An Oakland County judge is to hold an expedited hearing today for a lawsuit that says Oak Park is illegally keeping a marijuana proposal off the city’s August primary ballot.
The Safer Oak Park Coalition alleges that Oak Park violated state election law by claiming it needs the approval of Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette before it can allow the question to go on primary ballots.
Oak Park officials have said the group submitted more than enough valid signatures, and that they expect to receive Schuette’s approval in time for the question to appear on November ballots. But that isn’t good enough for the coalition’s supporters or their attorney.
“You can go through state law and case law, but there’s nothing that gives the attorney general, or the governor for that matter, veto power” over a ballot question brought by a citizens group, said Mark Brewer, an attorney for the group.
Once sufficient signatures have been submitted and validated by a city clerk, any ballot question is “supposed to go on the next ballot that is at least 90 days after you file, and if you do the math, that’s the August primary ballot in Oak Park,” Brewer said.
“This is bigger than the merits of the case. It’s about access to Michigan ballots and letting the voters decide,” he added. Oakland County Circuit Judge Rae Lee Chabot is expected to rule on the case today.
But Oak Park city officials said that, because the group wants to amend the city charter and not merely pass a new city ordinance, state law requires that ballot language be reviewed by Schuette.
“We’re not playing politics here — we’re following the advice of our city attorney,” Oak Park City Manager Erik Tungate said. Schuette, a staunch opponent of efforts to ease laws against marijuana, seems in no rush to grant his approval.
“We are reviewing the amendment and the proposed ballot language, according to the rules of the statute,” Schuette spokeswoman Sydney Allen said Thursday. Allen was unable to say how long the review might take.
City officials said they expect to get Schuette’s approval in time to put the proposal on the city’s November ballot. But supporters are adamant about wanting it on the August primary ballot, and they said they believe the city is manipulating the political process.
The ballot proposal would amend the Oak Park city charter to prohibit any city ordinance that bans “the use, possession or transfer of less than 1 ounce of marijuana on private property not used by the public” by people who are 21 and older. Similar proposals have won voter acceptance in nine Michigan cities — Ann Arbor, Detroit, Ferndale, Flint, Grand Rapids, Jackson, Kalamazoo, Lansing and Ypsilanti. Another dozen cities likely will have proposals on November ballots this year.
“One reason we’re suing is that we’ve been stiffed like this before, and we absolutely don’t want cities to think they can keep doing this, just because some mayor or city council president doesn’t like our proposal,” said Tim Beck, 62, of Detroit. Beck, a retired employee health insurance executive, is co-founder of the Safer Michigan Coalition and has spent more than $100,000 on petition campaigns for marijuana proposals in Michigan since 2002, he said.
In 2010, the Detroit City Council, led by former council President Charles Pugh, blocked a marijuana ballot proposal that Beck helped organize. So Beck and his coalition hired lawyers and fought the city for two years until the state appeals court unanimously ruled that Pugh and other Detroit officials “had a clear legal duty to place the initiative on the ballot.”
The ruling was so straightforward that the Michigan Supreme Court declined to hear the case. Detroit voters then approved the proposal by a 65% majority in November 2012. The lawsuit filed against Oak Park quotes the appeals court ruling in the Detroit case.
A second reason that Beck and other coalition supporters said they want Oak Park voters to see the proposal on August ballots is that it would appear near the name of their pro-marijuana candidate, Andrew Cissell, who is running for an open state representative seat.
They hope that Cissell, 26, of Oak Park will win the Democratic primary, in part because the marijuana proposal will bring out his supporters, said Debra Young, 56, a Ferndale resident and Cissell’s campaign manager.
“If he wins the primary, he wins the election” because the district is heavily Democratic, Young said. The seat is being vacated this year by term-limited state Rep. Ellen Cogen Lipton, D-Huntington Woods. The primary race has five Democrats running.
The district also includes Hazel Park, where the Safer Hazel Park Coalition met no opposition from the city in placing its proposal, identical to the Oak Park one, on August primary ballots. The petitions were signed by Hazel Park Mayor Jack Lloyd and City Councilman Andy LeCureaux.
In Oak Park, “What we believe is that people at City Hall have an anointed candidate in this race, and they they think that our pro-marijuana candidate will mess up their plans,” Young said.
Marijuana advocates sue Oak Park over proposal being kept off ballot
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