Proposal One failed. So, what now?
ISHPEMING — Voters across the state sent a clear message to lawmakers Tuesday. In a landslide vote, 80% of voters said no to Proposal One. Now, it’s up to Michigan’s lawmakers to fix the state’s roads and bridges.
According to records from the Secretary of State, Proposal One failed in all 83 Michigan counties. State Representative Scott Dianda told ABC 10 that he wasn’t surprised that Proposal One failed.
“We have a lot of people out there that understand that we’re spending about $3.6 billion on the transportation system,” said Dianda. “Maybe a lot of people were thinking ‘Well, maybe it will get better if we give them another $1.2 billion. When people started to see that we were going to pay off $800 million in past debts from the 90’s, I think that really started scaring people.”
As a member of the Transportation Committee in the House of Representatives, Dianda believes the best way to fix Michigan’s roads is to look at how the money that’s already put towards the roads is being spent.
“We’re going to have to look at every dollar that were spending in Michigan on these roads,” said Dianda. “We’re going to have to make sure, that No. 1, that those dollars that we’re spending is very little on administrative oversight. We have to make sure that the bulk of the money is going on the road surface. That’s the No. 1 thing as elected officials and the constituents of Michigan have to say and everything else is going to have to take a second fiddle. We need to make sure that we fix the bridges and roads first… our first priority has got to be that.”
According to the Detroit News, Proposal One suffered the worst defeat of any ballot measure in 50 years.