A group trying for the second time to recall Michigan Governor Rick Snyder got the language on its petitions approved yesterday. Barring a successful appeal, Michigan Rising can then start gathering signatures. They need about 800,000, and they got about 500,000 last time. As Michigan Rising explains it, you have to get the signatures inside a 90-day window, with a 180-day deadline -- Michigan recalls are not easily done.
A second group of activists are challenging Governor Snyder's emergency manager law, with a petition drive to put it up for a citizens' repeal. Michigan Forward turned in their signatures at the end of February, and the counting continues at the state Board of Canvassers.
Yesterday their petitions got a formal challenge. A group called Citizens for Fiscal Responsibility told the Board of Canvassers that among other issues, the petitions were printed in a font size that looks to be a couple of points too small. According to the Detroit News, Citizens for Fiscal Responsibility is the project of a Republican consulting firm, the Sterling Corporation. "They've gone to all of the time and expense of the petition drive only to blow it with the wrong font size," Sterling counsel Bob LaBrant told the paper. (Adding: You can find Citizens for Fiscal Responsibility's state filing papers here (pdf); they formed on March 8.)
In its federal campaign papers (pdf), Michigan Citizens for Fiscal Responsibility lists two people in charge, one of them Sterling partner Jeff Timmer. In his bio with the Sterling Corporation, Timmer notes his appointment to the four-person Board of State Canvassers, which lists him as a member and is both certifying the petitions and weighing the challenge to the petitions. If you look at the Board of State Canvassers minutes (pdf) from last month, you'll see Timmer joining in the unanimous vote to set the deadline for challenges of those petitions.
UPDATE: Michigan Radio has shaken loose the names of the Citizens for Fiscal Responsibility's committee members -- it's Sterling counselor LaBrant, a VP for the Michigan Bankers Association and a former CEO of the Michigan Retailers Association. In its state papers, the committee lists itself at the address and phone number posted by the Sterling Corporation on its website. Timmer described himself as an "owner" of Sterling in his 2010 federal filing.
(Image: Delivering the emergency manager petitions/Photo by way of Eclectablog. Last night on the show: Michigan)
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This is a lost opportunity for a group of people like the Occupy Movement. If Michigan could get help from them in getting signatures it would be a plus. The GOP is getting plenty of help from outside sources.
Nobody "wants" to occupy Michigan.. (/snark)
Aren't they militia happy anyway? I can never get this straight..
Thank you so much for exposing Michigan's "King" Snyder's government. It was about time it got national coverage. Keep up the good work and don't let them get to you.
I feel for you! I live in Fitzwalkerstan (Wisconsin) and the only thing that is better here is that his similar initiative to the Emergency Manager Law did not pass. Most people might not be aware but this was a major issue on docket for the states where guys like Snyder and Walker won their elections. The people bankrolling their policies want them to sell out their constituents. I don't think this is being too extreme when you see how the aforementioned law has been used.
Sorry - I ment the Walker initiative that was to do what PA4 did to the existing law. However for our state it had to be enacted as EML since we do not already have anything like that.
So the Republican 'Citizens For Fiscal Responsibility' has already placed a mole inside the recall movement? That bodes well...
I was thinking also in practical terms. Wouldn't people interested in fiscal responsibility *like* smaller font (on the grounds that it could save paper and therefore costs)?
Gotta love Michigan Republicans. Rules expressly stated in the Michigan Constitution regarding the size of the legislative majority needed to enact "immediate effect" have no meaning whatsoever. Administrative rules about the size of the font on a petition--they're soooo important that the will of the people should be thwarted.
The attacks on Democratic process by Right-Wing State Governments all over America are beyond scary. It is so hard to believe that the people who wave the flag the most are the biggest threat to the Democracy which the flag stands for and that the people who talk the most about God are the least Godly people anywhere. These are truly dangerous times we are living in. I hope Michigan can do what Wisconsin has done !!
The Republicans have been edging towards this sort of thing since the 2000 election. They are so completely convinced that they are 100% right 100% of the time, that their ends are so completely right, that any means they come up with are automatically justified in advance.
The second biggest threat is the people who support them. The clueless bots are willing to run this country into the ground as long as it's for their "team".
When was it ever any different?
I have been following Rachel's report on the EMF thing in Michigan. From what I understand, the EMF concept has existed since before Snyder took office, and the EMF ruling in Benton Harbor and Pontiac, for ie was signed by the then Gov. Jennifer Granholm (D).
I guess my question is: what has changed since then? Why the uproar now and not then (or maybe the uproar has been happening since then and I'm just late in following what happen there?)
I tried searching all over in term of what new thing has Snyder introduce in the EMF thing and I can't seem to find a definitive answer. Can anyone explain? Rachel?
The substance of these laws that are now being pushed through legislature are extremely harmful to our democracy. It is endorsing selling off your assets to pay for your salary and those of your friends. And a lot of other implications are being looked at.
The powers under Michigan's Emergency Financial Manager law were greatly expanded shortly after Snyder took office in January of 2011. (Surprise, huh!)
According to Sugarlaw.org,
Public Act 4, a law passed by Republican majorities in the Michigan Legislature in March 2011, gives Gov. Rick Snyder power to appoint an emergency manager for any city, town, village or school district in Michigan undergoing a “financial emergency.”
According to Chris Savage of The Nation magazine, the EM now has sweeping powers, "including breaking union contracts, taking over pension systems, setting school curriculums and even dissolving or disincorporating municipalities. Under PA 4, EMs, who are appointed by the governor, can 'exercise any power or authority of any officer, employee, department, board, commission or other similar entity of the local government whether elected or appointed.'"
The powers under the original law, in effect since 1988, were much more limited. They involved more collaboration with local governments and school districts than is now the case. Previous EMs could not, for example, treat local governing boards as though they didn't exist.
JustComment, the Snyder revisions to the Granholm era "Emergency Financial Manger" law broadened the power of the "managers" to despotic levels. Where once the "manager" was empowered to handle the finances of the entity placed under such management, now the "emergency manager" can basically do anything they want, up to and including simply dissolving the municipality. They can sell off the assets of the city or school board to private citizens or companies (read, "cronies"), dismiss the elected representatives, throw out contracts signed in good faith, and essentially make new laws unilaterally.
I believe the revisions also changed the process by which a manager could be installed. Where once it was initiated by an independent review, now, a "manager" can be installed basically on Snyder's say-so.
Note: I type too slow. mpguy nailed it.
KarenJG ... I think you said it more succinctly than I did. Readers (including me) will learn some important things from your post. Thanks for making it.
Thanks! - We're basically saying the same thing, but you had actual sources!
Thank you all for the info. Very helpful indeed.
Parts of NY and NJ are now on fire. So, I am fully expecting to hear from Christie to call for a State of Emergency. So, is he allowed to use this money for his tunnel too? The money he will receive from the Feds as a safety net? We probably should keep our eye on States of emergency right now.
Christie's only 'emergency' is a few folks in front of him at the buffet table.
FONT OFF!
the republicans gonna take over this country one state at time they have the south now they are going for the Midwest one party dictatorship so Michigan and for the rest of this nation WAKE THE F UP before too late!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! if you have downton abby on PBS that's the way they want us too live if anyone who hasn't seen this movie take look you have the aristocrats running your life.
They want us to live a lot worst than that.
It's their way of saying "Font you!".
Rachel, Thanks for staying on this situation in Mich. I'm appalled that this is happening in America, although not surprised because I don't put anything past these anti-democracy RWers.
I asked this last week, since Mich is abusing the emergency status clause then don't they have to prove to the Federal govt that these actions are necessary? If they can't prove their actions are warranted then doesn't that put them in a secessionists context? If these actions were deemed unnecessary by a judge then couldn't Pres Obama cut off the states use of anything that included federal funding like any government buildings, roads, bridges, hospitals, police, schools, or even corporations that have gotten any federal funding that are operating in that state?
Font size? They should rename themselves the Citizens for Anal Responsibility.
Don't use italics, or they'll banish you to Ohio!
Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! Thank you for covering what's been going on in Michigan.
Ms. Maddow, I invite you to add a clause to this for the Emergency Manager situation and pass it along to your colleagues and anyone else you can think of with an issue for the 99% of us. This worked 236 years ago. Thank you for covering this attempt to deprive us of our vote. Good luck!
When in the course of human events it became necessary for our leaders to dissolve the political bonds which connected them to others and assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and nature’s God entitled them, their respect for the opinions of humanity compelled them to enumerate the causes, and their vision, courage and determination to end tyranny guided them to pledge their lives, fortunes and sacred honor to the protection of the inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. They established this nation, and the history of this nation is a chronicle of the struggle to provide these rights to all people, here and abroad. Common sense dictates that we do not discard the government and institutions that have advanced that struggle further than any other in the history of humanity. But when rich and powerful forces in society use and abuse the rights and freedoms secured by these institutions to reserve these riches, powers, rights and freedoms for themselves and reduce all other people to poverty and deprivation and subject these people to their tyranny with the consequence of degrading the global habitat, subjecting it to stresses that, unrelieved, will destroy its power to sustain the people, then it is the right and the duty of the people to counter these forces and restore the rights, freedoms and habitat all people need to thrive. Such is the current state of affairs and such is the necessity which compels the people to identify and abolish these abuses. We submit these facts to a candid world.
The citizens of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Yemen and Russia have identified and remedied, with varying degrees of success, the abuses by their rulers designed to enrich themselves and keep their peoples in a state of poverty and tyranny. The current Administration has taken measures and instituted policies that support such remedies without affecting the sacred right of these peoples to choose their own safeguards of their inalienable rights. This is in direct opposition to the policies of the previous Administration which sought to dictate and manage this change in sovereign nations and the critics who represent the forces that benefit from such policies. These events demonstrate the extent these forces endeavor to exercise their control of human events and the measures needed to abolish such control for the benefit of humanity.
The vast majority of scientific research on global climate change leads to the conclusion that our environment is warming at a dangerous rate due to the increase of carbon in the atmosphere. This change is reliably linked by the same research to human activity involving fossil fuels. This research has predicted that this warming can destroy the planet as a habitat for human life. The forces that benefit from this current state have advanced scientists to challenge the conclusions of this research in order to postpone or forestall the steps necessary to remedy our climate. These scientists risk being discredited by the scientific community due to the preponderance of evidence against their position in this debate. This obstruction of scientific inquiry that sustains these forces threatens all of humanity.
(Note: Everyone is entitled to add to this in order to represent all points of view. Others can take on the financial crisis, the Gulf Oil Spill, Congressional deadlock, Citizens United, state laws targeting collective bargaining rights, voting rights, reproductive rights – any subject you feel affects the 99%. The only requirement is that the statement be factual. Read the Declaration of Independence and you will see that the Founding Fathers saw fit to include only truths, not opinions, in their causes; it is up to us to do the same. Good luck!)
During all these incidents the people sought to accommodate the rich and powerful forces in order to preserve themselves and their posterity. Such accommodation only engendered further abuse and attempts to increase their riches and power over the people. We still seek accommodation since the rich and powerful share humanity with us and, therefore, are equally entitled to these rights and freedoms. We will treat them as we treat everyone in the struggle to preserve these rights, freedoms and habitat – condemn them as oppressors, welcome them as partners.
We, therefore, unite to call for justice over tyranny, fairness over greed, and global survival over destruction. Humanity, at this point in history, requires no less.
this will be what the counrty will look like if they win
Why isn't this getting more press coverage?
Don't people understand?
If one state falls, the rest will follow.
Michigan's Financial Manager actually came into existence under Gov. Blanchard, many years ago. What has changed is the power that the manager has; the power to dissolve school boards, city councils; the power to fire all city and school employees; the power of a tsar. Rachel is correct; Michigan is a mess. The state "repugs" are trying to "fix" all that is wrong with our economy on the backs of the middle class, in particular public employees, especially school children, and retirees.The Speaker of the House ignores "rules of order" outlined in our State Constitution, and Gov Synder signs most of their legislation. Thanks Rachel, for making this a point of national discussion.
Republican led states have been creating very bad legislation for a long time. I would love to see Rachel take them all on. One outstanding is the "Stand your ground" law, which has been so much in the news. Gov Bush is responsible for that very bad bill & more the pity at least 28 states have followed suit. Also FL has been quietly passing bills which concern more gun laws that favor republican ideas & many more on women's health issues Democrats are almost extimct in FL. The Republicans have had free reign, the FL legislature has been having a fieldday for years. People have begun to wake up, but this is something that desperately reguires debate. There is no one more qualified than Rachel & Co to take this on.