Playing the legislative game is a lot like baseball. At the end you count the number of runs scored or the number of votes cast and you can determine the winner.

In the Michigan House 55 votes is the magic number to pass legislation. Since Republicans have 63 votes and the Democrats 47, as long as the GOP leadership keeps everybody happy, it can pass just about anything that it wants. But recently 12 Republicans were very unhappy so they bolted, sided with the Democrats and ended up handing a stunning defeat to House Speaker Tom Leonard who hoped to rollback the income tax rate but because of the Gang of 12, he failed and took some flak for it.

End of story?

Well not quite.

House Democrats with their piddily and anemic 43 votes watched this unfold with great interest and it didn’t take them long to do the math. If somehow they could take their 43 votes and combine them with the 12 dissident Republicans, then the Democrats would have 55 votes. Or even if they lost some of their own votes, as long as they coupled with those 12 Republicans, the House GOP leadership would be stymied from passing anything.

Oh my. In effect those 12 could control the process.

Talk about minority rule and Democrats are talking about that right now.

“Those 12 have an amazing amount of power. If they actually realize it, if they stick together and are willing to work with members on both sides … they could effectively control the legislative agenda. You can become the de facto leaders of that body,” so says Sen. Curtis Hertel, Jr. of Meridian Township.

And he’s not alone in that analysis.

“I think there is an opportunity for us to get something accomplished (with the Republicans,)” asserts Rep. Fred Durham II of Detroit.

All of this looks very good on paper and in theory but will those 12 play ball with the D’s?

Rep. Rob VerHeulen, a Republican from West Michigan, is confident that won’t happen as he boasts, “We are a united caucus” and while he concedes the other side may try to divide and conquer, he is equally as confident that the strategy will not work.

Saginaw Republican Tim Kelly quickly dismisses all this as “farfetched” and it won’t happen by “any stretch of the immigration.”

One of the elements the GOP leadership is counting on is that the 12 colleagues may get in trouble back home if they don’t toe the GOP party line.

But on the tax rollback, there was no blow back.

Rep. Larry Inman, after voting no, went back home tho Traverse City “a little concerned” about the reaction. After all he butted heads with the leadership and the popular wisdom is the folks at home long for more money in their pockets, but instead he got a positive front page story in the local rag, got calls from voters who applauded his action.

Rep. Chris Afendulis of West Michigan got 500 positive emails as did another one from southeast Michigan. Citizens in those areas understood that you could not reduce the tax without cutting state services which is why most of the 12 voted no.

But neither Mr. Inman nor Mr. Afendulis appear ready to sign up with the D’s to thwart their own party. “It might be unethical,” asserts Rep. Inman and his partner adds, “I don’t think that way.”

Yet, there are other issues out there where the Democratic strategy might work. The House speaker wants to scrap Common Core education standards and wants to take another whack at revamping no fault car insurance. Some Republicans have been unwilling to do that in the past and it’s likely that attitude has not changed much.

So all this comes down to an issue by issue mind set.

And if the governor was smart, he would help this along. He did call the Gang of 12 and thank them for gumming up the works on the tax rollback and perhaps with some encouragement from the front office, he can use them to block other stuff he does not want.

Meanwhile, the Democrats, who have had very little to celebrate can hope against hope that maybe just maybe they will have some power as the year unfolds.

The popular wisdom is, this will work in some cases but not most.