After cashing in on “Home Health Care Dues Skim” to the tune of more than $29 million, the union involved wants to write the “skim” into the state constitution.
The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is taking initial steps toward putting the issue on the Nov. 6 ballot. To qualify for the ballot the union must collect at least 322,609 valid signatures through a petition drive.
This move by the SEIU comes as passage of legislation (House Bill 4003 or Senate Bill 1018), which was drafted to end the “skim,” appears to be nearing passage in the Senate.
“Now that the gig is up and lawmakers and the public are waking up to the scam and threatening to end it just like the day care fiasco, the union is buying petition signatures (they hire a firm that is paid to collect enough signatures) to get the issue on the ballot in November,” said Charlie Owens, state director of the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB). “The petition language, submitted by an SEIU fronted group, would amend the state constitution to establish the phony shell employer created by the union and the administration of Jennifer Granholm to lasso unsuspecting home health care workers into the union and funnel taxpayer money into union coffers.”
Pat Wright, senor legal analyst for the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, refers to the SEIU ballot proposal effort as a “Hail Mary pass.” He also maintains that the proposal is unconstitutional. However, it's too early in the ballot proposal process for challenging it on those grounds.
Specifically, the union's proposed constitutional amendment would establish something called the Michigan Quality Home Care Council in the constitution. Ostensibly, this council would provide a registry of providers of in-home care to seniors and people with disabilities.
This seems to be a continuation of the original “cover story” used to justify the “skim.”
The “home health care dues skim” resulted from a union scheme perpetrated that used a dummy employer and a stealth election to force 43,729 so-called home health care workers into the SEIU. That 43,729 has now swollen to 60,190.
Roughly 75 percent of those unionized were people taking care of relatives or close friends. It now appears that that percentage has increased. These people are having the dues taken from their Medicaid checks.
“I have not seen the language, but considering they've skimmed almost $30 million that they can now use for virtually anything, they certainly have the money to pay people to collect signatures and make a go of it,” said Rep. Paul Opsommer, R-Dewitt, the sponsor of House Bill 4003. “But, depending on what the language does say, I've already heard a lot of people calling their efforts an unexpected gift.
“That is because they would essentially have to go to the public and say 'Should a person who used to receive Medicaid assistance to take care of disabled loved ones at home now have to receive a W-2 and have union dues taken out of that money before they can receive it?' " Rep. Opsommer said. "Who would support that?"
In June, the House passed House Bill 4003. In December, the Senate Reforms Restructuring and Reinventing approved the bill and sent it to the Senate floor. At that point, however, it stalled.
Then last week, Sen. Dave Hildenbrand, R-Lowell, introduced a duplicate bill, that mirrored House Bill 4003. This duplicate measure, Senate Bill 1018 garnered 21 Senate Republicans as co-sponsors. Only 20 votes are needed to pass a bill in the Senate.
Introduction of the duplicate bill, with so many co-sponsors, showed that the Senate GOP caucus wants the issue addressed. It's now believed that either House Bill 4003 or Senate Bill 1018 could be taken up for a vote in the Senate this week.
With the high level of pressure in the Senate to move legislation to end the “skim” as a backdrop, the SEIU is turning to the ballot proposal route. On Monday, the State Board of Canvassers approved the form of the union's petition. This is a procedural step, which has nothing to do with the substance of the proposal.
“We are convinced the proposal is unconstitutional,” Wright said. “All the board did Monday was approve the petition in form. The law requires it to do that. Essentially, as long as the typesetting was the right size the board had to give its approval. That would be so even if the wording was just a restaurant menu.”
Under the SEIU proposal, the so-called home health care workers would be considered public employees only for collective bargaining purposes. Wright argues that such an arrangement would blatantly violate federal labor laws.
Michigan Capitol Confidential is the news source produced by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. Michigan Capitol Confidential reports with a free-market news perspective.
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Land Banking: An Old Idea With A Poor Track Record
In Michigan, land banking is new. But in Missouri, it has a long and sordid history.
More than 40 years ago, Saint Louis City set up a land bank in response to the exodus of its residents, and the vacant property they left behind. When the land bank was created in 1972, the hope was that it could return vacant property back to private, productive use.
Since that time, the Saint Louis land bank has amassed more than 10,000 parcels of vacant land, making it the largest landholder in Saint Louis City. My research into the operations of the land bank found that it rejects almost one out of every two formal offers to buy vacant city property. The most frequent reason for rejection is that the property is being “held for future development.” Sadly, the future development rarely materializes.
More troubling is the outsize power that some city officials appear to have over the operations of the Saint Louis land bank. In some cases, Saint Louis aldermen determine who can and cannot buy property. I do not have to detail here what pitfalls can arise when local officials have the ultimate say over development decisions, or worse, basic property rights.
Consider the case of 2925 Union, a property in Saint Louis that received four offers from four different buyers. The Saint Louis land bank said no to all four. When the area alderman showed up at a land bank meeting and told the land bank to sell the property to another buyer, it did.
Despite the 40-year track record of failure that we have seen in Saint Louis, land banking is in vogue again. More than 30 land banks have been created in Michigan, due in part to efforts of the Center for Community Progress (CCP), a nonprofit that has offices in Flint and in Washington, D.C. The nonprofit has advocated for the creation of land banks across the country, and receives significant funding from Fannie Mae.
Dan Kildee, the president of CCP and a Michigan Congressional candidate, regularly travels throughout the U.S. arguing in favor of expansive land bank legislation. Most recently, he has been quoted in Missouri newspapers arguing for the creation of a land bank in our other major city — Kansas City.
Selling the concept of land banking in a state that is already marred by land banking failure would be a tragedy.
CCP has advocated for land bank legislation in New York, Pennsylvania, and in Georgia.
Some states have not been convinced that land banking is a cure-all for vacancy. In 2010, the Illinois Legislature rejected land bank legislation that CCP supported, due in part to concerns that the legislation would allow land banks to acquire property at any time and by virtually any means, and to take on tremendous debt. The Illinois Association of Realtors called the bill an “unchecked, unnecessary, and irresponsible grant of power.”
I have heard promises from lobbyists and advocates that the new era of land banking will be different. But, I wonder if they would continue to hold that position if they heard the stories of rejection that I have heard from neighborhood groups, and during the Saint Louis land bank’s public meetings. These are the struggles that arise long-term, when the starry-eyed advocates who promise accountability have moved on, but the land bank and its entrenched bureaucracy remain.
Given the numerous land banks already created throughout the state, I hope that land banking in Michigan is more successful than it has been in Missouri. But for the sake of Missouri, I hope that we can learn from the decades of land banking failure in our own backyard.
Audrey Spalding is a policy analyst at the Show-Me Institute, which promotes market solutions for Missouri public policy.
Michigan Capitol Confidential is the news source produced by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. Michigan Capitol Confidential reports with a free-market news perspective.
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