The Ranking Member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee in Washington, D.C. is Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland. He has been a fierce progressive advocate during his tenure as Ranking Member, standing up to Republican absurdity and malfeasance during the Benghazi Inquisition, the Planned Parenthood Inquisition, and during hearing on the Flint water crisis where Republicans seemed more […]

Over the past few months, teachers in the Detroit Public Schools (DPS) have had to resort to “sick outs” to get attention to the egregious working and teaching conditions they and their students are being forced to contend with. From black mold, rats, and cockroaches to warped gym floors and, this past week, the threat that they would not be […]

On March 27th, David Alexander Bullock took on a project nobody has yet dared to do: To see if he can collect nearly 790,000 valid petition signatures in just 60 days to put the recall of Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder on the ballot. Prior to 2012, signatures had to be gathered in 90 days but Republicans were tired of people […]

On Monday, I announced that we are bringing on a new writer at Eclectablog. Today, I am pleased to make the official announcement that Sommer Foster will be a regular (and paid) contributor to Eclectablog. I’ve been asking Sommer to come on board for over a year now and the stars have finally aligned in such a way that she’s […]

In 2012, Gretchen Driskell did what few thought possible and what fewer Michigan Democrats were able to do: she beat a locally-popular Republican incumbent, Mark Ouimet, to take back a state House seat, beating him by by six points in the Republican-leaning 52nd District. Two years later, she was such a strong candidate that the Republicans put up a weak […]

As the water crisis has unfolded in Flint over the past few months, there has been an enormous amount of finger pointing and blame shifting going around. Just this week, Darnell Earley wrote an op-ed piece for The Detroit News absolving himself of any of that blame, despite the fact that he or one of his predecessors was in charge […]

State House Rep. Brandon Dillon first came onto my radar when I watched this video of a floor speech he gave shortly after Republicans made Michigan a Right to Work state where he described Michigan as “where democracy goes to die”: Since then, he’s been a rising star in the House, joining with former Rep. Ellen Cogen-Lipton and others to […]

Marc Solomon, national campaign director of Freedom to Marry, talks about the road to marriage equality. With a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on marriage equality expected in just a few short weeks — and a historic victory for marriage equality in Ireland last week — anticipation, and hope, are high among those who support the right of same-sex couples to […]

“We wanted to bring everyone in the progressive community together to talk about issues that they are concerned about and working on every day and to have some fun doing it.” As I wrote about last week, our friends at Progress Michigan are having fundraiser in Ann Arbor on June 3rd that features comedian Al Madrigal from The Daily Show […]

With the U.S. Supreme Court hearing testimony tomorrow on the constitutionality of same-sex marriage bans in places like Michigan, I thought it would be a good time to repost my interview with April DeBoer and Jayne Rowze. Although much has happened since our interview a bit over a year ago – like the addition of a fourth child to their […]

As a member of the 7th Congressional District, “represented” by Tim Walberg, I consider the 12th District my adopted district and Congresswoman Debbie Dingell as my actual Representative. That’s because, on just about any topic or issue you could name, Debbie Dingell DOES represent my views. She’s as solid a progressive as you could ever hope to meet. From the […]