Michigan clerks struggle with expanded voting requirements
Michigan township clerks say that expanded voting requirements adopted in recent years have increased election costs and staffing demands, with the burden falling most heavily on lower-population townships.
Michigan voters approved constitutional amendments in 2018 and 2022 that expanded absentee voting, added same-day registration and required at least nine days of early in-person voting for statewide and federal elections.
Local election officials say those changes have shifted elections from a single-day operation into a weels-long administrative process that requires additional staffing and planning regardless of turnout. Click here to read more.
Kids on ‘lifesaving’ cross-sex hormones skyrocket in Oregon, but no corresponding suicide decline
As medicalized gender transitions become more difficult for minors to obtain in red and even some blue jurisdictions, due to federal pressure, state bans and increasing malpractice risk, some states are emerging as havens for cross-sex hormones and puberty blockers.
A study of nearly 900,000 adolescents ages 8-17 in Oregon, based on a database representing about 80% of insured Oregonians, found nearly 1% of them were diagnosed with gender dysphoria from 2016 to 2023, three-quarters of those girls.
About 22% of gender-confused girls and 28% of gender-confused boys, a much smaller population, went on blockers or hormones, with boys three times more likely to go on blockers (17%). The sexes were closer together on taking hormones, 19% of girls and 22% of boys, based on the Comagine Health mult-ipayer claims database. Click here to read more.
DoorDash to Stop Blacklisting Conservative Nonprofits in Employee Giving Program
The delivery marketplace company DoorDash has begun the process of allowing employees to donate to conservative nonprofits, even if they appear on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s “hate map.”
The conservative Christian law firm Alliance Defending Freedom, working with the Catholic financial advisory firm IWP Capital, urged DoorDash to reconsider its reliance on the SPLC, which critics accuse of putting mainstream conservative and Christian nonprofits on a “hate map” with chapter of the Ku Klux Klan.
DoorDash uses the impact platform Deed to facilitate employees’ charitable giving and volunteering. DoorDash has formally requested that Deed allow DoorDash employees to connect with nonprofits, even if they appear on the SPLC’s map.
“ADF, IWP Capital, we believe this is a great win for shareholders and employees, and we’re very happy with the result,” Noah Nash, legal counsel for ADF’s Corporate Engagement Team, told the Daily Signal in an interview Thursday. “It sets an excellent example for other companies to follow.” Click here to read more.
Michigan lawmakers need to understand economics
In Michigan, you need a license to cut hair, roof a house or operate a polygraph machine. But you need no training at all to write the laws that govern those professions.
Elected officials make important decisions for their constituents, appropriating billions of dollars of taxpayer money and designing state programs that affect millions of people. Lawmakers would do well to learn and remember basic economics.
Most people are familiar with the laws of supply and demand. If you lower the price of bread, sales will likely go up. If demand for a product exceeds the supply, prices will likely rise. Remember the toilet paper craze during the Covid-19 lockdowns? Prices rose, stores began rationing purchases and the state warned against stockpiling. Click here to read more.
Illinois gas tax set to increase every year—without a vote
Illinois’ state gas tax is slated to go up every year without lawmakers ever voting on the increases.
The state went almost 30 years without raising the tax, which was 19 cents a gallon from 1990 to 2019.
That year, as part of his “Rebuild Illinois” infrastructure program, Pritzker doubled the tax to 38 cents a gallon.
More consequentially, the law created automatic yearly increases linked to inflation. Because of that, Illinois drivers will likely pay more in state gas taxes each year for the foreseeable future unless lawmakers take action, as there’s no expiration date on the annual adjustments. Click here to read more.
