Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Bill to keep cars from judiciary motors along

Compensation for Michigan Supreme Court justices and Court of Appeals judges would not include the use of state-owned or state-leased vehicles under legislation that has cleared the Michigan House General Government Committee.

The committee has reported out (see pages 8 and 9 in the linked document) a pair of bills, HB 5005 (amends the Revised Judicature Act) and HB 5006 (same thing but amends the Management and Budget Act), that address the matter.

The legislation has a bit of the "Department of Redundancy Department" feel to it because, if enacted, it will accomplish by law what has already been put into practice by the MSC justices and COA judges themselves. The bills also include all the state's trial-court judges, who never had state-owned vehicles to begin with.

Responding to media reports last April about the costs associated with issuing judicial branch employees state cars, all of the justices and COA judges turned theirs in, amid some grousing and speculation that using their private vehicles for court business may be a false economy once they're reimbursed for mileage.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

There isn't an agreement on the budget, the Kreiner fix bill can't get out of committee, but this they can take care of. I think the military acronym for this is: SNAFU.

Ed Wesoloski said...

Mike, some might say the political term for this is "grandstanding." Shakespeare fans might say, "Much ado about nothing." When I told a buddy of mine about this, he said, "So, it's sorta like wearing a belt and suspenders."