Game on!

On the same day the Senators Stabenow and Levin and the entire Democratic Congressional delegation announced their support of Lon Johnson to replace Mark Brewer as the Chair of the Michigan Democratic Party, Chair Brewer released an impressive list of 40 District and County Party Chairs that have lined up to support him. Additionally, the Michigan Education Association remains in Brewer’s corner and is hosting a fundraising event for him next week.

Details and more after the jump.

Time to change quarterbacks?

Mark Brewer has been the chair of the Michigan Democratic Party for the past 18 years. This year, however, the leadership of both the UAW and the Teamsters have pulled their support. Today, in a signal that this power struggle for control of the MDP may have legs, Senators Debbie Stabenow and Carl Levin along with every single Michigan Democratic member of Congress sent out a letter in support of Lon Johnson who has been selected to run against Brewer at the statewide Democratic Party Convention on February 23rd.

The letter was sent out under Stabenow’s letterhead and was signed by her, Senator Levin, and Congressmen John Dingell, John Conyers, Sander Levin, Gary Peters, and Dan Kildee.

You can read it in its entirety after the jump.

Really? NOW you bring this up?

During the summer of 2010, across the state you could find paid petitioners circulating petitions to put the “Tea Party” on the November ballot. Candidates were recruited and it looked as if the tea party folks were finally going to get some skin in the game instead of trying to take over the Republican Party.

It later turned out to be a giant scam, orchestrated by people in the Oakland County Democratic Party including its chair Mike McGuinness. He and another party employee, Jason Bauer, were both convicted of forging election paperwork to put people on the ballot as Tea Party candidates, some of whom were never even contacted about running as phony candidates.

Michigan Democratic Party (MDP) Chair Mark Brewer denied all knowledge or involvement in the embarrassing scandal. However, out of the blue, McGuinness resurfaced this week in the comments section of the Michigan Liberal website to say he was recruited by Brewer for this scheme. With Brewer being challenged as MDP Chair, the timing is so suspicious as to be completely unbelievable.

More after the jump.

And then there were three

Senate Democratic Leader Gretchen Whitmer announced today that she will NOT be a candidate for Governor in Michigan in 2014. Her stepping aside narrows the immediate field from four to three: 2010 candidate and Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero, Detroit-area Congressman Gary Peters and former MI-07 Congressman Mark Schauer. While that’s not to say that others won’t throw their hat into the ring, these three are certainly the top three at the moment.

My analysis after the jump.

How about it Republicans? Do you care for Michiganders or not?

With Republicans actively seeking to prevent the expansion of Medicaid in Michigan under the Affordable Care Act and Democrats seeking to make it happen, doctors in Michigan are ready, willing and able to take on the new influx of patients that would entail. Think about it: a savings of $1 billion over ten years, 400,000 new Michiganders covered by health insurance and doctors expanding their practices to accomodate.

Who could be against THAT? Only conservative ideologues, that’s who.

Details after the jump.

This ought to get VERY interesting

Are you grumpy with (or even angry at) the leadership of the Michigan Democratic Party? If so, there may be a chance to do something about it but you must be a registered member of the MDP no later than today to do so. You can do that HERE. This will allow you to vote at next month’s 2012 State Convention at Cobo Hall in Detroit.

Current party Chair Mark Brewer no longer has the support of the UAW, the Teamsters, or of several major Democrats including Congressman Sander Levin. Gongwer and MIRS both report that Bob King of the UAW and James Hoffa of the Teamsters have told Brewer he no longer has their support. Brewer is determined to run anyway.

The battle has already gotten nasty with MIRS reporting that a party insider is calling King’s move “the temper-tantrum school of politics,” saying that he seems “more than happy being in a minority, a shrinking minority, than growing the Democratic Party.”

Yeeouch.

Much more after the jump.

Snyder’s Supreme Court appointment will set the tone for the 2013 legislative session

As I anticipated (rather testily) last month, Democrats are losing a voice on the Michigan state Supreme Court. Thanks to the unethical behavior of Diane Hathaway, whose name will now forever be associated with the betrayal of Democrats and Michigan citizens in general, we went from a 4-3 Republican-to-Democrat ratio to what will be a 5-2 balance once Governor Rick Snyder makes his appointment.

This has many people across the state wondering what Snyder will do with this opportunity.

On the one hand, he could continue his recent trend of appeasing the far right conservatives in his party, cementing the partisan divide that has so intensely polarized our state and that has created warring factions who despise each other.

On the other hand, he could choose a more moderate candidate who is more palatable to Democrats in Michigan. By doing this, the Governor could begin to repair some of the damage that was done when he chose to force Right to Work legislation through during the inflamed duck session and the animosity he created by passing laws that hinder women’s access to legal abortion services in our state.

My analysis after the jump.

Chapeau: doffed

2012 was a year full of politics in Michigan. As a political writer, particularly one writing from the progressive side of things, I never had a single day where there wasn’t something happening in Michigan worth writing about. We weren’t far into 2012 before I realized that women were standing up and speaking out in larger numbers and with a louder, stronger voice than any other group of people in our state. So much so that I have taken to calling 2012 the Year of Michigan Women in Politics.

Using the power of personalizing issues to make change when you’re in the minority

One of the most outspoken and eloquent Democrats in the legislature for the past two years is Senate Minority Leader Gretchen Whitmer from East Lansing. Whenever there was a major issue making the headlines that Republicans were on the wrong side of, Senator Whitmer was there to be sure that they were not only held accountable but that their actions would not go unnoticed.

Given the Republicans’ recent flurry of ideologically-driven activity and the fact that Republicans still control both houses of the state legislature, control the state Supreme Court, and that the Governor, Lt. Governor, Attorney General, Secretary of State are all Republicans, I wanted to see how the top Democratic leader of the state Senate (and longest serving sitting Senator) was feeling about the road ahead. I sat down with her in a coffee shop in East Lansing this week for an interview.

(It’s all there, after the jump.)

I suspect we all know the answer to THAT question…

H.B. 5711 is a bill that is was passed by the Michigan Senate last night that puts onerous requirements on facilities providing abortions — so onerous that most people paying attention believe it will shut down large numbers of clinics that offer these services.

Tucked away into this bill is a ban on the use of “telemedicine” — the use of computers, the internet and telephones to connect patients and physicians — by physicians to authorize medical abortions by, instead, prescribing medication.

Why is this important? Because just this past summer, Gov. Snyder was all about the utter awesomeness of “telemedicine”

Details after the jump.

It IS impressive…

If you thought the speed with which Michigan Republicans went to chit chatting about making Michigan a Right to Work for Less state and actually accomplishing that was impressive, you should keep watching because they aren’t done yet, not by a long shot. The frantic pace continued yesterday, just one day after they kicked unions to the curb and brought a record number of people to the Capitol to protest.

Read about the four major pieces of legislation that passed in the House after the jump.