Upon leaving the Constitutional Convention, Ben Franklin is quoted as saying that the constitutional delegates had chosen for America “a Republic, if you can keep it.” This came years after the founding fathers sat down and declared their independence from the British monarchy. Our democratic republic was an experiment, which had never been tried before as a form of government. […]

In 2018, worker advocacy groups gathered enough signatures to put several citizen-initiated ballot proposals on the November ballot. However, according to law, before that happens, the legislature has the ability to make them law immediately by passing them as legislation. If this is done, it bypasses the governor and they become law without the governor’s signature. There were several ballot […]

As news of Michigan’s Board of State Canvassers finally certifying Michigan’s 2020 election results sinks in, it’s worth drawing attention to the antics of hyper-partisan Board member Norman Shinkle in the process. While his Republican colleague Aaron Van Langevelde acted honorably, following Michigan’s law that requires the Board of State Canvassers to certify the election and voting YES to certify, […]

I haven’t written much about the Flint Water Crisis lately, largely because my pals over at Michigan Advance and the fine reporters at MLive have been doing such a good job. I’m inspired to write today as I reflect on two recent stories, one of which is not actually about Flint. The first story is the astonishing move taken by […]

If you worried that poor, maligned Enbridge Energy was alone in its fight against the monstrous power of Michigan citizens who are desperate to save our Great Lakes from an unimaginable environmental catastrophe, you may now rest easy. A new corporate front group, an “AstroTurf” group as they are frequently called, has come to their aid, posing as, in their […]

INSERT PAINFUL EYEROLL HERE… The Republican Speaker of the House in Michigan’s legislature is Lee Chatfield, a 30-year old father of five and graduate of Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University who attempted to bring a loaded handgun onto a commercial flight last summer. In a recent interview, Chatfield characterized Attorney General Dana Nessel and Governor Gretchen Whitmer as “driven purely by […]

I have always had special disdain for former Michigan governor John Engler. He was the grandfather of the corporatist right’s attacks on organized labor while he was in office and his repugnant legacy is something that we still deal with today. So I was shocked, dismayed, and outraged that the Michigan State University Board of Trustees chose Engler to be […]

In 2018, over half of the Democratic candidates for the state legislature and Congress who won their primary and went on to the general election in Michigan were women. When you talk about women finally getting parity in terms of high elected office (or ANY elected office, for that matter), there’s only one political party who is even close to […]

Repeat after me: Primaries are good. Primaries are good. Primaries are good… I used to believe that primaries were a waste of precious fundraising dollars and that they unnecessarily bloodied up our general election candidate. But in 2014, after Mark Schauer was defeated in his run for governor after facing no primary opponent, I changed my views. I came to […]

Citing a lack of adequate funding, Fair Michigan, a coalition of groups and individuals headed up by civil rights attorney Dana Nessel and that included noted Republicans like Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson, Gov. Snyder’s former press secretary Sara Wurfel, and Lansing attorney and political mover-and-shaker Richard McClellan, has ended its attempt to put the civil rights of LGBTQ […]

When I wrote up my piece following Monday night’s LGBTQ forum in Ann Arbor where a community forum took place on the topic of a ballot initiative for LGBTQ civil rights, I indicated that Wayne State University Law School Dean Jocelyn Benson had helped to write the ballot language. That statement came from civil rights attorney Dana Nessel’s opening remarks: […]