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Christoff: Lawmaker Impasse

Published February 23, 2004. By Chris Christoff. Detroit Free Press.
Blustery lawmaker is not out of woods yet on dove-hunting bill

It's a good thing Sen. Bruce Patterson, R-Canton, is as earnest as he is verbose. He makes things interesting.

Patterson is a lawyer and doesn't let you forget it. He turns committee hearings into tortuous cross-examinations. He's full of high principle and bluster and not afraid of controversy. At 6 feet 5 with a handlebar moustache, he could be a ringmaster directing our attention to the high wire above. Last week, Patterson himself was the center of attention when he blocked a bill to legalize hunting mourning doves in Michigan. Everyone's waiting to see how he talks his way out of this one.

Here's what happened:

Patterson abstained from voting on the dove bill in a committee. That left it one vote short of going to the full Senate for final approval. Senate Majority Leader Ken Sikkema, R-Wyoming, was livid. He wants to dispose of the emotionally charged dove bill, which he views as a distraction from more important things, like resolving a billion-dollar deficit.

But Patterson said he was troubled that the bill was yanked from the Senate Appropriations Committee (where it didn't have enough votes) and given to the Judiciary Committee. That's not protocol, and against the rules, he said. A matter of principle.

It's also a matter of realpolitik: Patterson is under intense pressure to kill the dove bill from the Michigan Humane Society and constituents who view killing doves akin to drowning puppies.

Though he says he supports dove hunting, Patterson must hope the issue just goes away. It won't.

I swore I wouldn't write again about dove hunting, but it's impossible to ignore something that sucks up so much time and energy in the Capitol. Lawmakers say no other issue stirs the public's outrage like the prospect of shooting peaceful, cooing birds they love in their backyards.

On the other hand, no issue is more important to hunter and gun-rights groups who say they should be able to shoot anything that's not an endangered species. Mourning doves are hunted in 39 other states, and it's promoted as a way to introduce hunting to more young people.

Leading the charge is Rep. Susan Tabor, R-Delta Township, who's half Patterson's size, but has the tenacity of a ferret. This is her third attempt to legalize dove hunting, and she's pestered fellow legislators so much that they just want her out of their hair.

She pushed it through the House, and her bill was finally greased for the Judiciary Committee, chaired by hunter-friendly Sen. Alan Cropsey, R-DeWitt. Cropsey went so far as to declare that because people with rural property should be allowed to shoot doves on their own land, dove hunting is a property-rights issue.

No one was more surprised than Cropsey and Tabor when a vote was taken and Patterson was found sitting on the fence. Sikkema vows to keep the bill in the Judiciary Committee until it's passed, but there's no telling when Patterson might give in. He's still the deciding vote.

Gov. Jennifer Granholm says she'll veto the bill unless it allows for a statewide referendum on dove hunting. Her veto would convince suspicious hunters that Granholm is anti-hunting after all.

But if she approved dove hunting, she would anger even more suburban backyard bird fans -- the kind of people who voted for her in the first place. That decision is yet to come.

For now, it's Patterson up there on the high wire, wrapped in his fidelity to procedural correctness. And trying to figure out what to do with all those doves flapping at his feet.

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