Brewer squashes McCain’s false maverick claim

HOWELL -- Michigan Democrat Party Chair Mark Brewer was supposed to talk about the sweeping Reform Michigan Government Now ballot question Tuesday, but a decision by the Michigan Supreme Court to keep it off the ballot put a crimp in that.

“You all probably know by now that the Supreme Court tanked the speech he was going to give,” said retired Livingston County Circuit Court before Judge Daniel Burress, who introduced Brewer. “The court is not going to let Joe six-pack like us vote on it.”

A major topic of discussion was the state Supreme Court race between Cliff Taylor and Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Diane Marie Hathaway. Taylor leads the Republican majority of activist judges known as the “Gang of Four” that has been rated the worst court in the country.

Burress has his own view of the court, and it’s not good. He said he got a sense of the court’s disdain for the common person over a simple slip and fall case when a blind man slipped on ice and injured himself using the restroom. He said it was tossed out of court because the hazard was “preventable and obvious.”

“That’s the type pf ruling the court has used to throw cases out of court,” he said.

The comprehensive RMGN will amend the Michigan Constitution, and it will fundamentally change Michigan government. To name just a few of the many complex changes it will address, it cuts the Supreme Court Justices to five members, from seven, reduces the Court of Appeals by seven members and adds 10 circuit court judges. The House would be cut to 82 members from the current 110 and the Senate to 28 from 38 and half of the Senate seats would be decided at each election. It also cuts pay and benefits of legislators.

“We have some fine state legislators, but they are not sharing the sacrifices everyone else is making,” Brewer said. “It’s about sharing sacrifice.”

A ballot question to have a constitutional convention will automatically be on the ballot in 2010, and Brewer was asked why not wait until then. Brewer said it would take at least five years before any changes were seen, it would be too expensive and too partisan.

“We can’t wait, it’s too expensive, and too partisan,” he said.

Brewer had plenty to day about the McCain/Palin ticket.

“I really have to laugh when John McCain and Sarah Palin claim to be reformers,” he said. “He says he will fight the lobbyists, but he has Washington lobbyists running his campaign. “

He said the two have received massive amounts of money from big oil, and McCain’s claim to be a “maverick” is ridiculous.

“When he first came to Washington he was part of the Keating 5, a major scandal,” he said. “That wasn’t a very good start.”

He said Palin was vetted so badly by the McCain camp that news is breaking daily on her dismal record and questionable ethics. The most recent is she accepted per diem for travel when she worked at home.

“It’s our job to be the truth squad for the next two months,” he said.

State Democratic chair in Howell to talk about sweeping RMGN

Michigan Democratic Party Chair Mark Brewer will be in downtown Howell at 7 p.m. Tuesday to speak about the ballot proposal called “Reform Michigan Government Now.”

He will be at the beautiful and historic Howell Opera House, 123 W. Grand River Ave. The event includes an appetizer and dessert buffet for a suggested donation of $15 per person.

The sweeping RMGN will amend the Michigan Constitution, and it will fundamentally change Michigan government. To name just a few of the many complex changes, it cuts the Supreme Court Justices to five members, from seven, reduces the Court of Appeals by seven members and adds 10 circuit court judges. The House would be cut to 82 members from the current 110 and the Senate to 28 from 38 and half of the Senate seats would be decided at each election.

New reapportionment requirements would be established, including the creation of at least four Senate and nine House swing districts in an attempt to produce more competitive elections; districts would be drawn by a nine-member commission, with six votes required to approve any plan; it would not be subject to change or repeal by voters, the legislative or executive branches and judicial review would be limited. Elections would be overseen by an autonomous nonpartisan.

Some of these things I support without question, like the some the things in the reapportionment process. Others, I am not so sure. But this is what I do know, each proposal should stand on its own and merit’s a separate ballot question and debate. Instead, we will have voters vote on something they do not understand.

This has been pushed by the Democrats, but apparently not all Democrats were aware of it or involved in the complex process. Supporters are using a few simple lines to sell it. According toe the front page of the web site: The Reform Michigan Government Now! proposal will:

“Reduce the salaries of executive branch officials, legislators and judges
End free lifetime health care for lawmakers and bring their retirement benefits in line with other state workers.”

Now, who can be against that? Well, me for one. If you want the best, smartest and most able people to represent you then you have to pay them an attractive salary. But that small blurb sells this complex proposal to people who are still upset over last year’s budget process.

It appears unlikely this will even make it on the ballot. Right-wingers are deadest against it, and they are pulling out all the tricks to stop it. That almost tempts me to vote for it.

It was sent to the Michigan Supreme Court, and that court is so politically biased to the right the proposal will surely lose there. The court would rule on arguments that the Board of State Canvassers should have an opportunity to decide on the ballot language for the proposal before the courts have a say on the issue. One of the arguments opponents of the proposed constitutional amendment is it is too complex to properly boil down to a 100-word summary. If have to agree with that.

The rumor in Lansing is many Democratic lawmakers are upset with the proposal, and they feel they are being hung out to dry and blamed for the some of the problems facing the state.

Now, for full disclosure, I work in a legislative office, but I have always been a strong supporter of representative government. This is not representative government. The rumor is many lawmakers are upset with Brewer, and some chose to skip the state convention on Saturday. Now, I have no idea if that is true or not.

But I was at the convention and I counted a total of 13 state lawmakers out of a total of 75 Democratic state lawmakers. Now, I could have missed a few, and some of the House members in close races took advantage of the beautiful Saturday weather to go door-to-door. But that would still give us a percentage around 20 percent.

I like and have enormous respect for Mr. Brewer, but I don’t understand the reason for this far reaching proposal.

We need a state Constitutional Convention to examine each of these complex issues. Now, as anyone who can tell from reading my blog, I think Republicans are out of touch, irrelevant and bankrupt of ideas. But the fact remains they probably represent more than 40 percent of Michigan residents.

Clearly, they were not at the table when these proposals were drafted. They need to be at the table. Generally, compromise, debate and give-and-take gives us better public policy.

Just say no to complex ballot issue

Reform Michigan Government Now turned in almost 500,000 signatures to the Secretary of State on Monday to place the ballot proposal on the November ballot that will make a number of changes to the structure of state government.

Right-wingers have come out against this petition drive, and even though some of their reasons for opposing it borders on the hysterical and ridiculous, I agree with some of the reasons for opposition, and if it makes it on the ballot I will vote against it. According to the group's new web site, the proposal will “Reduce the salaries of executive branch, end free lifetime health care for lawmakers and bring their retirement benefits in line with other state workers and increase transparency by requiring elected officials to disclose their income and assets every year. I agree that those things need to be looked at, but it does much, much more than that.

It would also cut the Supreme Court Justices to five members, from seven, reduces the Court of Appeals by seven members and adds 10 circuit court judges. There is no doubt the Supreme Court is firmly in the pocket of insurance companies and big corporations, but what needs to change is how Justices are selected.

The House would be cut to 82 members from the current 110 and the Senate to 28 from 38 and half of the Senate seats would be decided at each election.

New reapportionment requirements would be established, including the creation of at least four Senate and nine House swing districts in an attempt to produce more competitive elections; districts would be drawn by a nine-member commission, with six votes required to approve any plan; it would not be subject to change or repeal by voters, the legislative or executive branches and judicial review would be limited.

Elections would be overseen by an autonomous nonpartisan agency.

The number of allowed departments would be cut to 18, from 20, and no more than 200 boards and commissions would be permitted.

Many of these proposals I agree with, some I don’t and some I simply do not have enough information on to make a decision. Neither will voters. These complex proposals, at the least, should be taken one at a time. Frankly, I am not a fan of legislating by petition. We elect people to represent us in our representative democracy, and they make laws after plenty of debate, analysis by nonpartisan agencies, committee hearings and debate on the respective House or Senate floors. To me, that’s the best way to make laws and policy.

I’m also not crazy about the petition drive itself. I do not believe the baseless charges of fraud make by the Republicans, but the fact is there was not a lot of publicity, openness and visibility of the drive. I’m pretty politically active, and I never saw a petition.

I urge people to vote no if this makes it on the ballot, and instead to call for a state Constitutional Convention to address some of the important issues brought out in the petition.