Michigan Taxpayers Alliance 2008 State Representative Grades – Key Tax Votes The following votes each count for three points. 1. 2007 House Bill 5194: The 12% state income tax hike. 2. 2007 House Bill 5198: The extension of the state sales tax to certain services, later replaced by a 22% business tax hike. 3. 2007 Senate Bill 94: Michigan’s new business tax. Citizens collected nearly 375,000 signatures on a petition to eliminate the despised old Single Business Tax. The petition language stated that the SBT should be replaced with a “less burdensome tax”. What did the legislature do? Replaced the tax with the Michigan Business Tax which increased the net tax burden on businesses, and is perhaps even more complicated than the old SBT. 4. Senate Bill 229, Senate Bills 232-235, House Bills 4344, 4346, 4348, 4350 and 4360: Increases in state spending from 2007 to 2008. The remaining four votes count for two points each. 5. 2007 House Bill 4261. This bill authorized a new 2% tax on Kent County and Lansing hotels. The convention and tourism bureaus in Kent County and Lansing wanted more money, but apparently couldn’t get enough local hotels to send it to them voluntarily. 6. 2008 House Bill 5804: This bill funds the state’s Department of History, Arts and Libraries. Last year, the state spent $49.5 million on this Department. Governor Granholm recommended a spending increase to $52.7 million but that wasn’t enough for Speaker Dillon and the House leaders. They passed this bill increasing art spending to $57.1 million – a 13% increase. What’s in YOUR wallet? 7. 2008 Senate Bill 1107: This bill increased spending for school aid by almost half a billion dollars. The House added a provision allowing the Detroit Public Schools (DPS) to continue to be the only “district of the first class” in Michigan which prohibits Detroit’s district from facing additional competition from charter schools. The DPS was given this extra ‘protection’ for free. No audits, reforms or improvement plans were expected of the DPS in the legislation. 8. House Bills 4865, 4866, 5257 and 5258: Fee increases. Back in Governor Granholm’s first term, a whole slew of fee hikes were enacted on everything from gasoline to business licenses and annual reports required of non-profit corporations. The fee increases ranged from 25% to 100%. But don’t worry, citizens were told, these fee hikes are only “temporary” and will go away in 2007. The legislature put the “sunset date” for these temporary fee hikes right in the legislation. Then on Sept 30, 2007, the day the fees increases were scheduled to go away, the legislature passed new legislation keeping the fee hikes in place. But don’t worry, these fees will go back down on September 30, 2012. It says so right in the legislation.

State Representative Grades

Each representative is listed in order of their house district number along with their corresponding grade. You can click on the representative's name to see a detailed description of how they voted on each vote and how their grade was tabulated. If you're not sure who your State Representative is, you can do a search on the House of Representative's website here or refer to the district map below.