LANSING (AP) -- A Michigan corrections officer upset with Gov. Jennifer Granholm's push to release more inmates eligible for parole failed again Wednesday to get language approved to recall the Democratic governor.
Paul Piche, of Omer, says he'll rewrite the petition language and try again.
"I'm not going to give up. There's too many victims and the governor needs to be accountable for that," Piche said after the hearing in Ingham County Probate Judge George Economy's courtroom.
Both Piche and his wife work at the state prison in Standish, about 145 miles northwest of Detroit. The prison was set to close at the end of September but the closing has been put on hold as state officials wait to hear if California will send some of its inmates to Michigan.
Piche said his petition is about helping crime victims, not saving his job. His first attempt to get the petition language approved was turned down July 8 by the Ingham County Election Commission, which voted again 3-0 on Wednesday that the language wasn't sufficiently clear.
"I don't know how someone would defend themselves against these vague allegations," Ingham County Clerk Mike Bryanton said in explaining his vote.
Granholm has argued that Michigan unnecessarily imprisons people longer than most surrounding states, costing the state money it doesn't have as it struggles with shrinking revenues in the current budget and a $1.8 billion deficit in the budget year that starts Oct. 1.
She has dissolved one 10-member parole board by executive order and appointed a new 15-member panel charged with reviewing the records of inmates eligible for parole and speeding up the release of those deemed to be a low risk to society.
Attorney Michael Hodge, representing Granholm, argued Piche's reasons for a recall were too vague and included actions not included in the governor's current term, as required by law.
Hodge said the petition says Granholm "ordered 11 correctional facilities closed," but only six have closed since she began her second term on Jan. 1, 2007; the others were closed during her first term.
He also questioned a statement in the petition that the new parole board "released 5,660 convicted felons out of custody or off supervision," saying the actual number is only 911.
As for Piche's assertion that Granholm is responsible for parolees who have committed new crimes, Hodge questioned the governor's culpability.
"How is she accountable for violent crimes committed by released prisoners?" Hodge asked the judge. "These are all problematic assertions."
Economy said the commission wasn't ruling on the truthfulness of Piche's recall statement, just whether the reasons for recall were stated clearly enough.
Piche, 52, said he would take Hodge's numbers into account and rewrite the petition language.
But Piche also questioned during the hearing if he could get an unbiased decision, given that Bryanton, an elected Democrat, had donated to Granholm's campaign while Economy and Ingham County Register of Deeds Curtis Hertel Jr. had donated to the Ingham County Democratic Party.
Bryanton defended the panel's objectivity.
"We take friendship, we take partisanship out of it," he said. "We look at the wording."
If Piche gets petition language approved in a future hearing, he'll still need to collect more than 950,000 signatures to get it on the statewide ballot -- 25 percent of those who cast ballots for governor in 2006.
Efforts to recall governors have rarely succeeded. In Michigan, a 1983 effort to recall Democratic Gov. James Blanchard after he pushed through an income tax increase to deal with the budget deficit failed to even get on the ballot after supporters couldn't collect enough signatures.
And nationally, only two governors ever have been recalled -- California Gov. Gray Davis in 2003 and North Dakota Gov. Lynn Frazier in 1921.
The statistics don't discourage Piche. He said he continues to hear from victims and the families of victims harmed by inmates let out on parole.
Piche, tearing up Wednesday as he recounted victims' stories, said he'll keep trying to recall Granholm.
"This will never be over. There's too many victims," he said. "Governor Granholm, I'm sure, has done her best. I don't blame her. But through a series of errors, she's made a deadly decision."
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