From Poker to Politics

 

 

 

PART 7:  2009 AND BEYOND

 

A true political person looks ahead to the next election as soon as the current one is over. Michigan has a very interesting situation arising in 2010. First, all years ending in zero are census years, and following a census comes redistricting. Second, the Michigan Constitution says that every sixteen years, the people must be presented with a ballot proposal that calls for a Constitutional Convention. We are due for a vote on this subject in 2010.

 

The possibility of a constitutional convention intrigues me. Working on such a document seems like my meat and potatoes. I started asking a number of political people how they felt about a “Con-Con.” They were unanimous in opposing it. The list of those opposed is long and impressive: the Republican and Democratic parties, organized labor, right-to-life, the Michigan Chamber of Commerce. It looks like Con-Con has no chance of being approved by the voters. However, change is the current political buzzword, and young people strongly favor a Con-Con. I asked a very knowledgeable person, the lead lawyer for the Chamber of Commerce, what he thought the odds were of voter approval for Con-Con, and he said it was a 2/1 underdog. My opinion is that 4/1 against is more realistic—but longshots do happen.

 

The reason most groups oppose having a Con-Con is that the whole structure of what we have now is put at risk. Of course, the people still have to approve the final document, so the delegates cannot go berserk in persuing their pet interests.

 

My position is simple. If all these groups, especially the two major parties, are so opposed to having a Con-con, let them demonstrate that change can come within the present structure. The legislature has the power to put forth a ballot proposal if two-thirds of the members of each house of the legislature approve it, but in the 21st century the legislature has done zero. If the system ain’t broke, don’t fix it––but it sure looks broke right now.

 

I own the domain www.miconstitution.info, and have put up my ideas about how to improve the way our state makes laws. Feel free to visit my site. I would run to try to be a delegate if Con-Con got approved, but my running for anything else is remote.

 

We have a surprising number of local units of the Democratic Party that do not yet have websites. At the time we had the 2009 Democratic Party state convention in February, only five of our 15 Congressional Districts had websites. Of the 14 counties of the 4th District, only 9 had websites. I decided to do something about this situation. I got permission from the 4th District Chair to put up a website for our district. In this endeavor, I was greatly helped by Dennis Epler of Gratiot County, who showed me how to use the Web Page Maker software. You can see the result of our work by visiting www.mi4thdistrictdems.org

 

Here in Saginaw, we had a county party shakeup in December, and the person who had been putting out our newsletter for many years quit doing it. I volunteered to take over the editor’s job. We wanted to switch from paper to online as our means of publishing the magazine, but it turned out that less than a third of our members had email addresses. The net result was I had to put out both a printed and online version of the newsletter. I had never done either of these things before, and had to spend a lot of my time talking to tech support, but I got the job done.

 

I had been thinking about moving to Lansing, the state capital, and investigated that possibility. The problem Iran into is I am sure a common one. In order have enough money to buy a new home and move, I would need to sell my old home first. However, if I sell my present home, where do I live and put my belongings? I have enough money to move, but not enough liquidity. My IRA has plenty of money in it to buy a home, but the penalty for removing that money early is severe. Could I borrow money from my IRA? Not exactly, but if I do a rollover into a new account, I get 60 days to put the money into it with no penalty. Unfortunately, 60 days is not enough time to feel comfortable selling my home and buying another. Why doesn’t the government try to help the real estate market by allowing us to do a rollover and have a year to put the money back into the IRA? I have a friend of mine that works for US Senator Debie Stabenow, and I gave him the suggestion.

 

Our big annual Democratic event (other than conventions) is the Jefferson-Jackson dinner. You can count on our two senators, the governor, and most other party bigwigs to be in attendence. Tickets are $150 and up. Each congressional district (we have 15) gets a couple of free tickets to give to people who have done good work for the party and district. I was given one of the tickets for my website work. The “honorees” people like me) got to sit up on a long raised dais with all the bigwigs and have dinner with them. A couple of people that I was to sit next to did not show up, and I wound up sitting next to Senator Stabenow. She said she had looked at my suggestion for giving more time on IRA rollovers when buying a new home. She liked it and had a technical team studying it. Stay tuned.

 

I believe giving people who want to buy a new home and use it as their primary residence and already own a home they can sell should be able to have up to a year to repay their IRA. Look how many more people would be able to fulfill their dream of owning a home in Las Vegas after retiring.

 

As you can see, I am into politics now so deeply that there is no turning back. I, like many of you, hope to make a difference in this world. I encourage you to join the party of your choice. Competent people advance quickly. Politics is a wonderful field of endeavor; give it a try.