Appointment means SOS will not be nonpartisan

We are learning why Republican career politician and Secretary of State-Elect Ruth Johnson refused to take an Oath of Nonpartisanship during the election like Democratic candidate Jocelyn Benson did.

As my friends at Living Blue pointed out, Johnson - the state’s elections administrator - hired Hartland Township resident Allan Filip as the SOS’s “director of external affairs.” County residents will remember Filip as the former chair of the Livingston County Republican Party.

In the two years he was the chair, he was, perhaps, one of the most partisan chairs the party ever had. Under his “leadership,” he attempted to politicize nonpartisan elections, improperly tried to influence a bond issue and made a false accusation that the county Democrats carried signs depicting “hate speech” in the Melonfest parade.

That sorry performance earned him a promotion to the Michigan Republican Party in 2009 where he was named as the “director of field operations.”
It appears his role with the SOS is just one more partisan job.

The choice is clear on Tuesday: Benson over ‘No Truth Ruth’

If you want to make sure Michigan’s elections are run fairly and in a nonpartisan way and that campaign finance law will be enforced fairly for all political parties, then the clear choice for Michigan Secretary of State on Tuesday in Jocelyn Benson.

She is the only candidate who has taken a pledge of non partisanship. In that pledge, Benson pledges that she will not co-chair any campaigns or endorse any candidates running in elections where she will serve as the final certifier of results. We saw the problems in Florida in 2000 that made them the laughing stock and the butt of the nation’s jokes because their SOS was the chair of George Bush’s campaign in Florida. The pledge makes sure that does not happen.

If that common sense measure does not do the trick, then you just need to look at Benson’s impressive résumé as the Wayne State Law professor makes her first run at public office.

At Wayne State University she not only teaches election law, but she has also published the first major book on the role of the Secretary of State in enforcing election and campaign finance laws. Benson also served as the Voting Rights Policy Coordinator of the Harvard Civil Rights Project, where she worked on the passage of the Help America Vote Act, the federal law that improved election law standards in the wake of the 2000 Presidential recount. And in 2004 she helped with the Democratic Party’s national voter protection effort, recruiting, selecting and training Voter Protection coordinators in 21 states with the goal of ensuring that the 2004 election was conducted with integrity in accordance with the law.

During the 2008 election, Benson led a successful effort to ban the use of foreclosure lists to challenge voters’ eligibility on Election Day.

After earning her B.A. at Wellesley College, Benson began her career at the Southern Poverty Law Center, investigating hate groups and hate crimes throughout the country. She earned a Master of Philosophy as a Marshall Scholar at Oxford University in the United Kingdom, and subsequently earned her law degree from Harvard Law School.

Now, I don’t really have a problem with a so-called “career politician,” but if you do, her opponent, Ruth Johnson, is the very definition of it. However, in a job that thrives on being nonpartisan, a partisan career politician is not the best choice for this job.

Because Johnson is a career politician, the false, partisan attacks on Benson have been relentless. To combat the constant lies from Johnson, the Michigan Democratic Party has launched a web site appropriately called “No Truth Ruth” to combat those lies.

“In a desperate attempt to win this office, Ruth Johnson and her cronies at the Republican Party have spread malicious lies about Jocelyn Benson,” said MDP Chair Mark Brewer. “We launched this website today to dispel those rumors, and put out the truth.”

One of the dog whistles to call and excite the GOP base is to mention humanitarian billionaire George Soros, who is hated by the right because he is one of the few billionaires who contributes to Democrats and liberal causes.

The GOP recently launched an ad that claims Benson has ties to Soros, has participated in voter fraud and is connected to the so-called “fake Tea Party scandal.”

“These allegations are completely false,” Brewer said. “Jocelyn Benson is the only candidate that has spent her career advocating for issues related to this office. It’s pretty clear that the GOP used these scare tactics to once again, deceive voters.”

The website also offers real information on Ruth Johnson, including Johnson’s false claims of non-partisanship, companies that support her campaign but violate campaign finance laws and Ruth Johnson’s erroneous claim that she will bring new solutions to Lansing.

Selection of Johnson as the GOP SOS nominee kills another teabagger talking point

The selection of Oakland County Clerk Ruth Johnson as the Republican nominee for Michigan Secretary of State at their disorganized and chaotic convention on Saturday busts another teabagger myth.

There near take over of the convention and their uproar over placing a teabagger party on the November ballot dispelled the myth that this was a nonpartisan, grassroots effort that was neither Republican nor Democratic, and that proved that the fake, Astroturf teabagger farce is just the militant arm of the GOP.

One claim the teabaggers have made on many occasions is that they are not fans of "career politicians," yet the majority of teabggers supported Johnson. If you look up the phrase "career politician" you may find her photo.

The question that needs to be asked is what hasn’t Johnson ran for.

I don’t have a problem with career politicians, but the hypocrisy of teabggers is just stunning.

She started out as an Oakland County Commissioner. She then ran and won in the State House and was term-limited there. She then ran as clerk and won. In 2006 she was the Amway’s guy’s Lt. Gubernatorial candidate, and she went back to being the clerk after the two got spanked in the election. Now, she’s the SOS candidate.

That is in sharp contrast to Democratic SOS nominee Wayne State University law Professor Jocelyn Benson, and a first time candidate. The person officially nominating her at Sunday’s Michigan Democratic Parry convention in Detroit said it very well when she said people don’t wake up one day as children saying they want to be Secretary of State, but Benson’s résumé makes it look that way. Her qualifications are very impressive.

Benson graduated magna cum laude from Wellesley College. She subsequently earned her Masters in Sociology as a Marshall Scholar at Oxford University, and she received her J.D from Harvard Law School, where she was a general editor of the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review. Benson also worked as the Voting Rights Policy Coordinator for the Harvard Civil Rights Project, worked as a summer associate for voting rights and election law for the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund and she was an investigative journalist for the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Former lawmaker’s excessive absences are a Republican joke

One of the minor badges of honor in Lansing is for lawmakers is to get the quote of the day in subscription only MIRS.

Last Thursday honor that went to Rep. Tory Rocca, R-Sterling Heights, and it was about somebody those of us who live here in Livingston County know well, former Rep. Chris Ward, R-Brighton, who was term-limited last January.

“I think I've seen you here more this session than last session,” Rocca said on the House floor referring to Ward.

Ward, who once served as Brighton Township Clerk, is currently the deputy clerk/register of deeds for Oakland County Clerk Ruth Johnson, a former state Representative who served a term with Ward. Johnson and Ward were in town again to support legislation that would allow some county clerks to calculate the money someone would need to come up with to redeem foreclosed property.

The House passed that legislation, House Bill 5267, by a vote of 73-28 vote, and it would allow, but not require, the registers of deeds in Oakland, Macomb, and Kent counties to calculate the amount of money necessary to redeem a foreclosed property.

Ward was a Republican marked for greater things, and he served one of his three terms as the House Majority Floor Leader. When I knew him as the chair of the Livingston County Republican Party, the Brighton Clerk and even his first term in the House he was a really nice guy, but that seemed to change. His heavy-handed tactics as Majority Floor Leader soured relationships between the two parties and made bipartisanship impossible.
He did do the right thing while in the minority when he voted with the Democrats to raise the state income tax to avoid a brief government shutdown on October 2007.

Rocca, of course, was joking, but like good comedy, there is a grain of truth to it. Ward missed more votes and more days of work than any lawmaker during the 94th Legislative session that just ended on Dec. 30. I was volunteering for his opponent in the race, and my critics like to point out that I’m still bitter over that loss. They are, of course, right. If he was not going to show up for his last term why run?