Friends,
Lansing is back in session, which means lawmakers are doing more damage, including more infringements on your constitutional rights.
This past Tuesday's House Elections Committee hearing brought with it a review of House Bills 4129 and 4130, which will make a person a felon if they make an election worker "feel frightened." That's right folks, don't say something that will hurt someone's feelings, or you may become a felon.
What is most concerning is that PIME had prepared a position statement for the committee hearing based upon the bill that was made available to the public, only to find out at the committee hearing that the committee was no longer working from the "public bill". Instead, they were working from a substitute bill that was apparently introduced immediately ahead of the committee hearing. This substitute bill was still not available to the public at the time of this blog release. (Therefore comments in this blog release relate to the only version of the bill made available to the public at the time of this blog post release).
Both the committee chair (Representative Tsernoglou) and the sponsor of HB4129 (Representative Kara Hope) could not provide information on when the substitute bill was made available to the committee. They had no idea and wouldn't even offer when they had received the substitute bill themselves.
How's that for transparent governance? The committee reviews a version of the bill that has not even been made available to the public and then can't tell the public when the substitute bill was made available to the committee.
PIME testified that the state of Michigan should not be making felons out of people just because their constitutionally protected speech made someone else "feel frightened." This bill could be used to silence poll challengers for fear of making them felons just for doing their jobs. If you have ever worked as a poll challenger, or believe in the work of poll challengers, this bill should concern you.
Watch the (7 min) video below to see PIME's testimony at the September 12th House Elections committee hearing:
This brings us to another point. It seems the legislators in Lansing don't think much of the Constitution. Watch in the (18 second) video below as Representative Kara Hope tells us that "no Constitutional right is absolute":
So, here is your call to action:
If you don't want to become a felon for making an election worker "feel frightened", regardless of your intent, and you want to preserve your constitutional right to free speech, contact your state representative now and tell them how you feel about HB4129.
If you aren't sure who your Representative or Senator is, use the links below to find out!
If you want to contact the House Elections Committee Chair (Tsernoglou) to let her know how you feel about the committee's lack of transparency, you can reach her here:
PenelopeTsernoglou@house.mi.gov
Phone: (517) 373-2668
Also, if you want to contact Representative Hope, you can reach her here:
Thank you for taking action!
