff bi-partisan resistance from the Michigan Association of County Clerks. Now the group behind the effort is licking its wounds and says it will wait until 2028 to try again. Ranked choice voting lets voters rank the candidates on the ballot by preference, creating an instant runoff that continues until one candidate wins by getting more than 50 percent of the vote.
Another effort — AxeMITax, which would attempt to wipe out property taxes in Michigan without offering any way to replace the lost revenue — is on the ropes after appearing well short of obtaining the required number of John Hancocks to qualify.
But there are at least three other efforts out there trying to reach the ballot — 1) A referendum on the tipped minimum wage statute enacted last February by the Legislature; 2) Invest in MI Kids; and 3) Michiganders for Money Out Of Politics (MMOP). And, yes, there are also dueling efforts to amend the Michigan Constitution to require U.S. citizenship and voter ID to be able to register to vote, but TBR will deal with those at another time, as well as the possibility of a proposal on paid family leave.
Invest in MI Kids is a 5 percentage income tax hike on a single person making $500,000 a year or more, or $1 million or more from a married couple. The additional money will go to fund schools.
MMOP would prevent big government contractors and power companies from giving to political campaigns (See “Money Out Of Politics Folks Turn In Petition Language,”.
How likely is it that any of these three proposals will make it to the 11/3 ballot, and if they do, what are their chances of success with the voters?
Answer 1): A referendum on the Legislature’s action last year on the tipped minimum wage has the best chance of succeeding in its effort to qualify for the ballot because it’s a REFERENDUM (as opposed to an initiative or constitutional amendment), which means petition circulators need to collect far fewer signatures than the other two ballot efforts. Proponents are looking to reinstate the Michigan Supreme Court’s July, 2024, opinion, which ordered into effect a 2018 ballot proposal to increase the state’s minimum wage and fully eliminate the tipped minimum wage. It was watered down last year by the Legislature, but that action was what was struck down by the high bench. If the petitioners achieve success, it would set up a scenario similar to the situation in 2012 to repeal the “emergency manager” law enacted by a Republican Legislature backed by then-Gov. Rick Snyder. That referendum qualified for the ballot; moreover, it succeeded with the voters, who needed merely to vote NO (usually an advantage compared with getting the electorate to vote YES). Five other ballot proposals that year were defeated, where a majority of voters had to vote Yes — except that they didn’t.
As for Invest in MI Kids, we can’t underestimate the market demand for spending other people’s money, so if it gets on the ballot — look out! Needless to say, any attempt to increase the income tax is to Republicans what Right to Work is to the Democrats — a call to arms. If it passes, litigation from opponents will ensue, mainly on the grounds that it will constitute a graduated income tax, which is prohibited by the Michigan Constitution. Also, petitioners will need money not only to collect signatures but also to sell it to the voters next fall. Right now, there doesn’t appear to be a natural interest group with financial resources to fund it.
If “Kids” proponents get someone else to pick up the cost, voters may be inclined to vote for it. But with the nationalization of politics, is this the highest priority for groups who are anti-Trump or want a Democratic governor, a Democratic U.S. Senator, and a Democratic Legislature? Probably not. They’ll put more effort into partisan hegemony than into a statewide initiative for a millionaire tax.
Even if the volunteer petition effort is supplemented by paid circulators, previously collected signatures will soon start to go stale. If signatures are filed, the MIGOP and its allies will vigorously challenge the signatures, contest the ballot summary, and advocate for a ‘No’ vote. If it passes, litigation will follow, funded by the business community, high income taxpayers, and conservative interest groups.
What about Michiganders for Money Out of Politics (MMOP) qualifying for the ballot?
Selectively repealing the First Amendment will have some appeal to many progressive Democrats and the Left, and the remaining Voters Not Politicians apparatus that succeeded in getting voters to approve the state’s first legislative redistricting commission in 2018 could help MMOP. However, voters had a certain predisposition to wanting redistricting change. It’s unclear whether the same energy exists for this one to get the organic signatures needed to qualify it for the ballot. If MMOP can motivate its people to get the required sigs, it may have a decent chance of winning.
The one hang up could, again, be the cost of collecting the signatures needed to get the statutory change put to the voters. Even if circulators are paid as low as $5 per signature, if MMOP needs 500,000 signatures they’ll be paying a lot of money.
In addition, the utilities will spend massively through front groups to stop it. If it passes, the utilities and others will file lawsuits challenging its constitutionality, just as with Invest in MI Kids.
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The Michigan Constitutional Convention proposal is required to have ballot access under state law. It will fail by a landslide as neither Democrats nor Republicans want to face the danger of wholesale changes to the State of Michigan Constitution. Compare the voting total for “Con-Con” since the adoption of the 1963 State of Michigan Constitution.
Karla Wagner’s dream of AxMITax being on the ballot is nearing failure by almost all accounts. Even if she had achieved ballot status with her Pollyanna proposal, it would have never passed the electorate. It was a pipe dream for anti-tax activists with Karla at the helm. It was ill-conceived and destined for failure.
Compare this with the highly-organized Headlee Amendment of 1978 initiative which was successful in November of that year. Dick Headlee had organizational backing and the precedent of the Proposition 13 effort by Howard Jarvis, a fellow Mormon, which had passed in June of 1978 in California.
Republican leaders are cheering the demise of the ranked-choice voting initiative. It was poorly funded and likewise destined for failure as AxMItax.
To be fair to Karla Wagner, she has been on her AxMITax Facebook page all week and claiming she WILL have sufficient signatures submitted to the Secretary of State within the 180-period required under state law.
She has posted videos of stacks of petition signature sheets and claiming that she continues to receive petition signatures from various groups on her behalf that will put her over the top.
To some observers she is a maverick – others an utter fool. Nevertheless she has tapped into a political anti-tax movement that has real support throughout Michigan. If she does file a sufficient number of signatures then she will undoubtedly face challenges filed with the Michigan Board of Canvassers. If she does achieve ballot status for the initiative, this will be a significant accomplishment for AxMITax’s movement.
Will such an initiative ever pass with the Michigan electorate – not a chance.
Karla Wagner admitted this week also on other social media that she is not sure if she has enough signatures to submit to the state for her initiative.
Keep in mind she failed in 2024 to get her AxMITax initiative on the ballot as her signature total fell well short of the minimum required by law.
She announced in July of 2025 that she had begun collecting signatures – however a 180-day window needs to be analyzed to see if they are valid.
Karla Wagner indicated she really does not know what she has as she has stopped collecting, but will have to go through many hundreds of sheets for analysis prior to filing these with SOS.
Wagner’s AxMItax is purely grassroots with no professional consulting firm hiring paid petition circulators. Nobody has any idea if these volunteers did a quality job as a whole. Many thousands of signatures could potentially be disqualified.
Wagner irked many of her supporters by diverting funds and time on her quixotic gubernatorial campaign.
Welcome back, Bill. Hope you enjoyed your time off.
Nice article and a good appearance on OTR.
Leanne is right on the AxMITax and the Con-con.
As for your comments on the three listed in your questions, that tip-waged one is here because SCOMI screwed up. Their first opinion required Dana Nessel to ask what they actually meant. When they struck down the legislature’s circumvention of a similar ballot proposal, they just should have let it on the 2024 ballot and let the people speak.
As for the Invest in Michigan Kids, it effectively creates a graduated income tax, but whether the SCOMI will say that is another matter. It has some problems, especially the lack of accountability for the money. We spend a lot on education now, but we seem to be getting less and less for it. For the folks opposed to any kind of GIT, they better be getting their money ready for serious ads, not just to oppose it, but to try and affect the Court. But given how they’ve shown up for the GOP in the last three elections, one should not hold their breath. Chief Justice Cavanagh and Justice Hood will probably win.
As for Money Out of Michigan Politics, you’re right on the First Amendment issue, those who are willing to cripple it and the signatures. And I think they will have the most trouble with the First Amendment challenges in court should they get the signatures.
The power companies issue can be an asset for MOMP given folks dislike of big data centers near them and the power they’ll use. However, these same people seem to like – or at least use – what the data centers provide. NIMBYism anyone? But the power companies can and should be dealt by the PSC. It requires more intensive and aggressive regulating them, and the state more inclined to expand the electric grid. If we are to try and regain manufacturing jobs and recruit high tech jobs here to Michigan, we need more electricity. Yesterday.
Kurt O Keefe says
(Edit)There are no dueling efforts on citizen only voting. One group did get a summary approved by the Board of Canvassers but have circulated no petitions. Americans for Citizen Voting – Michigan is circulating petitions and expects to be on the ballot this year
Jack Lessenberry says
(Edit)I would very much like anything that gets money out of politics. But how can anyone supporting the MMOP Amendment not think it contradicts the US Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling? Isn’t this sure to be struck down?
Jack,
I agree that Citizens United will negate bans on reportable political contributions by utilities and government contractors through their PACs.
The problem today at the State Capitol is not fully disclosed Utility PACs, it is dark money from utility social welfare organizations that makes grants to other social welfare organizations closely tied to the Governor, state legislative leaders in both the House and Senate of both political parties.
For example, DTE between 2014-2023 funded their 501 C4 social welfare organization Michigan Energy First with $51,000,100 drawn from its corporate profits not from rate payers to social welfare organizations with ties to public officials, party caucuses and political party administrative funds. All this money fuels issue ads at election time which are carefully scripted to avoid words of express advocacy and public disclosure.
Passage of the utility ballot proposal in November would not prohibit a utilities use of soft money in their 501 C 4.
Can’t we get some real grass roots referendum interest? Michigan is like the last state I know of that still allows public referendums. Seems there would be hundreds of pseudo-NGO’s out there just cooking up out of the box referendums.
Anyway, my pet change would be instituting real educational change like true school choice (from public to parochial to charter to home schooling, ie, vouchers). Mississippi, Iowa and now Texas have implemented wonderful programs. And they are all leaving Michigan in the dust educationally. Come on Michigan! Catch the wave of what’s really happnin’ out there.
The problem is the signature requirement is prohibitive.
Ask Karla Wagner. It is not the mere number of signatures required – it is the fact that you must collect them validly in a relatively short space of time.
Wagner’s deficiency in gathering them quickly enough resulted in tens of thousands becoming stale.
When I was a young lad in the 1950’s, President Eisenhower gave a speech from the Oval Office with a light bulb on a small box sitting on the desk in front of him. He was waxing enthusedly about atomic power being the future, blah, blah, etc. Ike went on to say that atomic power would be so cheap and efficient that electricity would be free. Well, we see how that played out. But, I learned a little something about politicians and their promises along the way. They are pretty much all full of fecal matter.
Americans for Citizen Voting-Michigan is the Trojan Horse proposal for 2026. Its received $3.5 million from a Florida dark money 501 C 4 so it will make the ballot. Who could be against it, read the fine print. Michigan voters currently show their photo ID when they vote at the polls or apply for an absentee ballot. It works well. The cause for concern with this proposal it requires proof of citizenship. A Real Driver’s license is not good enough. You need a passport, birth certificate or a naturalization document. Less than 40% of Michiganders have a passport. To get a passport you need your birth certificate. Question for readers, if you don’t have a passport where is your birth certificate?Is it hidden away in some drawer at your house or relative? Is it in a box in the basement or the attic?
If you can’t find it you’ll have to send away for it from some agency in the state you were born. How do you pay for it?
Does this start to sound like a bureaucratic hassle?
By November 2027 you will have to produce proof of citizenship or when you vote in 2028 you can only vote a provisional ballot that won’t be counted unless you can in short period of time after Election Day provide proof of citizenship.
How big a crisis does Michigan face with noncitizens voting? Only 16 noncitizens have been documented in 2024. With over 5 million registered voters in Michigan this proposed amendment is a solution to a problem turning into a hassle that has the potential to disenfranchise 10’s of thousands of workers people who think all the hoops that need to jumped through isn’t worth it. It will affect mainly middle class and lower income people and maybe that’s point to thin out the electorate.
I used to think like you. Not anymore. While still working for GM during somewhere between the W Bush and Obama administrations, we had to prove our US citizenship by presenting our birth certificates. I forget the crisis at the time, I think it was a reaction to 911 but may have been ordered by Obama because, lo and behold, he was trying to reduce illegal immigration for some reason (my how Caesar’s predilections change).
Anyway, I was incensed! How dare they challenge my citizenship! I tried to balk at such a verification. And I was promptly threatened with any further employment at GM. Then it occurred to me. How else would they verify my citizenship? Passport? I had a Passport. But I had to present my birth certificate to get my Passport. Hmmm. Birth Certificate is apparently the only Bonafide way to verify. As much as I detested the experience, it is hard to buck against it. I too had thought I had lost my birth certificate, but found it, where? With all my documentation I needed to get my Passport. Duh?!?
And to get my driver’s license with the gold star on it? Some call it a “Real ID” although I’ve heard it argued that Michigan’s is not. But what did I need? A birth certificate. If I had lost it? There are ways I could have gotten a replacement although the process is not pleasant. Let’s face it. To enjoy the benefits of US citizenship we are going to need to keep our “papers” on us, just like those corny fifties cloak and dagger shows of the 1950’s spy v spy era.
Welcome to our brave new world. Dah comrade, and Hail Caesar!
Back in the 1930s, Mexican lineage residents of Metro Detroit were forced to produce birth certificates to “prove” their U.S. citizenship.
Those who could not were deported to Mexico – this created a serious hardship to many families whose members were separated forever. They were told by U.S. authorities that there were jobs awaiting them in Mexico, despite the Great Depression in Michigan.
This is why there were not significant populations of Mexican-Americans in Michigan for many decades thereafter; there has been a resurgence in recent decades and over 300,000 Hispanic-Americans now reside in Michigan according to the most recent reliable estimates.
SEIU-UHW and the Fairness Project (a 501(c)(4) organization funded by SEIU-IHW) are financing anti-wealth ballot initiatives across the country. They’ve won 33 anti-wealth campaigns and will certainly finance Invest in MI Kids, just as soon as they have completed their current work up on the California’s Billionaire’s Tax Act.
We will be hearing daily from their brain trust: Gabriel Zucman, Emmanuel Saez, Thomas Piketty, Brian Galle, David Gamage, and Darien Shanske. These Marxists will apply a thin veneer of respectability on craven jealousy.
I agree with Leanne-you do a great job- Jack Lessenberry and one of my favorite Counselors (Attorney) Bob LaBrant.
Returning to the Greenland issue, the Germans are iced out of their main LNG terminal on Ryugen Island (in the Baltic, not the Arctic) and are in danger of exhausting their dwindling natural gas supplies. For more than two weeks, the Minerva Amorgos LNG tanker has been trapped in ice at the Ryugen terminal blocking all – even ice class – LNG carriers from unloading.
The Germans sent the pride of their icebreaker fleet, the Neuwerk, to free the Minerva Amorgos. The Neuwerk broke down before it was able to reach the Minerva Amorgos and is now also also trapped in the Baltic ice.
The Germans had the absolute gall to demand the Russians break these vessels out of the ice with one of their nuclear ice breakers and then tow Neuwerk to a drydock. Good luck with that!
The Arctic matters.
I wonder how much the EU is lamenting snubbing Israel about now. They ignored Israel when the Leviathan field came on stream, so Israel naturally swung to Asia to sell 40%. All Israel’s needs are being supplied by the Tamar field. Now, the Leviathan overflow is being diverted to Crete via Egypt as long as Turkey doesn’t cut the cord, er pipeline. Crete’s pipeline could be used to supply the EU via Greece, but they’ve been trying to hold off so as not to upset NATO member Turkey. We’ll see how long they can hold their breath.
The 30,000 metric ton Russian nuclear icebreaker Sibir just plowed by Ryugen Island in the Baltic at full speed without stopping. It will be clearing the ice offshore from the Grand Port of St. Petersburg in the Gulf of Finland, then returning to the Arctic.
The Germans are still stuck. The Arctic matters.
Returning to the Kennedy Center, Team DEI at D.C. Water has been releasing 200 million gallons of raw sewage into the Potomac River upstream of the Golden Harmonica since January 17th. Team DEI weren’t even able to calculate the e. coli levels. missing by a factor of 100, much less actually stop the sewage spill.
The Golden Harmonica will be simply unbearable once all the Global Warming ice breaks up on the Potomac, later this week. The smell and visuals will be revolting.
Great
When Karla Wagner first came public with her celebrated AxMITax initiative – no one exactly knew who she was or who her supporters – if anyone – was.
She is a resident of Cannon County and her “electoral” experience is limited to a 2022 run for a precinct delegate race where she ran as a Republican and finished in sixth place out of seven candidates.
Despite this, AxMITax, attracted numerous anti-tax activists who did succeed in gathering hundreds of thousands of signatures over time – but the lack of timeliness led many signatures to become stale.
AxMITax won supporters in both in GOP and Democratic circles. Local lower middle class homeowners in metro Detroit jumped at the idea of ending a property tax burden they felt was excesssive.
The morale of grass-roots activists was omnipresent in the movement. If you were a homeowner you would benefit from the passage of the Karla Wagner initiative. Detractors – including many Republican officeholders decried her effort as voodoo tax economics.
That should have been Cannon Township in Kent County as the residence for Ms. Wagner..