LANSING -- A huge roadblock looms as Gov. Rick Snyder prods Detroit to start moving toward the possibility of an emergency manager to take over the city's dire finances.

The law may go dormant before a manager can start the job.

A group says it already has collected more than enough signatures to place the repeal of the emergency-manager law on the ballot and plans to file its petitions this year. If the group submits the 161,305 required valid signatures, Public Act 4 would be suspended from early next year until the November 2012 election.

If that happens, Detroit Mayor Dave Bing and the City Council -- who are warring over specifics of a plan to save the city -- won't have a backup plan.

Brandon Jessup of Detroit, chairman of the Stand Up for Democracy coalition that is trying to repeal the law, said Michigan would have no emergency manager law until voters decide.

Sara Wurfel, a spokeswoman for Snyder, said the state would revert to the old, weaker emergency-manager law.

What's clear is that the law the GOP-controlled Legislature passed this year, which Snyder says is mostly a tool to help cities out of financial crises and head off the need for emergency managers, won't apply until voters speak.

"This is something that could quickly burn out of control," said Ari Adler, a spokesman for House Speaker Jase Bolger, R-Marshall. "It's kind of a big unknown in terms of how bad things could get if the law is suspended or eventually repealed. The suspension would be the worst of it at the beginning, because of the limbo it would cause."