News

Lots of Political Buckshot in Dove-Hunting Bill

Published Sunday, November 9, 2003. By Peter Luke. Ann Arbor News.
Lots of Political Buckshot in Dove-Hunting Bill

In the culture war that pits Ted Nugent against the legions of bird-lovers, Ted won a battle last week when the House voted by a surprisingly large 64-44 margin to allow mourning dove hunting in Michigan. Nevertheless, the little brown birds are safe.

Even if the Senate were to approve it, which appeared increasingly unlikely after the House vote, Gov. Jennifer Granholm seems sure to veto the legislation. In fact vetoing a badly flawed bill that ends 98 years of protection for the little pairs of Zenaida macroura is probably one of the easier decisions the Legislature could throw to Granholm.

Nugent assured a rally of several-hundred, orange-capped hunters on the Capitol lawn Tuesday that they could leave the lobbying of "Jenny" to him. But Granholm most certainly will side with those who love the birds for the sweet lament in their coo, as opposed to the flavor of their meat. Right? Well, in political terms, it's actually a little more complicated than that.

Part of the soul-searching going on in the Democratic Party centers on whether its decades-long drift toward the left has doomed it among the white, male voters. Growing numbers of gun-owning union guys who used to vote emphatically Democratic are now reliably Republican. Which explains why the rally before the House vote was cast more in political than biological terms.

While the mourning dove is a protected song bird in Michigan, it's considered a game bird in 39 other states, no different than a pheasant or ruffed grouse. But that isn't the main argument being made by advocates. Speaker after speaker at the rally organized by the bill sponsor, Rep. Sue Tabor, R-Lansing, characterized the dove bill as some pivotal moment in the culture wars. Or as Nugent declared when he compared the hunters' struggle to the civil rights movement: "I'm Rosa Parks with a 12-gauge!"

An assortment of other speakers from hunting and gun groups like the National Rifle Association proclaimed that hunters, not bird-lovers, are the mainstream of political life. Hunters are a political force to be reckoned with, they threatened. Animal-rights activists are destroying hunting in America, they argued, and as Michigan protects its doves, it is assaulting the history and family tradition of hunting.

About 800,000 licensed deer hunters will take to the woods with their firearms for Saturday's opener. Estimates are that the number of dove hunters would total 5 percent of that, about 40,000. Dove hunting is indeed a big deal in the West, where Internet chat rooms extoll the delights of dove tacos, dove pilaf, dove wrapped in bacon and covered with barbecue sauce, and dove nuggets "that we snack on all day."

Casting the dove debate in Michigan as a hunting-rights issue, rather than a culinary opportunity, serves to inflate the actual demand for hunting the small birds. That way, opposing dove hunting carries a bigger political risk for nonhunting, Berkeley- and Harvard-educated Democrats like Granholm.

But there are a number of suburban Republicans, who have more clout in the Senate than in the House, who want no part of the dove hunting bill because of opposition back home. To them, and Granholm, hunting advocates in the House were too generous. By inserting $350,000 into the bill for hunter education, the House turned a hunting bill into a token appropriations bill, thus shielding it from ballot referendum. So in advancing the rights of hunters, the constitutional rights of Michigan voters were gutted.

Most deliciously ironic, the move allowed Senate Majority Leader Sikkema, R-Wyoming, to refer the bill to the Senate Appropriations Committee. That panel is controlled by Sen. Shirley Johnson, R-Royal Oak, who is sponsoring a resolution declaring the mourning dove the "Michigan Bird of Peace."

According to polls that break out responses from specific voter categories, Granholm is most popular among elderly women, with a 78 percent approval rating, according a September Marketing Resource Group poll. They buy bird seed, consider the mourning dove a beloved song bird and they vote.

As for those who shop for shotgun shells and believe doves are a casserole ingredient, many are younger males who may or may not vote. And in any event, it's not clear they'd ever vote for "Jenny."

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