Please use the debate tonight to expose the ruthlessness of our Michigan Tea Party dominated government. Flint is only the tip of the iceberg. The Governor, the Legislature, and the courts have conspired to destroy public education, the Democratic Party and democracy itself. We now have the most oppressive state government since Jim Crow!
Our legislators use a law forbidding a referendum against any law including an appropriation; so they write an appropriation into every bill they expect the public would want to overturn!
When the citizens had a chance to vote on the Emergency Manager proposal, they voted overwhelmingly to turn it down. However,
Governor Snyder and his legislature rewrote the law and added an appropriation clause that made it impervious to the public will.
“This legislation demonstrates that we clearly heard, recognized and respected the will of the voters,” Snyder said. “It builds in local control and options while also ensuring the tools to protect communities and schools districts’ residents, students and taxpayers.” It was essentially the same law!
All major predominantly Black cities were taken over and crushed by the emergency manager law. More than half of our African-American citizens were placed under the absolute dictatorship of Emergency Managers who could break contracts - except those with a bank, and fire elected officials. The toothless elected city councils and school boards were required to meet, but not allowed to decide anything!
The straight ticket that is the preferred way that over 250,000 voters in Wayne County express themselves, but it was written out of our voting choices by a new law including an appropriation clause passed by the same legislature and signed by the same governor.
And now for the last straw:
This legislation was the last bill to pass the Legislature in December, growing at the last minute from a non-controversial bill that had passed the Senate unanimously at 13 pages, into a totally revamped 53 pages that was passed with no public hearings and with only Republican votes.
The bill prohibits local (school and library) officials from publicly discussing ballot proposals or millage issues in the 60 days leading up to an election. It has been blasted by municipal and school district officials as an official state “gag order” and a violation of free speech.
For more about the leadership of our state view the following video from the Rachel Maddow blog:
Al Halper
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