On December 12, 2012, just a few weeks after the General Election, Michigan legislators passed the bill that would become Public Act 436, the latest iteration of Michigan’s anti-democratic Emergency Manager Law. Voters had overturned the previous version of the law in November and Republicans wasted no time in resurrecting it, overturning the will of a majority of voters and […]

When Public Act 4, Michigan’s amped-up Emergency Manager law, was signed into law in early 2011, it was immediately put to use in Benton Harbor. It was the first time the new version of the law, which allows the state to impose an unelected person in charge of an entire city and gives them the power to dismiss local elected […]

As I have written about before, Republicans are petrified of a drive to put raising the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour on the ballot in November. It’s such a winning issue for Democrats that Republicans know that they simply must kill it or risk losing big on election day as more Democrats than usual turn out to vote in […]

Oh, that’s rich Michigan House Republicans are in a tight spot. With concessions made by every party swept up in Detroit’s municipal bankruptcy and a deal in place that mostly preserves retiree pensions and the Detroit Institute of Arts’ priceless art collection, the only hurdle remaining is the state ponying up $350 million. Given how much money they’ve essentially stolen […]

Wait, Emergency Managers were supposed to solve these problems weren’t they??? In what can only be seen as an embarrassing repudiation of the Republican idea that Emergency Managers are capable of “fixing” financially-struggling schools, the Muskegon Heights schools system has had to borrow nearly a quarter million dollars from the state in order to make payroll. This was after Emergency […]

Lansing, we have a problem The amped-up Emergency Manager laws passed by Michigan Republicans in 2011 and again in 2012 were specifically designed to give far more sweeping powers to the one unelected potentate who assumes control of the school district or municipality. The sweeping away of local elected officials and the snuffing out of local democracy was needed, said […]

The EAA isn’t the only experiment being conducted on Detroit children In all of the sturm und drang over Republican Governor Rick Snyder’s Educational Achievement Authority experiment with Detroit children, it’s easy to forget about the other experiment they are part of: state control of the Detroit Public Schools by an Emergency Manager. I’ve written reams on this topic but […]

A year and a half ago, I wrote a rather lengthy piece titled “Majority white communities avoid Emergency Financial managers with help from Republicans Denby and Rogers”. In it, I told the rather convoluted story of how now-State Representatives Cindy Denby and Bill Rogers had, during their time as local government officials, gotten their municipalities and county into severe debt […]

Another win for the good guys… The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan today granted a motion to reopen the lawsuit filed by the Sugar Law Center and others against Michigan officials challenging the constitutionality of Public Act 436, Michigan’s undemocratic Emergency Manager Law. From their press release: The Court’s order follows three orders from the […]

Time to update my chart… Back in December, I took a look at how many cities and schools were in financial crisis under Governor Rick Snyder compared with his predecessors. The results were pretty shocking: When you look at the situation under Governor Snyder compared with his predecessors, the data is striking. Including all cities and schools that have either […]

Let’s find out if it is, indeed, a legal law Federal bankruptcy judge Steven Rhodes determined today that a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Michigan’s anti-democratic Emergency Manager law – Public Act 436 – can move forward. The case is being handled in another federal court. In his ruling (pdf) denying a request to stay the case, Judge Rhodes said: […]