Election roundup looks bright

Thank God for Rachel Maddow.

I was not feeling too well about Tuesday’s election. But I tuned into her show on MSNBC on Wednesday, and she put it in proper perspective. Now, I’m looking forward to the election in 2010.

Despite losing governorships in Virginia and New Jersey, there are still more Democratic Governors than Republican. The northeast part of the country is even bluer than before, thanks to the race in New York’s 23rd congressional district. Not only that, it shows how much in disarray the Republican Party really is. The extremist, rightwing tea baggers are not just satisfied with hijacking the party, now they want to drive out all the sane, moderates out of the party. Hey, we have a big tent.

Here in Michigan, the news is not as bad either. I’m disappointed that Rep. Martin Griffin, D-Jackson, lost the special election for the vacant 19th District Senate seat. However, Michigan Democrats did very well in municipal elections all across Michigan on Tuesday. Mayoral and City Council candidates backed by the Michigan Democratic Party won 65 percent of their races, or 44 out of 68. Ballot questions supported by the MDP such as the Kalamazoo antidiscrimination ordinance and the Macomb County Charter passed.

But the loss in the 19th District really hurt. I personally knocked on doors, he lost by a 2-1 margin and it will be a little harder in 2010 to take back the Senate with a 22-16 GOP advantage. But, after reading some post-election reports I feel much better.

In subscription only Gongwers, Matt Miner, chief of staff to Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop, R-Rochester, was quoted as saying: “When Mark Schauer left, this was our number one priority.” That’s good to hear. Even though Griffin lost by a 2-1 margin, he was outspent by a 4-1 margin. The Republicans had to pay for volunteers, and if this is their best effort and number 1 priority, I feel very good about 2010. In a Republican leaning district, you had to outspend the opponents by a 4-1 margin?

That sure says a lot about the campaigning ability of Congressman Mark Schauer to win twice in that district.

It’s hard to explain how the Republicans are lying about the Michigan State Police HQ in just a sound bite, but we have almost a year to boil the truth down to a one or two sentence response. That’s their big issue.

It was gratifying for Mike’s Nofs own party to also call him out on his lie about the Cobo hall bills that saved the North American International Auto Show for Michigan. Nofs was making a victory lap in the Senate Wednesday, and, according to Gongwer, “He got a pat on the back and a handshake from his new boss, Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop.”

“However, about 20 minutes earlier, in Bishop's first floor Capitol office, there was no back patting on the issue of Cobo Hall and the alleged corruption referred to in a widely seen Nofs TV commercial.”

"It is not the source of corruption," Bishop told WLNS TV-6, with Nofs standing to his left. "It is actually the one bright light in Detroit right now that we can all rally behind."

In fact, Bishop helped write some of the bills.

Sen. Tupac Hunter, D-Detroit, got it right: "If you're willing to play those types of politics, it tells me what type of legislator you'll be,” he said. “That means that you are being divisive. You are going into the old playbook of dividing the state. You are trying to gin up fears . . ."

I can’t wait until 2010.

Calling all cars: its crunch time in the 19th District

It’s crunch time. The Nov. 3 Special Election for the vacant seat in the 19th State Senate District is less than a week away, and Michigan and Rep. Martin Griffin, D-Jackson, need our help.

The campaign is gearing up for the all important “get-out-the-vote,” and special elections are won by the candidate who gets his people to the polls. The Republicans are spending money like a drunken sailor to win the race, and as a former drunken sailor, I know of what I speak.

They are paying for volunteers, and you can’t turn on a Lansing or Jackson TV station and not see a TV commercial from the GOP opponent. He has at least two different commercials, and all are complete lies. He’s floating the lie that the new Michigan State Police building had something to do with the layoff of state Troopers. Expect that lie to be used next November, too. He’s also pushing the Cobo Hall tale, and he’s even trying to acciuse Griffin of voting for federal legislation.

The Griffin campaing is asking people to volunteer beginning on Friday to Election Day on Tuesday. They need people to go door-to-door, make phone calls or any other task needed.

Sign up today.

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.

GOP following the script in the Senate race in the 19th District

Rep. Rick Jones, R-Grand Ledge, called it right back in July when in a letter to the House GOP caucus he pushed for the Michigan State Police headquarters to be the major campaign issue in the 2010 election.

Mike Nofs is following that advice like a script in the race for the vacant seat in the 19th State Senate District next month that will be a preview of the 2010 race. Nofs is running against Rep. Martin Griffin, D-Jackson.

Nofs is running a TV commercial on Lansing TV stations staged with the under construction MSP HQ in downtown Lansing in the background where he spouts the lie that the layoff of 100 State troopers was because of the project.

That is simply not true, and he knows it.

The Republicans are trying to rewrite history and ignore the facts. They are completely ignoring the history of the project. The HQ was first requested by former GOP Gov. John Engler. The original draft of the project, under Engler, drew initial opposition from State Police and Military and Veterans Affairs officials some 10 years ago because the proposal attempted to move some of the emergency management operations into downtown Lansing but did not provide room for the vehicle and other storage needed. It was also too large and luxurious.

After changes were made to make the building smaller, it met the approval of State Police Director Peter Munoz, and Governor Jennifer Granholm requested the building.

The project was then approved on a bi-partisan vote by the Joint Capital Outlay Committee in 2007, as are all state building projects that do not require specific legislation. The committee consists of members from both parties from both the House and Senate. The lease was then approved by the State Administrative Board. Munoz said he supports project, as does the State Police Troopers Association.

The State Administrative Board consists of the Governor, Lieutenant Governor, the Secretary of State, Attorney General, State Treasurer, Superintendent of Public Instruction and the Director of the Department of Transportation. The State Administrative Board has general supervisory control over the administrative activities of all state departments and agencies, including, but not limited to, the approval of contracts and leases, oversight of the state capitol outlay process and the settlement of claims against the state.

The project also brings the State Police into compliance with a constitutional provision requiring that state departments be headquartered in Lansing and with Governor Jennifer Granholm's executive directive (2003-22) that state offices, where possible, be located in central business districts. Michigan State Police want the building back where the majority of the MSP is currently headquartered. Michigan State University wants the building back where the majority of the MSP is currently headquartered.

Nofs then pushed the standard GOP lie that the lease for the new, modern HQ will cost taxpayers $4 million a year more than the current HQ, but that lie ignores two facts. It ignores the fact that it costs in the millions to maintain the current HQ MSU plans to tear down as soon as the MSP leaves, and that the plan is to now buy the building with bonds.

Vote for Martin Griffin on Nov. 3 for some honesty.

Jones plays ‘stinky’ politics with MSP HQ

LANSING – If anyone had any doubts or needed anymore evidence that the almost complete Michigan State Police headquarters in downtown Lansing is nothing but a campaign issue for Republicans, the Lansing State Journal published a letter from Rep. Rick Jones, R-Grand Ledge, to the House GOP caucus where he told them this can be the issue that wins back the House for Republicans and threatened them if they did vote for it.

You will recall that last month Sen. Cameron Brown, R-Sturgis, and a GOP candidate for Secretary of State, managed to attach an amendment to the state police budget that kills the money for the lease payment on a new MSP HQ, set to be completed in the next couple of months. Despite the project going through all the proper steps and bipartisan approvals, Republicans are using it as a campaign issue and making the false claim that it was political payback from the Governor to one of the developers, Joel Ferguson.

Jones called it an “inside stinky deal” despite the fact that the project was approved on a bi-partisan vote by the Joint Capital Outlay Committee in 2007, as are all state building projects that do not require specific legislation. The lease was then approved by the State Administrative Board. that consists of the Governor, Lieutenant Governor, the Secretary of State, Attorney General, State Treasurer, Superintendent of Public Instruction and the Director of the Department of Transportation. The project also went through the proper public bid process.

Jones claims that the “capitol outlay committee was not told all the facts,” but offers none of the facts that were allegedly absent, or that another opponent, Brown, spoke at the meeting. Everything the Republicans do in Lansing is done for political effect, not to benefit the people of Michigan, and Jones proved that. He outlined a campaign for taking back the House in 2010 using the HQ.

“By Oct. 1 we will cut every service and every program that is state funded. Everyone will be pissed,” he wrote.
“(Rep.) Pete Lund (R-Shelby Township) and (Rep) Paul Opsommer (R-DeWitt) where (sic) right when they said there should not be one republican vote for this thing. Imagine how this vote can be used. Picture a postcard with Granholm, (Rep.) Mike Simpson (D-Jackson), and the MSP building on front. On the back it could say: "They supported lining the pockets of developers with millions of dollars while 100 state troopers got laid off." "They supported wasting your tax dollars with a boondoggle that was not needed," "Throw the crooks out! It's time for a change!"

Stating with Jones.

Never mind that it’s a complete lie, and that has never stopped politicians like Jones, who is term-limited in 2010 and looking for his next political job.

Jones also confirmed all Republicans will use it in 2010. (SOS candidate Brown) “made it part of his statewide campaign (standing up to special interests) and (GOP Oakland County Sheriff Mike) Bouchard is going to make it part of his statewide governor campaign. Bouchard invited me to attend that conference. Senator Kahn simply wanted to tell you that returning senators will use the issue and keep it alive. Reporters like Steve Wilson will not let it die.”

He also threatened his fellow Republicans that did not toe the party line and dared to do the right thing and voted for honoring the contract the state made.
“I wish to warn you that if you vote for the MSP HQ lease, you may (sic) held accountable later,” Jones wrote.

They even plan to use it against Rep. Marty Griffin, D-Jackson, running for the vacant seat in the 19th State Senate District with the primary set for next week. It’s just one more political stunt in that race used by the GOP.
“Mike Nofs is beating the hell out of Marty Griffin with it already in their early senate race,” Jones wrote.

Jones even claims the developer threatened him through a lobbyist, and he made lots of false charges about the developer, saying, “the developer openly brags on the golf course about how he owns Lansing and can get away with anything. I heard today in a coffee shop from a businessman that the developer had said he already pocketed 5 million on the deal.”

What a class act Jones is.

GOP using MSP HQ as a false campaign issue

LANSING - The almost complete Michigan State Police headquarters in downtown Lansing has officially become a campaign issue, at least for one Secretary of State candidate, but it is certainly a dead issue.

Rep. Rick Jones, R-Grand Ledge and Oakland Sheriff Mike Bouchard - a Republican candidate for governor- have made the most hay with their opposition to the HQ, but Sen. Cameron Brown, R-Sturgis, and a GOP candidate for Secretary of State, managed to attached an amendment to the state police budget that was approved on June 18 that kills the money for the lease payment. Senate Bill 253 was approved by a vote of 26-9. Brown, of course, ignored the fact it will cost almost as much to maintain the older HQ as it does to lease a brand new, high-tech HQ.

People are upset of the layoff of 100 state troopers last week, and critics like Brown, Jones and Bouchard are making the claim that a building can’t respond to an emergency like 100 Troopers can. However, the bill does not bring the troopers back, and the House will again have to be the responsible one and do the right thing and live up to the contract it approved and pay for the lease. But Brown has a feather in his cap for the campaign trail.

Brown also completely ignores the history of the project. The HQ was first requested by former GOP Gov. John Engler. The original draft of the project, under Engler, drew initial opposition from State Police and Military and Veterans Affairs officials because the proposal attempted to move some of the emergency management operations into downtown Lansing but did not provide room for the vehicle and other storage needed. It was also too large and luxurious.

After changes were made to make the building smaller, it met the approval of State Police Director Peter Munoz, and Governor Jennifer Granholm requested the building.

The project was then approved on a bi-partisan vote by the Joint Capital Outlay Committee in 2007, as are all state building projects that do not require specific legislation. The committee consists of members from both parties from both the House and Senate.

The lease was then approved by the State Administrative Board. Brown spoke against the building then in 2007, but Munoz said he supports project, as does the State Police Troopers Association.

The State Administrative Board consists of the Governor, Lieutenant Governor, the Secretary of State, Attorney General, State Treasurer, Superintendent of Public Instruction and the Director of the Department of Transportation. The State Administrative Board has general supervisory control over the administrative activities of all state departments and agencies, including, but not limited to, the approval of contracts and leases, oversight of the state capitol outlay process and the settlement of claims against the state.

Brown’s grandstand campaign stunt to bar the lease payments came just one day after Republican Attorney General Mike Cox - also a GOP candidate for Governor - said the state could get out of the contract on the building by not appropriating money for the building. That seems kind of funny considering he is a member of the State Administrative Board that intimately approved the lease.

The project brings the State Police into compliance with a constitutional provision requiring that state departments be headquartered in Lansing and with Governor Jennifer Granholm's executive directive (2003-22) that state offices, where possible, be located in central business districts. Michigan State University wants the building back where the majority of the MSP is currently headquartered.

The GOP claims are becoming increasing screechy and false, and they continue to ignore the facts and try to blame a bipartisan decision on the just Democrats. The official unofficial GOP blog, Wrong Michigan, is trying float the lie that Michigan State University Trustee and MSP HQ developer Joel Ferguson is a Democratic sugar daddy and a close friend of Granholm, but the fact is he also contributes to Republicans. They also continue to push the lie that it was a no-bid contract, but the truth is Ferguson’s company was the only company to submit a bid.

Jones has gone off the rails opposing the project. According to Michigan Messenger, Jones is pushing the lie that the state police are in favor of scrapping the project, and alleged that Munoz was pressured politically to testify that he supported the move into the new headquarters or lose his job. That is a complete lie. Munoz’s support for the project has never wavered.

In addition to the construction jobs that will be lost if the project is killed just months before it is supposed to be complete, what kind of message does it send if after approving a contract and going through all of the proper steps, the state reneges on a contract just to look good for voters?

Even rightwing extremist GOP Sen. Alan Cropsey questioned how it would look for the state to refuse to occupy a building two governors asked for and was approved with bipartisan support.

“I just don’t think it is right to have a building built, and then at the end of that time period, tell the contractor saying, ‘We are sorry, but we are not going to use it now,’” he said. “ I just think that that is wrong, and I think the state ought to hold to what every body knows is supposed to be a State Police headquarters.”

Legislature breaks without addressing public health issue that kills and sickens thousands

LANSING – With the Legislature on a two-week summer break, it seems fitting to look at what did not get done during the marathon session last Thursday that ran to 1 a.m. Friday morning in the Senate.

Although there was a solution out there, 100 Michigan State Troopers will still lose their jobs this week. The House passed a supplemental bill using some restricted funds to save the jobs, but the Senate never took it up. Sen. Valde Garcia, R-Howell, the chair of the MSP Appropriations Sub-Committee, said he had a way to save the jobs.

But my pet peeve and that of thousands of other Michigan residents is the Senate’s failure to take up the workplace smoking ban. The House passed House Bill 4377 in May with bipartisan support, but the Republican controlled Senate refuses to take it up, despite some 70 percent of Michigan residents supporting it.

Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop, R-Rochester, does not support a ban, and he has said he will not consider a ban that has exceptions like HB 4377 does. No problem; then take up Senate Bill 114 that has no exceptions so or an amended version of HB 4377 so it can get in a conference committee with time to spare instead of at the last minute like last year.

Here are some important bills they passed that night instead of taking up the workplace smoking ban. HB 4897, a bill to create an exception to a requirement that a hunter wear hunter orange; SB 470, a bill to require a retailer selling beer kegs to attach an ID tag to it; and SB 483, a bill to specify that a person accompanying a licensed hunter on a bear or bobcat hunt does not have to be licensed, as long as he or she does not carry a weapon or own or possess dogs used during the hunt.

Now, these bills are important to someone in Michigan, but nothing personally touches people like deadly secondhand smoke, costs taxpayers more money and has more support than a workplace smoking ban.

Why is the Senate sitting on this important public health issue?

Senate Republicans put office budgets ahead of public safety

LANSING – Senate Republicans had an opportunity to save some the jobs of some of the 80 Michigan state Troopers who will be laid off because of an Executive Order approved by the Senate and House Appropriations Committees earlier this week that cut $350 million front the current state budget that only has five months left, but they chose to keep the extra $3.5 million for themselves.

The Democrats tried to discharge Senate Resolution 15, sponsored by Sen. Gretchen Whitmer, D-East Lansing, from committee for a second time Thursday, but it was again defeated along party lines, 21-16. The resolution would set the office budgets the same for both Republicans and Democrats. Under the current situation, GOP Senate offices have five full-time staffers, but Democrats only have three. Over in the Democratic controlled House, each office has the same amount of staffers; two in each office, regardless of party. The money saved would go to the State Police Budget.

“Certainly, you Republicans can serve and operate your office budgets on the same amount in which we Democrats serve our constituents,” Whitmer said. “These are challenging times, and the Senate should show some leadership and step up on behalf of public safety in the state of Michigan.”

Why are constituents who live in the 21 Michigan Senate Districts represented by Republicans deserve better service than the 16 – currently – districts represented by Democrats? That was the simple question asked by Senate Minority Leader Buzz Thomas, D-Detroit.

“I see no reason why the Senator from Kentwood should have more money to represent his constituents as the Senator from the City of Detroit,” Thomas said. “That just doesn’t make sense. Are my constituents any different? I don’t think so.”

Senate Majority Floor Leader Alan Cropsey, R-DeWitt, by far the most bombastic and partisan lawmaker in Lansing, made the claim that the GOP needed the two extra employers because the GOP is in the majority, and they are committee chairs. He never explained why the Democrats who control the House have the same amount of staffers as the minority Republicans. Even if the disparity was three staffers to four instead of five, there would be enough money to keep at least 21 troopers.

He then tried the ridiculous tack that the House Democrats have bigger office budgets, and that the Senate Democrats – and Whitmer - should also go to Washington, D.C. and tell them what to do.

“Well, I would suggest that maybe she walk across the rotunda and tell the Speaker of the House to equalize everyone’s budget over there,” Cropsey said. “I would suggest that maybe she go to Washington, D.C., where the Democrats have total dictatorial powers and suggest to them that maybe they ought to start playing fair and not do partisanship.”

But Thomas pointed out that even if the budgets in the House were equal like they were in 2006 when Democrats took control of the House, it would only saved $200,000 instead of $3.5 million.

“Well, the House already has acted, and the disparity that exists there is about $200,000 for 110 members, and out of our 37 members, $3.5 million,” Thomas said. “That, to me, sounds outrageous. It sounds like crocodile tears being cried on the other side.”

That was a view held by the Michigan State Troopers Association (MSPTA).

"The Troopers Association has tremendous concerns regarding the effect these layoffs will have on all of public safety," said MSPTA Vice President Christopher Luty, according to subscription only MIRS. "We appreciate that our lawmakers are willing to consider any measure that will keep our troopers working."

To avoid further embarrassment, the Senate Republicans used their majority to push a measure that will not allow the Resolution to be taken up until Dec. 31. It will remain in the Committee on Government Operations and Reform, where bills go to die because it rarely meets.

The executive order approved Tuesday was the result of the Governor working with the legislative leaders in the House and Senate. The cuts include across the board cuts to every state department of at least 4 percent, cutting more than 200 state jobs, requiring at least six unpaid furlough days by state workers and cuts to local governments of more than $41 million.

Why isn’t the Republic Party rejoicing over layoffs

I’m a little perplexed about all the fuss from Republicans over the possible layoff of 30 Michigan State Troopers by April 1 if a fix of the estimated $300 million hole in the current state budget isn’t patched.

Isn’t this what the Republicans want? Don’t they want less government and less state employees? Isn’t turning the clock back to the 1970’s what they want?

Just last Thursday Senate Republicans rejected the Governor’s executive order to cut almost $200 million in spending from the current budget because it did not include enough cuts. Of course, last summer’s early repeal by the Republic Party of Single Business Tax without a replacement demonstrated how irresponsible they can be, and the rejection of the EO without a plan of their own on the table is just one more irresponsible, grandstanding move on their part. They want more cuts, but they just don’t have the guts or backbone to tell Michigan residents what they are.

Of course, we knew they were not going to tell us what they planned to cut because of the SBT repel because it was an election year. What’s their excuse now for a lack of a backbone this time around?

If an agreement is not reached on budget cuts by April 1 the 30 Trooper layoffs would drop on-the-road trooper strength close to 1,000, the lowest in more than 30 years, said officials at the Michigan State Police Troopers Association in the Detroit News. This will be the first round of trooper layoffs since 1980. I say so what?

Isn’t this what the Republic Party wants?

Taxes have been cut every year for the last 15 years, and the Governor has signed 93 tax cuts since she took office in 2002. She has had to do this while making $4 billon in cuts to erase the budget deficit left in her lap from the previous Governor. There is simply nothing left to cut and still stay competitive with other states and provide essential services.

So what if we have fewer troopers on the road than we did 34 years ago? Isn’t that what the Republic Party wants?

We have less state employees now then we did in 1973, despite having more than a million more residents. The state work force has declined by about 9,000 over just the past six years alone. Because of cuts in revenue sharing to local governments since September 11, 2001 when all we can talk about is being safe, protecting our borders and keeping us safe from terrorists we have 1,600 less police officers on the street. What’s 30 less going to matter?

Isn’t that what the Republic Party wants?

Gov. Jennifer Granholm’s 12-person, bipartisan Emergency Financial Advisory Panel - made up of two former governors and state budget directors, legislative leaders and longtime Lansing policy experts from both political parties – said cuts alone would not fix this budget crisis, and the governor has proposed a 2 penny levy on services to help keep police on the streets and other essential services. For the average family that will mean an increase of about $1.33 a week, or the cost of a cup of coffee. Apparently, that’s too much for the Republic Party, yet they still squawk at the real cuts their stinginess will cause.

Fine. Where’s your plan?

It seems ironic that that Sen. Valde Garcia, R-Howell, who chairs the subcommittee that handles the State Police budget, said, "I'm a little concerned. The main job of the Legislature and the governor is to ensure public safety. Laying off troopers makes that much more difficult."

Are you not the same Valde Garcia who voted against the Governor’s commons sense Executive Order last week, and instead of offering an alternative plan played politics with people’s lives and engaged in political grandstanding? The obvious answer is yes.