The following is excerpted from today’s MLive Michigan.
Two separate lawsuits filed quietly earlier this year by a state representative and the owner of a competing span seek to stop planning and construction of a new international bridge connecting Detroit and Windsor.
State Rep. Fred Durhal, D-Detroit, filed a complaint in February seeking to invalidate a June 2012 agreement between Michigan and Canada, claiming that Gov. Rick Snyder overstepped his constitutional authority when he bypassed lawmakers to pursue the deal on his own.
"When Gov. Snyder took the bridge proposal to the legislature, even members of his own party wouldn't pass it," Durhal said in a Friday release, referring to enabling legislation that stalled in committee in 2011. "Now the governor is trying to go through the side door. This lawsuit seeks to uphold the separation of powers and prevent an executive overreach, just as the checks and balances of the Constitution intended."
Ambassador Bridge owner Matty Moroun is also seeking to block the project. The Detroit Free Press reports that Moroun's bridge company filed a federal suit in February, naming as defendants a number of high-ranking U.S. officials, including secretaries of state, transportation, homeland security [and the Canadian government.]
The suit, filed in Washington D.C., claims the Detroit International Bridge Co. has a "perpetual and exclusive franchise right" to operate at the crossing without competition and argues that the ongoing State Department approval process is unconstitutional.
The international project cannot move forward without a presidential permit. Michigan filed an application in June, and Secretary of State John Kerry could soon make a decision. The state, in its application, outlined a 7-year planning and construction timeline…
This article is available in its entirety at: http://www.mlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2013/04/detroit-windsor_bridge_state_l.html.