(Source: MIRS.news, Published 08/01/2023) Organizers can begin collecting signatures to recall Rep. Cam Cavitt (R-Cheboygan) from office. The recall efforts of seven other state representatives will need to wait.
The State Board of Canvassers deadlocked 2-2 on approving petition language against six Democrats and Rep. Donni Steele (R-Lake Orion) because attorney Mark Brewer convinced the board that since the petition language only mentioned the lawmakers' vote on specific bill numbers, potential signees didn't have enough information to make an educated decision.
Brewer also questioned whether the recall organizers were part of an organized group and, if they are, that should be made clear in the petition language, as well. Up to now, there's no proof of a coordinated effort and only one recall organizer, Gerald Clixby, showed up to make his case.
Mary Ellen Gurewitz, a Democrat, and Richard Houskamp, a Republican, both voted that it was not clear to just use the bill number. They wanted a succinct explanation of what the bill was after it to clarify.
The Cavitt petition was the only one to not contain a bill number. It read that Cavitt should be recalled for voting to make Rep. Joe Tate (D-Detroit) Speaker of the House.
Clixby told the board that he was planning on taking a copy of the bill with him when gathering signatures, but also said he wouldn’t be the only one canvassing, giving rise to the question of organization.
“There is a movement out there. It’s grassroots. It’s not funded. There’s no big budget. We don’t have big donors that are lining up to throw money at an issue like this. Nobody wants to touch this. I debated whether or not to even come today. I hear all this mish-mash and I’m thinking, you know, we have to cut through this,” Clixby said.
He said he was a citizen that was concerned and that he had talked with other people and organizations that had the same concerns.
“I’m at the point in my life where I say if I don’t like something I better do something about it now,” he said.
Gurewitz pressed him and pointed out that the writing on the petition was not his, but had been written by someone else.
“I was thinking it and I signed it,” he said. “I’m here today to tell you that is my petition and I signed it. Is there anything else that matters?”
Houskamp also asked Clixby if there was an organization or he was planning on organizing with others to be able to get the signatures needed for the recall of Rep. Noah Arbit (D-West Bloomfield). He was concerned there would be an inadvertent violation of campaign finance laws.
“Nobody does anything individually anymore. Come on. I’m not going to do this individually. I’ve got to get 12,000 signatures, probably closer to 14 to be sure. I’m not going to do that individually. Everybody knows that,” Clixby said.
He said he knew people with the Michigan Conservative Union, Michigan Conservative Coalition and many other Republican organizations that he had talked with that are active in southeastern Michigan who could help him.
“I know a lot of these people. These people are workers. These are not rich donors,” he said.
He said there wasn’t one organization that was willing to fund the recall petition, but those organizations would provide the manpower to go out and knock on doors and do the circulating.
“That’s what we do. That’s what I said, that you guys in Lansing don’t understand what’s happening. This is grassroots. People are not in this for the money. They’re not. They don’t have a lot of money. So somebody may be throwing in 20 bucks or 50 bucks, probably somewhere along the way,” Clixby said.
Houskamp explained he was grassroots and at some point there would be organizing that the organization needed to be put together and registered with the Secretary of State and that it would not be a cheap process to get the signatures needed.
The Attorney General’s representative said that wasn’t a question for the board but a question for the Secretary of State’s Office.
Brewer, while disagreeing with the Attorney General’s Office, said anyone organizing beyond one person would need to form a registered committee with the Secretary of State’s Office and declare that under campaign finance.
He was also convinced, but without concrete proof, that there was a group already behind the recall efforts.
“These petitions are from six widely scattered districts. There’s one from Leelanau County, there’s some from downriver Wayne, some are from Oakland County. This did not happen spontaneously in six different places at the same time,” Brewer said.
Republican Canvasser Tony Daunt said the question before the Canvassers was to focus on factual sufficiency and clarity. The petition language, while brief, was factual and clear, he said.
Gurwitz said the Campaign Finance Act says that recall petitions have to have a disclaimer, but this was the first time she saw someone like Brewer raising the issue of an absence of the disclaimer.
She recommended Clixby hire a lawyer to help him navigate campaign finance law.
Recall efforts against Reps. Betsy Coffia (D-Traverse City), Jaime Churches (D-Wyandotte), Noah Arbit (D-West Bloomfield), Jennifer Conlin (D-Ann Arbor), Sharon MacDonell (D-Troy), Reggie Miller (D-Belleville) and Steele are now on ice until different language is submitted to the Secretary of State or organizers successfully challenge this ruling at the Court of Appeals.
Coffia called Tuesday's news a “positive development.”
“I appreciate the deliberations and close inspection by the Board of Canvassers to ensure the petition complied with the law,” she said. “I will continue to work and focus on the issues that matter to the people of the 103rd and on bringing home wins like the new rural school busing equity formula and $125 million in funding I successfully got in the new state budget.”
