Despite support from both Republican and Democratic officials, the May ballot proposal to boost funding for Michigan’s deteriorating roads could face an uphill battle, says a Michigan State University political scientist.
“The proposal may be in trouble despite the broad support in Lansing,” said Matt Grossmann, associate professor of political science.
Gov. Rick Snyder on Monday signed a package of bills that’s tied to the May ballot initiative for a sales tax hike to increase road funding by more than $1 billion a year. An opposition group called Protect MI Taxpayers has already formed to fight the tax hike.
A new study by Grossmann, which appears in the academic journal Politics & Policy, suggests Michigan residents largely oppose paying higher taxes to fix the roads and aren’t likely to be persuaded otherwise by business, union or political leaders.
And that’s bad news for ballot supporters, Grossmann says. That’s because campaigns in support of ballot proposals rarely help them pass, while opposition campaigns are much more effective in dooming them.
“If a poll comes out tomorrow and shows there is 60 percent support for the road-funding proposal, that’s bad news for those in favor of it,” said Grossmann. “There’s little they can do on the positive campaign that’s going to increase that number, yet everything the opposition does is going to decrease that number.”
“Two-to-one spending in favor of initiatives doesn’t really help pass them,” he added, “but two-to-one spending against initiatives leads to near certain failure.”
Grossmann, who also examined other policy issues for the study, wanted to gauge the influence political leaders and policy information can have on voters. When it comes to support for taxes and road funding, the experiment shows that political leaders and persuasive information have little impact on voters’ initial views.
Grossmann said there is a contradiction in voter attitudes on road funding: Almost everyone agrees Michigan needs more money for roads, but few favor a tax hike to generate that money. And information campaigns and support from political leaders aren’t likely to change their minds, he said.
The experiments were embedded in the State of the State Survey conducted by MSU’s Institute for Public Policy and Social Research.