Michigan County Clerks Do the Right Thing and Open Themselves to Suit

It's not quite civil disobedience by county officials, but Michigan's senate majority leader has asked the Attorney General to block what those officials are doing, according to an article yesterday on mlive.com (Booth Newspapers). The officials are county clerks, and what they've done is to cross-deputize each other so that college students who want to register for the first time back home can save themselves a trip back home and, instead, register with the county clerk near their university.

The Director of Elections says that what they're doing is okay, and the clerks participating in the program (66 of 83) are from both parties, but the Republican majority leader is convinced it's illegal and has gone to the Attorney General.

And what if it were? What if the law had been intended to make it hard for young voters to register (most won't be going home before Thanksgiving)? Should county officials just go along with an unfair law, which is easier for them to do, or do they have an obligation to do what is best for the college students?

This is not, of course, a typical conflict of interest issue, but there is a personal interest involved. Officials who go along with a discriminatory law are acting in their own interest, not in the interest of citizens being discriminated against. These county clerks knew that they might be sued, but they did the right thing anyway. The Director of Elections might be right that what they did was legal, but that won't stop them from being sued. They also went to the trouble to discuss and participate in the cross-deputizing program. They put the public interest before their own interest, and I think they deserve to be congratulated for what they've done.

But what if this were just a partisan thing, if it were Democratic clerks trying to help get more Democrats registered? Partisan activities are not considered to be in anyone's personal interest. That's one of the necessary limitations on conflict of interest rules in a partisan political culture. But it also wouldn't be something to congratulate anyone for. It would take the act out of the conflict arena, because it would be neither public interest nor private interest, but partisan interest that was at issue.

Fortunately, that is not the case here. Only the act of the senate majority leader appears to be partisan. Let's hope the Attorney General, also a Republican, rises above his party's antagonism to increasing voter registration and voting, and backs the clever and courageous county clerks.

Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics

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