The dispute is over the letter N. This one is a letter press 10-point Kabel.
In a long-awaited ruling, a Michigan appeals court today said that the font size on a petition to overturn state Republicans' souped-up emergency manager law is too small, but that the referendum should go on the ballot anyway. The court wrote, in an essence, that the statutes require them to consider that the people circulating the petition tried to comply substantially with the requirements, and thus their signatures on it should count.
That's weird part number one. Weird part number two is that the court then stayed its own ruling so it can poll all 28 members of the appeals court on whether to form a special seven-member panel to consider the case. Eclectablog, a Democratic activist and blogger, calls it a stalling move. He writes:
This delays even further any final ruling. By doing this, they reduce the amount of time opponents of PA 4 will have to get out the vote for the cause and, conceivably could delay a ruling for so long that it might be too late to get on the ballot no matter what the ruling. Keep in mind that, no matter what the final decision is, it will likely go to the state supreme court.
And it's true that this matter is dragging on. The hyper-partisan Board of State Canvassers, with its competing conflicts of interest, deadlocked on the petitions back on April 26. The appeals court heard the case on May 17, and folks expected a decision within a week or so. The referendum would go on the November ballot, and at this point every week counts.
On the other hand, you could also see in this decision signs that Michigan is wrestling with the way it governs. That the elections board threw out the petitions despite sworn testimony from the printer that the font size was right, and having concurring internal advice from a Michigan State graphics professor, suggests that there are limits to how far a hyper-partisan strategy for running a state can go. Likewise, Michigan judges are elected and come with party ties. If and when the case reaches the state Supreme Court, it'll find a bench that is whose majority was nominated by Republicans.
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Michigan may have become weirder but at least its trees are the right height
I was afraid no one was going to remember that;)
Wierder? Cant get more wierd than taking an argument based around font size to The Supreme Court.
Well, I suppose you can, wierder is those who believe The Supreme Court is there to rule over font size, or even those who believe such a factor is a major plank to the integrity of The Union ..... arrrgghhh
Dont tell me the inmates have not got hold of the keys to the Asylum .... they got such a firm grip on them, they are passing out copies to every bat crazy self important bunch of cultish wackos who think ego trumps intelligence.
At the Chairman's Pub Quiz at Netroots Nation last night, the team I was on was named "The Trees are the Right Height". We had three Michiganders on our team : )
Curiouser and curiouser...
"Its Pure Michigan" as the slogan goes
And not in a good way!
Every time I see one of those commercials, it makes me nauseous. It may be a beautiful state, and it sorely needs revitalization - but until the GOP's strangle-hold on the state is broken, they couldn't pay me to move there.
Just think how I feel. I live here. It is a beautiful state, but the republicans are killing it.
It seems like an old re-run of when they tried to get rid of The Chaldean Church, which was supported by Sadam Husein, that was George Romneys' fault he accepted money from Sadam to give to this church. I still don't understand why Sadam was supporting his own refugees and George Romney supported him.
I went to college in Michigan, and lived there for many years. I am EXTREMELY GLAD I don't live there any more. I think all the sane people moved to Minnesota or Canada or something. It's nuts.
You think Minnesota is saner!?! Look who they elected to congress.
How can any sane American look at this and not realize extremist Republicans are unfit to govern?
They proved it in BIG way in Kansas by not being able to agree to the redistricting, which forced a three-judge panel, with two women, to decide for them. The judges basically ended up with exactly the maps nobody wanted, so they are all mad, which is great.
Too many people have been so conditioned by the 'both sides do it' canard. No matter what Republicans do, people reflexively dismiss it by asserting or simply assuming privately that Democrats must be doing the exact same thing. It's as if jurors in a murder trial let an actually-guilty defendant go free because they assumed that the judge in the case must have killed the victim as well, and punishing just the defendant wouldn't be fair.
Michigan is a laboratory for the new Republican governance of the 21st Century, gotta give them credit for figuring out how to steal the public blind by eliminating local government, selling public assets for pennies on the dollar and then raising taxes on the poor to pay for their criminal activities. The Republican Party is nothing more than an organized criminal conspiracy that has a cover of legitimacy because it is in government, much like Al Capone in Cicero in the 1920's. Congrats republicans for proving Americans are basically lawless, stupid and self destructive.
Its weird but you have to know our petition rules , font size for each section is diffrent , and if the petition isnt formatted correctly it can be thrown out ....ijs
I'd like to know who the idiot was that came up with such ridiculous rules in the first place.
I mean, really - who cares what font size is used? What matters is what those letters - regardless of their size - actually say.
Methinks that whoever put those rules in place was hoping to make it impossible for the people to ever successfully get something on the ballot.
Republicans don't believe in font size... it is the devil. They believe it is some sort of science and Jesus hates science.
Therefore, any font size facts according to printers, Microsoft, and experts in graphics are just liberal conspiracies to push a communist socialist forced-gay marriage and forced-abortion climate change non-snake-handling and non-mega-church-paster-led-meth-fueled-gay-prostitute-orgy agenda.
Muleman ... Neither blacks, public employees, nor illegal aliens are involved? :)
The fact is that THIS petition was printed with the correct font size. The law says nothing about the font type and it happens that the type used in the law and the type used on the petition, while both 14 pt, so not measure the same.
What is this country and especially the grand state of Michigan coming to when what the citizens get to vote on is decided by a 'font size.' Our forefathers must be flipping around in their graves.
Come on GOP -- give it a rest.
Isn't this the same state that, in an act of charity and humanity, took a blind/disabled goup out HUNTING?
My recollection is that a state legislator tried to pass a bill to allow the blind to hunt, as long as they were accompanied by a sighted person. The bill got derailed when another legislator amended it to allow blind persons to drive (as long as they were accompanied by a sighted person).
C'mon ... who didn't see this (or something substantially like it) coming?
To Mr Kingsbury: Are you taking Mr Romney's word that the tree's are the right height? I bet he's lying, or going say they are NOT the right height before the convention!
-Go in Peace as friend. Lay in pieces as foe...
Nothing to see here comrades, move along.
Commissar Snyder knows what's best for you and the State will prevail.
Wrong vocabulary. Gauleiter is a better fit.
Here is an interesting experiment on Font size:
Open up Microsoft Word (that's what I have - not sure it the same thing happens with other applications).
Type in some text like "All text in font size 12" setting the font size = 12.
Copy the same text in a bunch of different rows.
Change the font style for each row - like Arial for one, Times New Roman for another
Notice how the actual size of the letters are different depending on the font used.
For instance, Arial is bigger than Times New Roman and Goudy Old Style is really tiny.
So just specifying font size means NOTHING unless the font style is also specified.
Exactly! I would think that anyone who has used Microsoft Word at some point in their lives would be fully aware of this.
I still live here. My underwater mortgage makes moving somewhere sane very difficult.
To me its simple enough to stop this. No taxation without representation, if my vote does not count, you dont get my city tax...
Yikes!!! Sounds like if you want to stay in power all you need to do is declare a state of emergency.., The odd thing is all the nay saying right wing conspiracy nuts were yelling that President Obama was going to be the first to do so. Looks more like the GOP governors made thew first moves and declared that federal law has no effect in their states.
Sometimes I think Miciagan is the oddest state in Amercia ...
What the hell are they smoking? Are they in Detroit? Because that might explain it.
It's getting weirder by the second here in Michigan. The Detroit City Attorney is questioning the consent agreement (precursor to Detroit's financial manager) and the state has told the city attorney that if she does not drop her suit they will withhold 80 million dollars that is due the city, causing an immediate shutdown. Is that even legal? Mayor Dave Bing called an emergency meeting of the city council in response, but the city council declined--said they didn't have enough notice. Really?
There is going to be an 8am meeting of the Mayor, City Council, and Corporate Counsel. This FSA is ill-born from the same legal firm, Miller Canfield, that crafted changes in Public Act 4. It contains PA 7 within and various other changes. As an abomination you have to question if repealing PA4 is going to have an impact on it. Detroit under FSA is ruled by a 9 person Financial Advisory Board (primarily from outside Detroit), a CFO (brought over the EM from Highland Park Schools), and an as yet not selected PMD. There are reasons why City Council has stalled in selecting the final 3 FAB members.
Sunday a meeting of Free Detroit No Consent will be held to support Corporate Counsel, reveal power in the City Charter, and rally Detroiters to unite in removing the FSA and those that have represented it as a legal and binding contract.
All of this would be less aggrivating, if those high ranking politicians and judges would simply proudly admit to, and call their style of governing what it is: A game of stacked deck poker in which the rules are changed at will and without any consideration of or benefit to the American People. We are now officially governed by the highest bidder.
No doubt the state of Michigan isn't what it used to be. I've lived here off and on for 30 years or so. What I see now makes me cringe. Poverty, crime, drug abuse, dysfunctionality and conservative ideology rule.
It is a beautiful state but what's going inside the state has gotten quite ugly. It's all part of the rightwing extreme conservative playbook. Aside from the Emergency Financial Manager law, what's going on in Michigan is being played out across the country. The EMF law was tried in a few other states in the summer of 2011 but the actions failed.
I can no longer live in a state ruled by Repubs. If they happen to take over in November I'm leaving the country.
Well, what I cannot fathom, how is it that the Democrats took their eye off the ball in so many states to render an occurrence of a coup d’état by the Republicans? Where were the Democrats when the Republicans swooped down to take over the US House of Representatives, the states houses and the governorships of the majority of the states? Were we so drunk on the kool-aid of electing our first African American President, we became too careless and carefree and lost our memory of the danger of letting the fox guard the hen house?
Too many Dems got in a snit over the poor way the Dems handled health care legislation, Harry Reid's ineffectiveness, and Obama's unwillingness to play hardball with Republicans when the Dems had the advantage in Congress.
One hopes those people have learned their lesson. It will take several decades to undo the damage in some states, if indeed that damage isn't permanent. They'd better get organized and ready to work hard. Overcoming the advantage the Republicans get from Citizens United will be extremely difficult.
I agree.
The dems are pussies most of the time.
Is there not a constitunal requirement that would throw out the totolitarian usurpation of voted positions in local, county and state? This is clearly a fascist - dictator maneuver to overrun local governments for monetary gain. It is also OUTRAGEOUS!!
I don't even live in Michigan, and this makes me mad, come to think of it, I pretty much stay mad these days ~ ah, Sweet Land of Liberty ~ where the hell are you ? Montana, you say ?
Isn't this sedition? Can't federal legal authority step in to save the people of Michigan? I think people should face criminal charges for all these actions and serve hard time.
*sigh*