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Newspaper and other media outlets are starting to issue their endorsements for the November elections, and today the Freep editorial board came down from their conference room with its inscribed tablets: Vote yes on Proposal 1 (legalizing recreational marijuana) and Proposal 2 (the proposed redistricting commission). As the Prop 1 editorial states:
Michigan would hardly be a trail-blazer if it votes to decriminalize pot. Nine other states have already done so, and Canada will join the queue next month, bringing legal weed a few minutes' drive from Southeast Michigan.
Nor would legalizing marijuana unleash a weed free-for-all. If the initiative passes, pot would be regulated a lot like alcohol: Both buyers and sellers would have have to be over 21, and driving under the influence would be illegal.
As for gerrymandering,
Borrowing features from similar commissions established by several other states, Proposal 2 is complex, highly transparent and imperfect. If adopted, it's likely to precipitate legal challenges by Republican and Democratic officials anxious to reassert their parties' historical domination of the political redistricting process.
But the major parties have utterly failed to collaborate on a redistricting process that serves the interests of voters, especially independents who don't consistently gravitate to one party's candidates. VNP's ballot initiative offers voters a practical way to assure fairer representation and encourage more robust political competition in a state that needs both.
That's why the Free Press recommends a YES vote on Proposal 2.
Newspaper endorsements are kinda silly, in many ways -- a relic of a time when people were more likely to be faithful to the paper of their tribe, be it labor, management, ethnicity or whatever. (Kinda like Fox News!) They're also a boon to lazy or busy voters who don't have the time to do a deep dive on every last name on the ballot. But they're still important in their own way, and so now you know: Detroit's biggest newspaper has finally caught up with Peter Tosh.