The TV airwaves are being filled with false attacks on Griffin

The TV airwaves are being filled with false attacks on Rep. Martin Griffin, D-Jackson, as Nov. 3 Special Election for the vacant seat in the 19th State Senate District fast approaches.

The latest one continues the Republican false campaign issue of trying to claim the layoff of 100 State troopers earlier this year was because of the construction of the new Michigan State Police headquarters. That’s a blatant lie, but that has not stopped the GOP from using this.

The State Troopers were laid off because they refused to take the six furlough days like the rest of the 50,000 state employees to avoid layoffs, and in fact the MSP budget bill passed on Sept. 30 bring back some 54 troopers.

This new ad is even more blatant, and it focuses even more on the lie that the HQ led to trooper layoffs. Plus, it’s not paid for by the GOP candidate Mike Nofs. This false smear is paid for by some group called the “Michigan Jobs and Labor Foundation.”

I have no idea who that is, and I can’t find a web site for them or a campaign finance report. All I could find was a Lansing PO box listed for them via a Google search. There is also no You Tube video like the other ad.

The ad paid for and featuring Nofs, targets Griffin for his vote in favor of legislation that created a regional authority to run Cobo Center in Detroit, ending city control of the facility, and the appropriation of funds to help pay for the aging building's renovation.

There is no You Tube video of this lie either, but in the ad Nofs plays the boogeyman Detroit card that will excite the GOP base. In the ads he says that the rest of the state should not bail out Detroit because of the city's corrupt mismanagement of Cobo.

"We shouldn't be using our tax dollars to fund Detroit's corruption," Mr. Nofs says in the ad.

What Griffin did was save the North American International Auto Show. Officials with the auto show had warned that if changes were not made to the center, they could move the show to Chicago, Los Angeles or another city. The auto show is responsible for as much as $500 million in economic activity annually in southeast Michigan.

As for this alleged corruption, the package of four bipartisan bills will allow for a regional authority to lease the convention center in downtown in order to expand and improve the facility. In other words, sole control is taken away from the Detroit City Council and spread to officials in surrounding counties.

The bills, Senate Bills 586-588, were sponsored by Republicans. House Bill was sponsored by a Democrat. The bills had overwhelming support. The bills passed by votes of, respectively, 91-16, 31-1; 92-15, 32-1; 90-17, 32-1; and 93-14, 32-1. A lot of Republicans join Griffin in those votes.