Mid-Michigan Dining

I just read on MIRS News (I’m not going to link or copy their text here because it is a registration site) that there is a deal in the works for the smoking ban.  Sen. Bishop has said he will consider exempting the Detroit casinos and he will NOT sit on the bill.  He expects a vote after his caucus figures out what they want to do.

HB 5074 has been transmitted to the Senate and today, it was referred to the Committee on Government Operations and Reform which is the same committee HB 4163 was referred to when it was sent to the Senate. 

Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop discharged HB 4163 from committee for a vote on the floor.  At that time, the Senate ammended the bill to get rid of all exemptions.  At the time, Senator Bishop said he did not favor a smoking ban, but let the bill be called because that’s what the people wanted.  After passing the Senate, the House sat on the bill for a few days before calling a different bill, HB 5074 and using it as a vehicle bill.  They amended HB 5074 which was bill written to ban smoking in college dorms.  They struck all of that language and inserted the original language of HB 4163.  HB 5074 passed and was sent to the Senate.

How futile is this?  It took the Senate FIVE months to call HB 4163 then they changed it.  There’s only four weeks left in this session.  Does the House really think Sen. Bishop will allow another vote on the same bill they’ve already amended?  Currently, HB 4163 sits in the house.  They can still call this bill before the session ends and pass it without the exemptions.  HB 5074 sits in committee and will probably die there.  The Committee on Government Operations and Reform hasn’t met since November, so there won’t even be a committee vote on the issue.

The Detroit News ran a story this morning ont the debate.  There was one part in particular I had a problem with.

After Ohio voters approved a ban in 2006, bars in Toledo were hammered and many patrons flocked to bars just across the state line such as M.T. Loonies in southern Monroe County. Sales rose 20 percent to 30 percent and the crush of smokers prompted general manager Craig Herbster, 26, to hire six more workers.

 What about Cleveland?  What about Cincinatti?  What about Columbus?  The paper chose to pick one metro area close to a state that doesn’t ban smoking.  I’m not denying that people are doing that, but let’s look at Michigan’s case.  Obviously, people are not going to flock to Ohio to smoke because they can’t.  They can’t run to Canada.  There will be a small stretch near the Indiana border and a small stretch of the UP along the Wisconsin border that will have to deal with this for a little while. Michigan is in a unique situation that the borders of non-smoking states are relatively small.  There might be a tiny percentage of business leaving Michigan so they can smoke in a bar, but a percentage so small no one will even notice.

The House of Representatives has already ended their session today without voting on HB 4163.  There was discussion of the bill when they were voting on HB 5074 which bans smoking in college dormotories.  There was a discussion of why they need to pass this bill if HB 4163 would pretty much ban smoking in all workplaces.

UPDATE – The Lansing State-Journal put an article on-line saying the House DID in fact pass a smoking ban bill this afternoon. However, it was not HB 4163 which was sent back to by the Senate.  I went back and looked at the text of HB 5074 as passed this afternoon and it is THAT bill that was passed with the same language as the original HB 4163.

This is why I should pay attention when I’m watching The House.  I heard them talking about the the smoking ban during the discussion, but the bill title was about college dorms.  If you look at the enrolled bill and the passed bill, they don’t even resemble each other other than the word smoking.

So, to make this clear, what happened was the House passed the same bill they passed originally exempting Casino’s, bingo halls, and cigar bars.  The bill goes back to the Senate which will now have to vote, again, on the same bill they’ve already amended and sent back to the House.  In short, things have probably hit a permanent road block.

HB 4163 wasn’t on the schedule for today, but I’ve got the webcast of today’s session on.  I’m about a half hour late because I went to lunch with my girlfriend (so that means there’s a review coming later today).  If there are any updates, I’ll update this post.

2:17 PM – Both parties are in caucus meetings now.  They’ve passed a few bills this morning, but not the one we’re waiting on.

3:07 PM  – The House has been called back to order and they’re starting business again.

3:11 PM – The House is At Ease again.

3:18 PM – Back to order

3:29 PM  – Stupid me…how about checking the bill status.  I just checked on the status HERE.  The bill has been returned from the Senate but under House rules, the bill will be layed over for one day which means they won’t vote on it until at least tomorrow.  No need to continue live blogging 😉

3:35 PM – The House has adjourned for the day.  They will reconvene at noon tomorrow and that will be the first chance they have to pass the smoking ban.