We've been talking on the show this week about how the pushback against really, really big conservative government is happening in the courts. In Michigan, for example, voters who don't like the emergency manager law that lets the state take over local governments (like the financially stressed ones on the watchlist mapped above) have started a campaign to put that measure on the ballot for possible citizen repeal.
But as of today, they've also sued. The Michigan Messenger reports that a group of plaintiffs represented by the Sugar Law Center for Economic and Social Justice is asking a county court to declare the law, Public Act 4, unconstitutional. Among the plaintiffs is a city commissioner of Benton Harbor, the first town in Michigan to have its elected officials stripped of all power.
There's no question that the places we've covered in relation this law are in trouble. Benton Harbor and the Detroit Public Schools are both broke and probably also broken. The question is whether taking away their democracy should be part of fixing them. From the new lawsuit (pdf):
The provisions of the Local Government and School District Fiscal Accountability Act establish a form of local government that is repugnant to the constitutional liberties of Americans under settled law, as well as the rule of law itself. Under this new form of government, the people become subject to a form of governance where an unelected local official wields absolute power over all aspects of local government and whose decisions are without review by either local elected officials or local voters.
It's worth noting that Benton Harbor is home to the Whirlpool corporation, whose CEO recently told the Detroit Free-Press that the mostly black and poor town suffers from an "outdated political structure."
In addition to the news, the Michigan Messenger today runs the history of Public Act 4. Eclectablog spotlights key parts of the brief.
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Rebuttal to a Right-Wing Argument for Michigan's EFMs
Nothing in Mr. Van Lente's argument addresses the fundamental infirmities in the EFM system: decision-makers are sent from on high to make local decisions without being politically answerable to the constituencies they govern in any meaningful way. That does violence the basic concept of the social compact upon which our democratic political institutions are premised.
Professor Beery's Article:
http://beeryblog.wordpress.com/2011/06/17/a-rebuttal-to-a-right-wing-argument-for-michigans-efms/
TX wants to suceed ~ MI just found an easier way to dominate!
From the rest of us in the UNITED States ~ we would like to refer you to the Constitution ~ working for the rest of us for more than 200 yrs!
When the courts are stacked and there are plenty of decisions lately that verify that, how can this suit win?
Representive government is so passe.
How will a lawsuit help when recent court decisions prove the courts are stacked.
Please oh please can I help with this lawsuit?
The cities themselves are having to pay the salaries of the EFM. Now how is that helping?
Check out the pay for the EFM of Detroit Public Schools!
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nyceducationnews/message/20899
I actually live in one of those unrepresented towns....in Rhode Island though,
If the GOP gains control at the Federal level in the next election with the same level of control as they have in this state, why can't they pass legislation and declare financial martial law in the US because we have a debt problem?
Why would you assume they haven't thought of that already?
I just thought of it. They may have thought of it also.
So what would stop them?
As Mattie says above, "When the courts are stacked" we couldn't count on the Supremes to bail us out if the GOP was able to pass legislation. So what could stop it?
Repubs aren't much for thinking, especially in the long term...Iraq is the textbook example of that. However, their corporate masters ARE very good at looking at the long game, and planning accordingly. It is precisely because of the scenario you mentioned that I feel it is absolutely imperative that not only does a repub not return to the White House, but that they need to be swept out of Congress to the fullest extent possible, and down the road, rooted out of the Supreme Court. Otherwise, the loony ideas they have, such as Ryan's budget, will be enacted, and that will absolutely mark the end of the America that we know and love.
Aye!
Uffie FTW! All y'all have just seen the practical result of the Citizens United SCOTUS decision that nobody seems to have understood when it happened. Free speech my hind foot! It's all part of the NeoFascist Corporate plan to run the country on a B-school paradigm.
Bush used an "executive order" and made it so the President can declare a national emergency and the president would have FULL power, by-passing the legislature.
There are all sorts of wonderful things in the Patriot Act. The President has the power to imprison anyone considered to be a threat to national security, and who gets to make that determination? The president, that's who. The president can also declare martial law in case of a national emergency. And who determines if something is a national emergency? Once again, it is the president. In Cheney's push for the unitary executive concept that he favored for years, he was able to have those little gems inserted into legislation that was shoved through a fearful Congress after 9-11, legislation that a number of them said they never read.
So can the presdent declare martial law in a fiscal emergency? The GOP has pretty much shown that any method is valid if it supports the agenda. Filibuster everything. Lies and hypocrisy are OK if you get away with it.
At the state level the fiscal 'emergency' allows them to wipe out democracy at the city level. So the next step is what? Declare a state in a 'fiscal emergency' and strip away all state rights?
I didn't see this state level attack coming and I don't think I am alone in that. So what's next? What is the Federal level version? The Ryan plan is a first step, as they say.
A national emergency is whatever the president says it is, so conceivably, a fiscal emergency could be justification for something like some individual states have enacted. Martial law, though? I doubt it, unless imposing some kind of fiscal emergency laws created significant opposition like riots. I would say that if repubs take the White House next year, and gain control of the Senate, I wouldn't be shocked to see the president, whoever it happens to be in the current crop of dolts, declare some kind of emergency. After all, they'd control all three branches of the government, as well as a majority of state governorships and legislatures, and we've already seen too many examples of repub overreach already for less justification.
Well then,
http://www.barackobama.com/get-involved
WE the people are responsible for all of this!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-BMCKB_TB0
WE the people are responsible for fixing it also!
The United States Constitution has a point: You are not King over me, unless I get something out of it.
The King Job has a description of obligation and duties to the governed. The "conservative" predators are trying the old "Divine Right" ploy.
I hear them speak and what it translates to is: "We are so much better than you by attitude and bloodline that God has chosen us to choose your fate."
I personally dream of a fleet of mobile Guillotines well styled and painted a candy flake red (in honor of predator conservatives) built in a Detroit union shop. There are prices for stealing so much time from other humans with this absurd selfish piffle.
Republicans, you do not run America, it runs itself.
They don't need guillotines....they need prison cells, so they can have a few decades to ponder their crimes, as well as spend time with people they feel so superior to. Better yet, maybe they need to spend some time in Gitmo, since many of them have said that it's really not so bad down there at all.
Yea! You are so right! Bring back the guillotine!!
....I understand your agitation w/ the Republican party, but seriously calls to violence are not cool.
Mickey Mouser,
The Republican party has declared war not on some foreign entity or rouge regime but on us... the Middle Class of America! If these corporate shills are given enough power they are capable of anything. If given enough power they WILL do anything to achieve their goals. The next great version of Fascism will be right here in the USA - Corporate Fascism! And they will dress it up in the american Flag and the ironic platitudes of FREEDOM, LIBERTY and PATRIOTISM and then throw on a dollop of Jesus because we all know he was a Capitalist and considered those who believed in social justice minions of the devil!
I'm going to start posting this link, as it deals with emancipating ourselves from mental slavery (Marley)... authoritarians.
I feel this is what we need ... to unite ... to fight the power
http://www.alternet.org/economy/151018/10_steps_to_defeat_the_corporatocracy/?page=entire
MoveOn has a Facebook campaign with a thumbnail which reads:
I usually don't participate in things like this, but this time I just has to.
As the black clouds appeared over the horizon last November, I did something I have never done before. I voted a straight Democratic ballot. Wish more Dems and independants had done the same. I'm sure they do too.
The problem isn't that they voted for repubs....the problem is that they didn't vote at all. You don't have to vote for evil in order for it to win...you just have to sit home on your duff whining that you're not going to vote because you "are disappointed with the president", or "it's just a mid-term election, so I don't really care about the races".
To dance with Godwin's Law a little. It wasn't that Hitler had gotten in with just a whisker over a third of the vote in a three way split. It wasn't just that he was a murderous meglamaniac. It was that people allowed it to happen. When the Night of the Long Knives came, those who survived felt that what happened to the Jews, Gypsies, Homosexuals, and Intellectuals was no business of theirs. Besides Hitler HAD A PLAN. By sitting on their hands the good citizens who signed on with his Law and Order program became complicit by inaction with his crimes.
The Moral: Just because it doesn't involve you today doesn't mean it won't tomorrow.
Does each of these places have different assigned dictators?
How much do they get paid?
I have been so angry about this and am glad to see that others are too. We must keep pushing back...it's how we develop our political muscle.
Rick Snyder is not our friend. Any union member who voted for him must feel abandoned.
The courts are obviously stacked, when US Supreme Court justices answer to nobody, they have no code of conduct they are mandated to follow and there is NO path to remove them from office short of them stepping down or death. When two of the supreme court justices openly and actively support and in one instance a spouse that is the head of a tea party movement, you call that unbiased Justice? I think not. The Republicans know which pockets to line with cash and perks and how to get the votes they need. They are counting on things ending up in the US Supreme court as their decision is binding. Sure you can appeal but to who? Their master plan is to Bankrupt the United States and sell the rest of us into servitude worse than we already are and They have to strip all possibilities of expense in the name of profit for them. The Republican Party has always been about Wealth Corporations and greed. Their need for power is showing its ugly head by taking over state by state and yes the Federal level.
The Republican/ Big Business agenda is in high gear. They are stacking the court systems and denying appointments by this sitting president in hopes of a Republican president in 2012 so they can fill the rest of them with Pro big business, pro wealthy so they can finish off the United States and tear down the fabric of this country we love. Just look at the last few US Supreme Court Decisions the one most recent where they sided with Walmart against women the Walmart openly discriminates against. For anyone who has worked in Walmart headquarters or at the Store level know this to be true. Promotions should be based on qualifications and NOT GENDER. Walmart and corporations world wide are fighting to maintain the all white male senior management and a few minorities thrown in to make it LOOK like they are integrated when you get down to the very core they aren't they are about WEALTH and doing whatever it takes to wring on that last penny from the average American
You know there's something to be said about the French and those guillotines! I'm sure a few heads rolling around on both Wall Street and in front of the doors of Congress and a few "State" houses will be more than enough to bring the rethugnikans back into reality....Just a thought.....
We have always maid a big deal about no taxation without representation. Are the residents of these areas going to have to pay local taxes? Oh yes we want there money without their representaion/
Seems we need to focus, focus, focus on getting the court appointments done. What kind of political organizing will this take? If we could just get one unethical judge off the Supreme Court, perhaps the vote there could be become 5-4 the other way, but the worst offender is young and make take a while to reach Abe Fortas-ethics violation magnitude. The Obama administration needs to channel some LBJ legislative abilities and get these judgeships filled.
It's like a nightmare, surreal and you say to yourself for heavens sake someone pinch me to wake me up because this is too messed up to be real and I'm ready to be back to reality where things are just and right, but then someone pinches you and guess what, it's all going to hell. I have been shaking my head so much in disbelieve that my head should have fallen off or my neck should be 50" now.