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The Michigan State Legislature
Updates for 12-11-12 Rally will be posted here.
Everything but the kitchen sink! This is what Michigan’s lame duck legislature is trying to pass. This quote written by northern michigan citizen who recently ran for state representative:
We have a Lame Duck legislature that is out of control. The same folks who’ve been on vacation and off campaigning for much of the summer 2012 are now slamming through so much serious legislation in the last days of the session, it makes one’s head swim.
at issue:
- Severe restriction of women’s reproductive rights
- Workers’ rights
- Guns in schools and churches
- a new Emergency Manager law
- “reforms” that will privatize and corporatize public education and remove oversight and accountability to for-profit entities taking OUR tax dollars
- complicated tax changes that will leave local municipalities and schools with unfunded mandates to provide basic services to our communities
Social media is allowing rapid communication and coordination statewide on citizen response to our out of control legislature. Take a look at Facebook pages for our local Occupy, Michigan Nurses Association, and Education groups.
Expect a large turnout by concerned Michigan citizens, at the Capitol in Lansing tomorrow, Tuesday-December 11, 2012.
More info coming…see Michigan Citizens Rally! Updates and links for rally today (12-11-12)
Update from Eclectablog here.
Unconfirmed report from Capitol building Monday afternoon:
I just came from the Capitol after delivering some letters to Senate leadership offices, and I was stunned by the police presence. They have the front entrance gated off with at least three state Troopers at every egress point armed with batons and gas masks. They were also at all four egress points at every floor in the rotunda, not to mention the House and Senate chambers. As I was leaving, a contingent of at least 75-80 officers above the ones already stationed march from behind a curtain where the snack bar is to the side room school kids gather for tours. In addition to the batons and gas mask, they were carrying riot helmets and armed with yellow Tasers.
From my comments at David Dayen’s recent article:
I can tell you the state is in an uproar. Think Wisconsin…and thanks to our neighbors across the water for their support and example. The Michigan legislature is in a frenzy to pass everything it can, in its’ lame duck session. Not only the Right to Work for Less, but bills negatively affecting Education, Reproductive Health, Conscience clauses to limit health access, and on and on. Citizens are using social media extensively to educate and communicate with each other. The governor and legislators are being contacted via email and phone today. People from across the state will be making the trip to the Michigan capitol tomorrow (Tuesday). The turnout is expected to be large. Although non violence is the order of the day, state police are being pulled in from across the state to be in Lansing tomorrow. We will not forget that police are a part of the 99.9%, we won’t let them forget it either! Nurses will be on hand to raise their voices and give first aid if needed.
My letter to Michigan Governor Snyder on Right to Work for Less:
Governor Snyder,
I am asking you to reconsider your new found support of the Right to Work for Less. If this legislation is brought to your desk, I am asking you to veto it!“If what we want to do is do a little bit better at attracting certain kinds of low-wage jobs, I think this may help” …Charles Ballard, Professor of Economics, MSU, speaking of proposed legislation known as Right to Work For Less.
The citizens of Michigan do not need to attract low wage jobs. We need “living wage” jobs, jobs that pay enough to live on! We need health care, education and a dignified retirement. Unions have helped bring this about for many Michiganders. The legislature is not proposing any alternative that will assure these things for the people of Michigan. Rather it undercuts the unions who have helped us earn the value of our labor.
The Right to Work for Less legislation merely hastens us along on the Race to the Bottom. Great. Thanks. No Thanks!
Please reconsider and veto this legislation!
Photo by Michigan Municipal Leage (MML) released under a Creative Commons license.
4 Comments
I hate to be the proverbial skunk at the picnic, but there’s long list of factors working in favor of Republicans in my home state of Michigan: the national economic recovery, which Governor Snyder and his party will take credit for; the likelihood of a GOP wave in 2014 (the party in the White House has generally done very poorly in the sixth year of a presidency); right-wing cash by the trainload that will be spent on behalf of GOP candidates and against progressive ballot proposals; a horrible legislative map, thanks to Republican gerrymandering and Justice Alton Davis’s defeat in 2010; the lack of a Democratic bench–a big problem considering that Senator Levin and Representatives Dingell and Conyers are in their 80s; and last but not least, the blithering incompetence of MDP Chairman for Life Mark Brewer and the aging apparatchiks who run the party.
If the MDP really wants to harness the anger of right-to-work and other awful legislation coming out of the lame-duck session, it will have to change its entire business model. This means brooming the party’s old guard, going all out to recruit newcomers into the party structure, and implementing a state-level version of Howard Dean’s “50-state strategy.” The chances of any of that happening are about the same as those of the Eastern Michigan Hurons playing in next year’s BCS Championship Game.
How much is enough?
The party in the WH has nothing Democratic to run on. Of course, they didn’t this last election and still wriggled in. I’m guessing voters at this point aren’t sure how to remedy the duopoly’s stranglehold on elective office but they’re coming to understand that it’s killing them.
I guess we can hope Howard Dean plants his roots in Michigan, and quickly! I think what you say is true. As the MDP self-implodes, the Chamber will consolidate. Where do you see hope for an assemblage left of center? Lots of pissed off retired public workers, frustrated unemployed students, lots of people in debt and too many sick people.. Michael Moore and Geoffrey Feiger may be the only recognized activists on the left, outside of the party, unless David Bonior agrees to come back and organize. No, thanks.. to Granholm. Our elders, retirees, are pushed to poverty. The environmental community is angered over fracking and protecting our waters. Education has been looted, so every starved school has grieving parents of both political parties who recognize the punishing disaster that Snyder’s cronyism has engendered. Women in Michigan, particularly in rural areas, can feel the pain in county health departments and Planned Parenthood. Come on, bring it on Chamber rats! We are just stewing until our leader shows. Michiganders with conscience, step up, we need your help! There isn’t much time.