It’s Election Day and for many who have been tuned in to the political races and proposal controversy today offers a welcomed chance end the campaign storm by give the final word—or vote—to end the dizzying campaign madness.

While most candidate races will be put to rest before midnight (barring another epic indecision on votes cast), other issues that have been awaiting a vote won’t quietly dart off into the sunset once voters say “yes” or “no”.  In fact, the vote will only trigger an unprecedented downpour of litigation and power scraping. 

 Take the ballot proposals for example. In Detroit, there are 18 of them on the two-page ballot. While some of them are not controversial (millage renewals, etc.), many of them are.

The statewide proposals alone will lather up enough lawsuits and frenzy after the vote to make us dizzy all over again.

Proposal 1, the proposal asking voters whether we should keep the State’s emergency manager law, for instance, will bring enough litigation from either side, whether voters say yes or no. If voters approve the emergency manager law, political action groups that gad fought it before will keep on fighting it, calling it undemocratic and trying to find ways to block it or get it tossed in court.

If voters strike down Prop 1, the chaos within cities and school systems will only get worse.  People can expect lawsuits of all sorts over wage cuts, political power, officials, lawsuits between the city and the state, you name it.

If we look at the path as to how each of these issues even got to the ballot we will see a trail of tangled litigation. And it won’t end at the polls.

It’s not just litigation that will continue after the vote on proposals, many of the proposals, especially proposal three that would pose a constitutional mandate to have businesses get 25 percent of their energy from renewable sources by 2025, will put the State legislature to work, combing out the details of the proposals and finding the verbiage and structure to fit into the constitution.

The battle over Proposal 6, better known as the bridge proposal, may not stop at the vote, either.

The Detroit Free Press’ John Ghallager writes: 

“Canada would be paying the estimated $2.1-billion cost of the new crossing, it's unclear whether the constitutional amendment contained in Proposal 6 against spending state funds without a statewide vote would affect building it.”

But just because certain issues may continue to be debated and litigated after the vote does not mean our votes don’t count. In fact, voters are carrying the weight of the decision; it’s the details that will get hashed out after in the legislature and perhaps through litigation.

So if you haven’t already done so, get to the polls and decide for yourself.

Check out this Voter Guide if you need a last minute refresher on the issues and the candidates.

If anyone forgot why Public Act 4 (the Emergency Manager Law) was created, yesterday’s DPS ruling should jog their jog your memory.

Wayne County Circuit Court Judge John Murphy ruled Tuesday that the DPS School Board has control over academic decisions and Emergency Financial Manager (EFM) Roy Roberts has control of the purse strings. That's until Nov. 6th, when voters get to decide the fate of PA4.

Meanwhile, the ongoing battle between DPS emergency manager Roy Roberts and the Detroit School Board is anything but over. It's a taste of things to come if PA4 is repealed in November.

People can expect lawsuits to fly like rotten tomatoes between the two camps.

According to the Detroit News, Judge Murphy said Tuesday he expects the two groups to battle it out in the courthouse quite often:

“Murphy said if the school board and Roberts can't agree on what is financial and what is academic, he will decide on a case by case basis who has authority.

'The burden of proof is on the plaintiff that his policies fit within Public Act 72,' Murphy said."

Murphy should prepare to see Roberts and the Board frequent his courtroom:

Roberts told The Detroit News:

“If we have a disagreement and I say it's financial and they say it's academics — we are back

before Judge Murphy."

 

But really, Who wins in a situation like this? Certainly not the kids who need leaderhsip, not lawsuits.

 

But I remember three years ago when Bing just got into office and he was trying to do make the cuts needed without state intervention. Remember the union contracts? I particularly remember when lawsuits were flying then namely around AFSCME Local Council 25. The city charter was again in question. Bing had terminated union contracts saying basically the same thing: If I don't there will be payless paydays, the city is broke, and so on. Only, then he estimated the city had a month or two to go before it crumbled--financially that is.
 
Bing is doing what he and many others feel is best for the city. Concede some power to the state so the city doesn't go bankrupt -- which would be bad for everyone involved. What has to happen is it has turned into an "us vs them" argument when now is the time people need to be working together. If Bing is right this time and the city IS running out of cash, then that is, indeed, perilous for all residents. Too bad Bing used the running out of money in x amount of time warning too many times before.
 
No doubt he wasn't kidding then, but now, since he is giving the city four days before bust, it's similar to what he said before to get the cuts he needed. So now that the situation has escalated and the stakes have risen, people are acting apathetic. Threats of running out of money are nothing new because the city has been running out of money for a long time. What is the case now? Is it literally a count down to chaos? Does all of Detroit's future really hung on Krystal Crittendon and the lawsuit she filed to hold up the consent agreement? The stakes are high, yes. But does that mean the drama needs to escalate, too?