A lot has changed since 1997. In 1997, I was a 20 year old college student working part time at Domino's to pay my bills. A take-out pizza was $5, a stamp was 32 cents and I remember once paying 79 cents for a gallon of gas. What hasn't changed since 1997 is Michigan's gas tax. Estimates are that the 19 cent gas tax from 1997 is woth roughly 2/3 of what it was back then.
There is no question that Michigan motorists have noticed. Michigan spends less per capita then every other state in the country on our transportation system. Motorists often indicate that they can tell when they've entered Ohio (hardly a big spender) just by closing there eyes. There is a good reason for that, Ohio spends $1 billion more than Michigan for transportation each and every year.
I've been involved in the road funding debate for as long as I can remember. Importantly, I became intimately aware of our deteriorating infrastructure as I went to work for the Michigan Department of Transportation in 2005. The legislature has made half-hearted attempts on numerous occasions to tackle the issue, but it wasn't until 2014 that the conversation became truly serious.
Critics of what became Proposal 1 of 2015 note that the legislation passed at 5:30 am on December 18th. I know, because I was there. They argue that doing this at the last minute in the middle of the night proves it is bad policy. In reality it was the culmination of months of negotiations between parties. It was a largely unexpected solution to a persistent problem. The idea of a ballot initiative had been floated before, but word was that polling showed it to be unpopular. Most expected that if there were to be a ballot initiative it would take a similar form to Proposal A of 1994, giving voters an either/or choice to make.
While the Chamber had been supporting a transportation funding solution for years, I made the determination that supporting a constitutional amendment without consulting with our Board would be a mistake. While, we couldn't tell Legislators that the Chamber supported the package, it was such an important issue, that I stayed until the end. When members would ask me "where the Chamber stands," I would explain our neutrality but also explain that this was the right vote.
I made the decision that supporting Proposal 1 was the right position for the Chamber, but needed to convince my boss and our Board that I was correct. Fortunately, as they often do, our board trusted my judgement and let me be an enthusiastic cheerleader for what all agreed was an imperfect proposal. At the first campaign coalition meeting, the team was asking for volunteers to join the speakers bureau, and it occurred to me that this was just the place for me to make a difference. As someone who enjoys and excels in public speaking, can make the business case for infrastructure funding and had the experience in MDOT to answer more technical questions I asked for the campaign to put me to work.
Ten weeks later, I voted for Proposal 1. Knowing I had done everything I could do, I sat in my office to tally my work on the campaign. Based on memory and my calendars, my best estimate is that I did 37 events in support of Proposal 1, running up 87 hours of time away from my day job/family and thousands of miles on my car. After a few "successful" events with the no campaign, I became the go to speaker for the Safe Roads Yes! campaign.
Nothing checks an ego like spending that amount of time on a campaign that lost 4 to 1. However, I proved to myself that I can succeed as the face of a cause and that I "belong" in the arena. Additionally, our collective work as an organization shifted our perception to the larger political world as the leading voice on one more of the leading issues facing our state. The campaign has ended, but the fight for adequate infrastructure spending continues.