Constitutionality of 2018 PA 368 (the Michigan One Fair Wage proposal) & 369 (the Michigan Time to Care proposal); The right of the people to initiate their own law (initiative) & to approve or reject a law enacted through the normal republican governmental process (referendum); Const 1963, art 2, § 9; Whether the Legislature enacting an initiative petition proposal may amend the law enacted at the same legislative session; Frey v Director of Dep’t of Soc Servs; Statutory interpretation; Principle that the Legislature is free to legislate as it deems appropriate unless specifically prohibited from doing so under the state or federal Constitutions; Southeastern MI Fair Budget Coal v Killeen

In this dispute over whether statutes the Legislature enacts under the initiative process “can be amended during the same legislative session in which they were enacted[,]” the court held that the Court of Claims’ conclusions that the Legislature is prohibited from doing so were not supported by either the text or intent of article 2, § 9. Thus, the court reversed its order and remanded for entry of an order granting defendant-State of Michigan’s summary disposition motion. Plaintiffs-voter groups and defendant-Attorney General claimed that article 2, § 9 does “not permit the Legislature to adopt a proposed initiative and amend it within the same legislative session” and as a result, PA 368 and PA 369 were unconstitutional. The Court of Claims agreed, finding the “substantive amendments to these voter-initiated acts effectively thwarted the intent of the people by denying them the opportunity to vote on whether they preferred the voter-initiated proposal or the Legislature’s modified proposal.” It concluded the Legislature was prohibited from doing so, and thus ruled PA 368 and 369 were unconstitutional and void. On appeal, the court rejected the Court of Claims’ reasoning. In article 2, § 9, “the people did preclude the Legislature from amending a law during the same legislative session, but only as to referendums.” The court found that to say there is “no significance to the people limiting legislative amendments during the same legislative session to referendums is to simply ignore the deliberate restrictions the people placed in” article 2, § 9. Further, allowing amendment of the public acts “during the same legislative session in which they were enacted does not interfere with the ability to seek a referendum on these original laws.” In addition, the “constitutional convention record squarely supports the conclusion that there was no intention to place a temporal limit on when the Legislature could amend initiated laws enacted by the Legislature.” Finally, to the extent the Court of Claims “focused on the perceived intent of the Legislature, it has been the law of this state for more than 100 years that the motivations in passing legislation are irrelevant.” The court found that “upholding the adopt and amend procedure does not diminish the initiative process,” and that its “holding does no damage to the right of referendum, as the original laws as enacted into public acts, or the public acts that contained the amendments, remain subject to a referendum as specified in” article 2, § 9.