Politics & Government
Michigan Lawmakers Sweeping Silliness from Code
The House has already passed a bill that remove archaic laws from the state code; now it's the Senate's turn.
Say you’re an able-bodied man over 18, just sitting around minding your own business and someone from the Department of Natural Resources knocks at your door and compels you to assist in some operation or another.
Don’t refuse. That’s against the law — so far, anyway.
Find out what's happening in West Bloomfieldfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
The state House of Representatives is still trying to sweep archaic laws from the Michigan Code, that one is on the list that will likely go. It hasn’t been enforced for years, and most people probably don’t even know it exists.
Earlier on Patch
Find out what's happening in West Bloomfieldfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
“But in the day of water brigades, bucket brigades even, or whatever it might have been, they might have said, hey, you need to help us put this fire out, it’s your civic duty,” Rep. Chris Afendoulis, R-Grand Rapids, told WWTV.
Afendoulis is sifting through about 3,000 criminal laws at the behest of House Speaker Kevin Cotter, R-Mount Pleasant, with coming up with a list of laws that no longer make sense — or may never have made sense.
I don’t know why, it’s probably just the fact that people haven’t taken the time to scrub the books, if you will,” he said. “It’s clear that in all of these cases, they were laws that were not being used, were not being enforced, and so even to the reason in favor of removing them.”
The House approved sweeping some of the silliness from the state code in August. The bill repealing them is now before the Senate, which is expected to approve it.
If that happens and Gov. Rick Snyder concurs with his signature, it’ll be OK to swear in front of women and children, tell the DNR officer to take a hike in the woods, and botch the national anthem — though anyone who was around 25 years ago to hear Rosanne Barr’s shrieking version of the national anthem still can’t unhear it, and might persuasively argue that it still should be illegal to embellish the national anthem.
Anything to do with dueling is pretty much out, though.
Oh, and Michigan is getting more politically correct. Doctors and others have long been prohibited from exploiting certain individuals, but now they’ll be referred to as a “disabled or disfigured” individual, rather than a “deformed or human monstrosity.”
The times, they are a-changin’.
Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.
