Teabaggers led by Howell School Board member Wendy Day are launching a petition drive to stop 32 million Americans with no health care insurance from getting it and violating Howell Public School policy in the process.
Subscription only MIRS is reporting Day and a ballot committee called “Michigan Citizens for Healthcare Freedom” is planning a petition drive kickoff for 6:30 p.m. Monday at the Howell Freshman Campus cafeteria to place a constitutional amendment on the ballot to exempt Michigan from the historic health insurance reform law signed into law by President Obama last week.
This is the same amendment the Senate Republicans tried to pass on March 16, but it fell two votes short of the two-thirds majority it needed to get on the ballot. It’s also the same petition drive extreme rightwing Rep. Tom McMillin, R-Rochester Hills, launched on March 22 outside William Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak. Apparently, teabaggers like kickoffs.
Like McMillin, Day has not had much success in petition drives. Day took the unusual step of launching a recall attempt against three of the four Howell Public School Board members who voted to fire the Superintendent. That attempt against her fellow board members failed miserably.
It’s ironic that the petition drive is taking place at the Freshman Campus, 1400 W. Grand River Ave. It also houses both the district’s administrative offices and board office. District policy bars facilities and equipment from being used for political campaigns. That was illustrated in April 2007 when the district canceled a forum for school board candidates, and cited the district policy that states, “District facilities and equipment shall not be used or made available for political campaigns.”
That was simply a nonpartisan forum so voters could hear from candidates, and this petition drive is extremely partisan.
Constitutional Amendments require the valid signatures of registered voters equal to 10 percent of the total number of votes cast for all candidates for governor in the last election, and that comes out to the signatures of 380,126 registered voters just to place it on the ballot. The Michigan State Board of Canvassers must first approve the ballot language before any signatures are collected. Once language is approved, the required signatures must be collected in six months and there can be no more than 90 days between the first and last signature. Any signatures collected before the board of canvassers are invalid, and that, to my knowledge has not happened.
However, the ballot committee, “Michigan Citizens for Healthcare Freedom,” was filed with the Michigan Secretary of State on March 22, and Day is listed as the treasurer.
MIRS reported “Day said the Michigan Citizens for Healthcare Freedom is in the process of rallying liberty groups across the state to pass around petitions for this effort.”
2 comments:
A petition drive in the same building, the Howell Schools- that 64 Howell School Bus Drivers a week ago learned that they were losing their health insurance after being outsourced?
That Wendy Day herself cast the deciding 5th vote to take away their health insurance?
Would it not be fitting and proper to organize a counter-demonstration, and invite the Bus Drivers.
Don't you think?
I had forgotten about the bus drivers; excellent point. I think a counter demonstration would be great, but I’m surprised the district is allowing the group to use the building.
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