TAKING THE INITIATIVE, LAYMAN LEGISLATOR SHOWS UP LEGAL COMMUNITY, SAVE DONORS & TAXPAYERS MILLIONS

By Bill Ballenger
Editor, Inside Michigan Politics

William (Bill) Van Regenmorter (R-Hudsonville) is not an attorney. Nevertheless, the veteran state lawmaker has been picked to head the Legislature's two most important committees on criminal justice for the past 13 years.

The courtly, unassuming Van Regenmorter once attended Calvin College but in fact holds no "earned" higher education degree. Still, he shares several characteristics with the late Harry S. Truman, who also was only a high school graduate but perhaps know more history than any president before or since.

Van Ragenmorter knows enough law that the Detroit College of Law at MSU has awarded him an honorary doctorate. He was picked by two successive Senate majority leaders to chair the standing committee on the Judiciary for a dozen years. Now that he's returned to the state House of Representatives for a non- consecutive fifth (and possibly sixth and seventh) term, Speaker Rick Johnson (R-LeRoy) has put him in charge of the House Committee on Criminal Justice.

That's because Van Regenmorter follows Michigan's compiled laws, the Constitution, and even ballot proposals more closely than most if not all of his colleagues in the Capitol. He even outshines members of the bar in fly specking the statute books and proposed initiatives and referenda.

It all paid off last summer when Van Regenmorter, then a state senator, discovered an incredible blunder in draft ballot language that, if approved by voters, would have 1) Altered Michigan's drug laws to require treatment instead of incarceration for non violent offenders; 2) Repealed most mandatory minimum jail sentences; and 3) Required the Legislature to appropriate funds for a Drug Sentencing Commission ($4.5 million for six years), treatment programs for drug offenders (at least $18 million annually, and $9 million for start up), and prohibited any gubernatorial veto of such spending.

Says Van Regenmorter: "I was sitting there in my office one evening reading the ballot proposal, and I though "Hey, that's MY section they're talking about!"

"My section" was Article I, Section 24, of the Michigan Constitution, the so called "Crime Victims Rights" clause that had been approved by Michigan voters in 1988 after being placed on the ballot when the Legislature approved Joint House Resolution P, sponsored by - guess who? - then state Rep. Van Regenmorter.

If a Section 24 already existed in Article I of the Constitution, did the 2002 ballot question propose to amend it? Not exactly. Fact is, some 15 months earlier, a reputed election law expert in one of Michigan's most prestigious law firms had botched his drafting of an initiative for a California-based organization called the Campaign for New Drug Policies (CNDP). i.e., the barrister proposed adding "new" section s24 and 25 to Article I without realized THERE WAS ALREADY A SECITON 24 that spoke to a completely different subject (Crime Victims Rights).

Alarmed by what he saw in the proposed ballot language, which had not yet been certified by the Board of Canvassers, Van Regenmorter wrote the Board last August 30 expressing concern that the drug reform proposal, if approved, might be construed as a replacement for the existing Section 24, Van Regenmorter's Victims' Rights Amendment.

When the Board next met, on Sept. 3, Van Regenmorter himself showed up to voice his concern that the drug policy initiative might be deemed to replace the existing Section 24, and that the proposal did not notify petition signers that it might have that effect. Despite arguments by attorneys for the CNDP that this was a simple clerical error that could easily be rectified [Author's Note - the Michigan Secretary of State had the authority as Michigan election chief to make such a correction, but she, Ms. Candace Miller, chose not to do so] the Board by a unanimous 4-0 tally (two Republicans two Democrats) voted not to certify the CNDP proposal for the ballot.

Three days later, on Sept. 6, the Court of Appeals rejected the CNDP argument that the Board of Canvassers should be overruled and that the drug initiative should be allowed to go on the ballot. A three judge panel ruled specifically that the Board had been correct in its conclusion that the failure to correctly number the proposed new constitutional provisions meant that the proposal could not be certified for the ballot. The Michigan Supreme Court denied further appeal.

To that point, the CNDP had spent an estimated $2.5 million for petition preparation and printing, signature collection, legal fees, and polling, yet had nothing to show for it. The Campaign - funded by three not-from-Michigan billionaires (GEORGE SOROS, PETER LEWIS and JOHN SPERLING) - was denied the opportunity to have its drug law reform initiative placed on the Nov. 5 general election ballot because Van Regenmorter, who was not even a party to the issue, had noticed a drafting mistake that had been overlooked for a year and a quarter by:

• The lead Michigan attorneys for the Campaign, TIM KNOWLTON and JOHN PIRICH, at the firm of Honigman, Miller, Schwartz & Cohn, which had erroneously numbered the pertinent sections.
• Outside counsel in East Lansing hired especially to review the initiative for constitutionality and form
• Staff of the state Bureau of Elections, which recommended to the Board of State Canvassers last August 26 that it certify the Campaign's proposal for the fall ballot
• Assistant Attorney General GARY GORDEN, the attorney for the Bureau of State, and the Board
• Two attorneys supposedly expert in election law from the firm of Dykema Gossett, who appeared before the Board arguing against the proposal being allowed on the ballot not because of the flawed numbering language but because, they claimed, it failed to disclose on its petition that it abrogated or amended other portions of the Constitution, particularly provisions regarding the governor's veto power
• The State Board of Canvassers itself, which included three attorney members - Democrat STEPHEN BORRELLO and Republicans ELIZABETH HARDY and TIMOTHY WARD (amazingly, Borrello became Gov. JENNIFER GRANHOLM's first appointee to the stat Court of Appeals just last month).

  "Whether anyone realized just how crucial non-lawyer Van Regenmorter's intervention had been to keeping the drug initiative off the ballot, almost the entire political community applauded the courts' and Canvassing Board's decision not to certify. The rare bipartisan accord reflected in the Canvassers' vote was also evident in a hour-long News/Talk 870-AM radio debate on the issue last Aug. 30 (ironically, the very day Van Regenmorter first contacted the Board) in which Democrat STUART DUNNINGS III, the Ingham Co. prosecuting attorney, invoked prominent names on both sides of the political divide who were hostile to the initiative.

  But if the two major political parties and their politicians were relieved that this hot potato wouldn't be up for grabs Nov. 5, the CNDP very understandably wasn't. A law suit against Honigman Miller for alleged malpractice to recover the wasted $2.5 million seemed inevitable; eventually, however the two combatants agreed to private arbitration.

  So, which side won? What did the three-lawyer arbitration decide? Could there be a "winner" in this scenario?

  Nobody knows for sure except the adversaries, and by mutual agreement they aren't talking. But we do know that, in the midst of their scheduled three-day arbitration hearing June 17-19, high atop a downtown Detroit office building, the two parties called off any further "expert witness" testimony and "settled" rather than trust what the legal troika might decide, which would have been binding on both parties.

  Remember, one side wanted $2.5 million; the other felt it was liable for a lot less than that. IMP's guess: they split the baby, with Honigman Miller (or its insurer) agreeing to pay the CNDP in the neighborhood of $1.2 million.

  What's the moral of this story?

  Van Regenmorter for Supreme Court!

  (Oops! We forgot - he's not an attorney)"