An examination of yesterday's State House of Representatives journal discloses two things: (1) the debate on the Great Lakes diversion constitutional amendment (HCR CC) was more complicated than it seemed, and (2) our news media are incapable of covering anything deeper than a soundbite.
Turns out the minority Dems did offer a creditable amendment or two. Parliamentary maneuvering by the majority denied an up-or-down vote on them, but -- Rep. Kathleen Law offered the following:
(a) "Diversion" means a transfer of water from the Great Lakes basin into another watershed outside of the Great Lakes basin including, but not limited to, the transport of water intended for commercial sale as bottled water.
In other words, she was calling the sponsors' bluff -- are you really against shipping water out of state, or not? The vote on whether to allow debate on this was 42 aye, 59 nay. That's 42 House members who support substance over posturing. Too bad the wires and most newspapers and electronic media acted as if this debate never happened. I guess they figure the populace of Michigan would be bored by detail.
Read for yourself:
http://michiganlegislature.org/documents/2003-2004/journal/house/htm/2004-HJ-09-29-083.htm