A couple of us on the show spent yesterday in Michigan, where we went to hear a talk by a former emergency manager about why the emergency manager law isn't working and can't work. Michael Stampfler spoke at the Wyandotte Rotary Club, south of Detroit. His message was that unless the state does something to build up a community's democracy, the town won’t be able to keep the books balanced after the emergency manager leaves. (Some local coverage here and here.)
Personally, I was struck by the number of elected mayors in the crowd who seemed to have an emergency manager looming in their rear-view mirrors. As new mayor Kyle Stack of Trenton, Michigan, explained, the state tells the towns what to do in order to qualify for a share of the revenue that keeps them afloat. If they don't do what the state says, then they lose that money and go broke, and an emergency manager can take them over. Not surprisingly, Mayor Stack prefers local democracy over a state-installed emergency manager.
I'd like to see that the towns try to work it out themselves. . . . We don't always tell the state of Michigan what they need to do, and I think that cities can have better jurisdiction over their own areas. They know what needs to be done and where we need to go with it. We're probably all going to be in line for them, though, the way it's going. Because I talked to a few of the mayors here, and we all have money issues.
It's just a fact of governing now in Michigan that the state might come in and take you over, and that fact reaches everywhere. We stopped in, very briefly, at the Catherine Ferguson Academy for young mothers. The Detroit high school was nearly closed last year by the Detroit schools' emergency manager. Below is the door police hauled the students out through when they were arrested while protesting the planned closing.
This week, we found students staying late to work on academics, and others taking yoga, and dozens of them bundling up their babies and toddlers for the trip home.
Standing there looking at the art projects and the seedlings for the school farm, it was hard to imagine a single emergency manager with unilateral control shuttering all of that, but that's how it can go in Michigan now.
Today the staff at the Michigan Board of State Canvassers reported (pdf) that a group trying to overturn the emergency manager law has enough signatures to get on the ballot. Tomorrow, the board will hear a challenge to the petition itself, primarily but not solely on grounds that the font size is too small. That's the story in which the group bringing the challenge is a project of the Republican consulting firm whose partner sits on the board that will hear the challenge. The board's staff report (pdf) recommends that the board reject the challenge because the group circulating the petition tried to comply substantially with the law, and the board hasn't got the authority to rule on the rest of it.
We'll see how the vote goes tomorrow. If the question makes the ballot, then the emergency manager law gets shelved for now, and towns like Benton Harbor might get to hold Constitution Week after all, and, maybe, the suing to stop the referendum begins.
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Yet when North Korea tried to take over the South we went to war.Same in Viet Nam. I realize that this is apples to oranges but then again we were fighting FOR democracy.
Welcome to the State Corporation of Michigan.
Just an epitome of the sad state of affairs we're all left in when things turn into pure Dictatorships that we tried so hard to avoid. Their right-wing attorney there, shouldn't he be advocating against this communistic/socialistic way their state is being run? ... Or is it only that way when a Democrat or Liberal decide to voice opinions? .... Seems like a small looking-glass into how a fully controlled far-right Republican country we'd be if this happened nationally..
They can't keep crying Socialist and Communist if their own party is mirroring closer to those definitions than those whom they keep slinging mud towards.
They can, and they do, because hypocrisy is their standard operating procedure.
Their positions are right out of Karl Rove's playbook. Project your weakness onto the enemy errr opponent. If you are for plutocracy say the other side is.
Michigan is so messed up. I think it will take decades to recover from this governor.
Thank you for the continued coverage of the Mitten!
You mention one of the things that isn't often included in discussions of this law - besides passing the emergency dict... er, manager law, they re-jiggered the revenue sharing procedures so that they can essentially unilaterally ruin the finances of any city they want to take over. Strip the revenue sharing, sit back for a few months, then, hey, presto... financial emergency! It's amazing how well those two things work together! (Purely coincidental, of course.)
I agree, Karen. If you don;'t let them come in and take over, they will withhold your money. then you'll be broke enough that you will either let them take over, or you will fall apart.
It will take some time to recover, not only from this governor, but from the far right throws of both houses of our state legislature! I would love to see more attention given to what is happening now to public schools EVERYWHERE in the state of Michigan! Why is no one talking about this systematic, constant attack on school funding, school employees, and retired school employees that have been increasing the past few months.? Privatizing of schools seems to be looming closely as there appears to be little checks and balance in the Michigan state government right now.
Michigan republicans won't be finished until the have driven every town and school system into bankruptcy. Then they can take over with their emergency managers, privatize everything, and hire our communities out to the lowest bidders.
Michigan is a town now? I sure wish someone would tell me when these things happen....
Ah yes, welcome to the Michigan Mafia. All legal of course.............ahem.
Michigan is several tough towns!
Where is our Attorney General of the United States? Our democracy is being stolen. Our Constituion broken. Our Democratic representatives aren't being counted in a vote. Our unions have no rights anymore. People are being disenfranchised by re-districting and voter ID laws. Our children are receiving poor quality education so that King Snyder can give tax breaks to corporations. I think there might be one or two Federal laws that have been broken. Can we get any help at all from Washington? The part that puzzles me most is I live in the Upper Peninsula in one of the poorest counties in Michigan and most people here are Republicans. What are they thinking????
They are not thinking and that is the reason they vote the way they do. I know, I live in a county that always goes Republican no matter what they do.
Maybe if Snyder had some weed planted on him, then Holder would come down own him with the full force of the justice system.
Well, the state hasn't fallen off the earth yet and some of us who did not vote for the current governor or legislature hope we can turn things around in November. This is not just Michigan though, this is every state that elected a Republican governor and state legislature. The emergency manager law was already on the books but our state legislature just resurrected it with a few tweeks. I just hope and pray that people wake up and realize how serious the situation is.
I agree!
When I was growing up, I was told how the people in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics had no voice in their government, and no vote in how things were done to them, and we were all taught to pity those poor people who lived under a Dictatorship.
I'm constantly reminded (and can hear the refrain echoing in the back of my mind) of the Mothers of Invention song... "It Can't Happen Here".
With this fine Governor in charge Michigan is leading the nation in job growth. If the elected people can't operate their cities in a responsible manner then OUR Governor is duty bound to lead the cities out of bankruptcy. After 8 miserable years under jenny who is totally inept, unqualified and NOT fit for public office, I say 4 more years!! 4 more years!!!!
as I'm sure you could've predicted (BEYOND grateful you are covering this "story*, Rachel)... RIDICULOUS, per usual in MI.
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