Reinvent Michigan is dedicated to reforming the state government of Michigan through the initiative of amending the state constitution to create a part-time legislature - the main goal is to cut waste and hold elected officials more accountable.

Only New York, Pennsylvania, California and Michigan have full-time legislatures and all are re-examining the negative effects of this situation to determine whether a return to part-time legislatures would be better. (Michigan adopted a full-time legislature with the 1963 State Constitution). However, it is extremely unlikely that the legislature will ever enact legislation to significantly reduce the size of their staffs and overall compensation package to a level reasonable for the amount of work they are doing. Michigan has the second highest paid legislators in the nation - their salary and benefits package nears $135,000 per year for what is essentially a part-time job. Only California pays its state legislators more than Michigan, but California has 23 percent fewer lawmakers representing a population more than three times the size of Michigan's.

Michigan's legislature is already only in session for a very limited schedule: The House is only scheduled to be in session 65 days this year and only at "1:00 p.m. on Tuesdays & Wednesdays and at 10:30 a.m. on Thursdays." The Senate is only scheduled to be in session 64 days this years and only after 10am. The total duration of this session is less than 6 months of the year, working part-time. And yet the legislature is compensated at an extremely generous full-time salary with excessive levels of staff and additional benefits such as generous pensions.

It's time to recognize that our Michigan economy (among the worst in the nation, at least partly due to poor governance) can never be fixed by legislators who spend their time in Lansing with special interests away from the people of our state. Our economy has been on the downturn for multiple decades with the decline of the automotive industry and lags behind most of the country, who operate efficiently with part-time legislatures. Legislators who work alongside their fellow citizens for part of the year will recognize the real needs of our state and work efficiently to achieve them.

Please sign the online pledge to support this cause and help us to move forward to enact what is needed to make Michigan strong again. And remember to sign the petitions by July 2008 and vote in November 2008 to amend our state constitution to finally enact this needed reform of our state government.