By John Lindstrom
Publisher
Posted: May 16, 2019 4:40 PM

In case anyone was vacationing on the dark side of Neptune the last few days, the news was breaking Wednesday that Rep. Larry Inman (R-Williamsburg) was indicted on extortion and bribery charges. House leaders have called on him to resign. He says he is innocent and will not resign.

The issue at hand is not whether Mr. Inman should leave office. The issue is what should happen should he or any other legislator leave office, either by resignation, expulsion or death.

What should happen is the people of the affected district don't wait freaking forever to have representation back in the House or Senate.

Over the last 20 something years we've seen this pattern played out too often. One of the most recent examples was with Lansing Mayor Andy Schor. A former member of the House, he resigned his seat as he was taking the mayor's office, and then Governor Rick Snyder scheduled an election for his successor in November 2018, as part of the general election.

It was nearly a full year before Rep. Sarah Anthony (D-Lansing) raised her right hand to take the oath and most of the residents of Michigan's capital city had someone again acting on their behalf in the House. This goes beyond simply voting on issues, it includes advocating for the lawmaker's community, or communities, on legislature or grants and helping open the doors to bureaucrats to assist local residents.

This scenario has happened a number of times in recent decades. A lawmaker departs, for whatever reason, and if that lawmaker's district tends towards the party opposite the governor's party, the governor schedules the election for more than a year after the initial lawmaker left.

This is just not right. And generally doesn't happen elsewhere. In Ohio, our neighbors south of us, when a lawmaker leaves the Legislature (which seems to happen more frequently in Ohio than it does here) the party caucus of the departing lawmaker chooses the successor. Those decisions are made no more than weeks after the departure.

Having a caucus pick a successor likely wouldn't fit with our tradition of elections. Yet, we could still arrange, by statute, to ensure that a new legislator is named in a respectable time frame.

The time from legislative resignation to newly sworn-in legislator should take no more than 90 days. The governor calls the election dates, a primary 45 days away, with a general 45 days after that. This would likely require adjusting some of the current election timetables, but that should be the framework.

Obviously, exceptions would need to be made. If something happens within 90 days of the end of the year in an election year, and the lawmaker was term-limited, the person elected to succeed the lawmaker is named to serve for the remainder of the term, for example. When former Rep. Peter Pettalia died in September 2016, his seat went without representation for the rest of the year, including the always busy lame-duck session. Why shouldn't the state make it so that Rep. Sue Allor (R-Wolverine) could have taken office immediately upon certification in that situation?

And to the complaint local governments would make on an election's cost, require the state pay for the election so long as it is only a legislative replacement election. The state could create a fund for legislative special elections, and just keep it rolling if there are none in one fiscal year (though Michigan has had special elections in every off-year since at least 2009). If local issues get tacked on to a special legislative election, then the local governments have to pay for their share of the fun.

Perhaps in the case of Mr. Inman we needn't worry. Perhaps. But there will be a legislative vacancy sometime, and it's just not right to deny folks their rightful representation for more than just a few months.