Pubdate: Sat, 02 Aug 2014
Source: Detroit Free Press (MI)
Copyright: 2014 Detroit Free Press
Contact: http://www.freep.com/article/99999999/opinion04/50926009
Website: http://www.freep.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/125
Author: Bill Laitner, Detroit Free Press Staff Writer
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?275 (Cannabis - Michigan)

BALLOTS CROWDED FOR 6 NO-INCUMBENT SEATS IN OAKLAND STATE HOUSE RACES

Oakland County ballots for Tuesday's primary election are crowded 
with candidates seeking six open state House seats where incumbents 
aren't running.

But perhaps the most heated matchup is between a Republican incumbent 
and his challenger. In the 39th District, state Rep. Klint Kesto of 
Commerce Township faces tea party activist Deb O'Hagan of West Bloomfield.

In May, O'Hagan removed the state coat of arms from her Facebook page 
after the Michigan Secretary of State received a complaint from a 
Kesto supporter that she was violating state law by using the design 
in campaign ads, according to a Free Press report.

This month, Kesto's opponents are placing next to his campaign signs 
their own hand-printed ones that say "Voted 4 Obamacare" -- a 
reference to Kesto's vote to expand Medicaid health insurance. That 
added more than 300,000 low-income adults to the Medicaid rolls 
through the Healthy Michigan initiative, which requires participants 
to contribute co-pays -- something many Republicans endorsed. The 
Congress, not the state Legislature, approved the Affordable Care 
Act, also known as Obamacare.

In the 27th District, where the top vote getter of five Democrats can 
expect to be elected in November, marijuana is both an issue and 
political strategy. The district includes Berkley, Hazel Park, 
Huntington Woods, Oak Park, Pleasant Ridge and Royal Oak Township.

One pro-marijuana group, the statewide Safer Michigan Coalition, 
hopes that ballot proposals in Hazel Park and Oak Park will bring out 
voters who'd otherwise skip the primary, and that they will support 
pro-legalization candidate Andrew Cissell, 26, of Oak Park.

Another group, based at Cannabis Counsel law offices in Detroit, 
supports Rudy Serra, 58, of Ferndale, a former district judge and 
county commissioner who also favors full legalization of marijuana.

Cissell began with a one-issue platform to "free the weed" while 
walking door-to-door with petitions for the ballot proposals. The 
measures would allow possession by adults of small amounts of 
cannabis on private property, although state and federal law still 
prohibit marijuana. Cissell recently broadened his campaign to make 
state education funding and renewable energy incentives his top priorities.

Candidate Joe McHugh, 35, of Berkley is a former U.S. Marines officer 
who is both a financial adviser and operator of a fitness business. 
He topped his legislative wish list with "clean, green energy" that 
would boost the environment while creating jobs. To achieve it, 
"we'll incentivize home owners, businesses and municipalities," McHugh said.

McHugh's opponents were stirred Friday when McHugh flyers went out 
that said they were paid for by the Great Lakes Education Project, a 
political-action committee largely funded by Amway billionaire and 
Republican Party leader Richard DeVos. The flyers state "not 
authorized by any candidate committee," meant to show that DeVos' 
backing wasn't a direct donation to McHugh's campaign.

McHugh insisted that he is a lifelong Democrat and gained DeVos' 
support because he's open-minded about education.

"I stand for liberty -- the Republican right wants to take away 
women's rights and gay rights, while the Democratic Party wants to 
take away liberty on some other issues like school choice," McHugh said.

Serra, a former Ferndale school board member, said Michigan's roads 
are so bad that he would consider raising sales and fuel taxes to 
fund massive repairs on the scale favored by Gov. Rick Snyder, which 
Republican state lawmakers so far failed to enact.

"And I would love to be the sponsor" of a bill that would add 
sexual-orientation protection to the state's ban on race 
discrimination, Serra said.

Robert Wittenberg, 33, of Oak Park is an insurance agent who said he 
managed his brother's successful run for Berkley district judge. 
Wittenberg serves on several community boards. He said he seeks more 
funding for local communities and schools but also hopes to repeal 
the income tax on pensions that was backed by Snyder. To pay for the 
new spending, Wittenberg said he would "cut down on corporate welfare 
for Big Business."

Kelli Williams, 33, of Oak Park is an AT&T customer service 
representative and secretary-treasurer of her Communication Workers 
of America union local. She would raise education spending and work 
to repeal the state's right-to-work law that eliminates mandatory 
dues in union contracts.

McHugh, Williams and Wittenberg have stated that they favor either 
legalization or decriminalizing possession to make cannabis 
violations equivalent to traffic tickets
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom