People of Michigan v. Robert Tuttle

In 2008, the voters of Michigan passed into law a ballot initiative 1 now codified as the Michigan Medical Marihuana 2 Act (MMMA), MCL 333.26421 et seq. Unlike the procedures for the editing and drafting of bills proposed through the Legislature, the electorate—those who enacted this law at the ballot box—need not review the proposed law for content, meaning, readability, or consistency. 3

This lack of scrutiny in the lawmaking process is significant because initiatives such as the MMMA cannot be modified “except by a[nother] vote of the electors” or by a three-fourths vote of each chamber of…