Civic Engagement and Elections in Michigan

To celebrate Clean Water Action's 50th anniversary, we’re sharing our history and journey with the people who have joined us along the way as we worked to protect clean water through #CleanWater50Stories. Michigan Senator Jeff Irwin has long been a champion on the issues that affect water resources in Michigan and the Great Lakes. In his time in the Michigan State House Senator Irwin received Clean Water Action’s Lawmaker of the Year Award and has continued to be a strong environmental advocate in the state Senate.

In a very memorable episode of Seinfeld, Kramer and Newman take off in Newman’s mail truck loaded down with empty pop cans to return in Michigan for a tidy profit of 10 cents per can. The scheme was hatched in Jerry’s apartment, and their initial run was to be a sort of test to see whether or not a massive operation of muling pop cans into Michigan to defraud our bottle bill program was feasible.

Lame Duck Heroes and Zeros

The end of 2018 was record-breaking. After passing 351 bills over the course of the first 22 months of Michigan’s 99^th legislative session, lawmakers passed a whopping 408 bills in a frenzied four-week long lame duck session. This was the busiest and the most environmentally destructive lame duck session in state history. Many of the bills passed were so widely unpopular that sponsors neglected to introduce them until after things died down post general election.