It’s (much too) common during lame duck for the legislature to use what is known as a “vehicle bill” to move legislation faster. Which is of course, the whole point to having a lame duck session.

Vehicle bills are innocuous bills sitting on a shelf somewhere, ignored for lack  of support, but that offer a significant constitutional advantage: they’ve been on that shelf for more than 5 days. And because the Michigan Constitution requires every bill must “be in the possession” of each house for at least 5 days, these sleeping bills offer a constitutional short cut.

Just substitute the language you want in place of the bill’s text, and presto! you have a bill ready to send to the Senate! (or to the House if its a Senate bill). No need to wait 5 days

That’s what’s happening right now, a vehicle bill is being rewritten to institute — what fewer and fewer people are believing — is a “tax refund technical fix.” This rewriting of how tax refunds are made will cost schools up to $400 million.

You can find how much it will cost your school district on this spreadsheet.

In fact, at this writing, this change has no bill number, no specific language to share. It’s still a secret and will be until the time comes to run the vehicle bill.

The pension attack was stalled in very large part because of the thousands of member contacts made to the lawmakers. Legislators find out what a bill will really do to their own schools, from people who are in a position to actually know, and votes change.

We need this to happen again. Make a quick call, write a simple email and make a difference. For you, and for the kids you serve.