Griffin endorsed by The Jackson Citizen Patriot

The Jackson Citizen Patriot endorsed Rep. Martin Griffin, D-Jackson, for the vacant state Senate seat in the 19th District that includes Jackson and Calhoun Counties.

The editorial board got it right on the lies put out by Republican opponent in the constant barrage of TV commercials, saying “In contrast to the advertising against him, Griffin has always projected an image of predictable (if sometimes prickly) moderation.

The editorial board was very polite in calling the GOP opponent what he is, instead saying, “The lines of reasoning in the anti-Griffin advertising are that he is a tax-and-spend liberal, a supporter of a lavish state police headquarters and a sugar daddy for Detroit. These claims are misleading.”

I’ll be a little more direct that the newspaper; they are outright lies, and that says all you need to know about the Republican opponent.

With just two days left before the election, the Griffin campaign needs your help in the all-important get-out-the-vote effort. Call (517) 392-0800 or (269) 425-4333 to help.

Video highlights Griffin’s bipartisan support

Supporters of Rep. Martin Griffin, D-Jackson, have been working hard to make up for the massive amount of money spent by his opponent to buy the vacant seat in the 19th state Senate seat with hard work.

Although Griffin does not have the money to buy TV time like his opponent, the campaign has put together an excellent video that really displays the wide and bipartisan support Griffin has. It talks about his values with some of his many supporters, and it does not attack or push lies like his opponent’s TV ads do.

Some of the money used to purchase the false TV ads came from the biggest GOP benefactor, the DeVos family. The attempt by Dick DeVos to buy the governorship in 2006 failed, so they are trying to purchase a Senate seat.

“This is politics as usual for the DeVos family,” said Michigan Democratic Party Chair Mark Brewer. “They’ve sent our jobs to China and now they’re sending them to Costa Rica at a time when our state can least afford it. Now they’re giving money to Mike Nofs, who will protect their interests in Lansing and will help to send Michigan jobs overseas.”

The campaign and volunteers are hard at work at the all important “get-out-the-vote” effort. The conventional wisdom is that elections are won by the candidate who gets his people to the polls, and they can use your help over the next five days.

Call (517) 392-0800 or (269) 425-4333 to help.

Sen. Scott vows not to give up the fight for fairness

For almost seven years, Sen. Martha G. Scott, D-Highland Park, has fought against the practice known as insurance “redlining.” Redlining means an insurance company refuses to insure an auto or home based solely on the geographic area where the person lives, provides an inferior product based on geography or at a higher price.

Every session day, Sen. Scott has gotten up and given a speech, urging the majority party to move her bills. It went without saying that the plea included a committee hearing with testimony from the people hurt by redlining and an honest debate.

That didn’t happen, and the bill was discharged from committee Wednesday with no hearing or advance notice just to be defeated. The following is Sen. Scott’s statement following the devastating vote.

You may have heard already that in a surprise vote, the Senate on Wednesday defeated my bill to ban territorial rate setting for auto and home insurance.

The Republican defeat of my bill to prohibit the use of territories when setting auto and homeowner insurance rates is a slap in the face to all the hard-working citizens of Michigan who pay unfair, exorbitant insurance rates.

For years now I have been asking for action and hearings on my bills to reform auto and homeowner insurance rates in Michigan. Today the Senate Republicans decided to discharge my bill to ban rate setting by territories to the Senate floor only to then vote against this bill that would have made insurance rates fair for citizens across Michigan. This kind of game-playing has no place in the debate on this very important ‘pocketbook’ issue for Michigan citizens.

Senate Republicans discharged Senate Bill 166 after I rose to give my daily statement on insurance issues in which I referenced an October 14 Grand Rapids Press editorial that spoke out against the insurance industry’s use of credit scores to determine a person’s auto insurance rates. SB 166 would ban the practice of using where a person lives to determine how much their insurance would cost. Senate Republicans defeated an amendment that would have given everyone an immediate 20 percent cut in their rates, a provision that addressed Republican concerns that lower rates for citizens living in metro/urban areas would drive up rates for citizens living in other areas of the state.

If we are going to require that every driver carry auto insurance then we need to make sure that the rates they are charged are fair, and right now these rates are anything but fair. Insurance rates should be based on the car a person drives, that person’s driving record, and the distance that person regularly drives. If we adopted these common sense changes to our auto insurance laws then we would no longer pay the 12th highest rates in the country, and our citizens living in our metro/urban areas would no longer pay the highest rates in the country.

The insurance industry argues that one reason for setting rates by territory is because of the high rate of accidents or auto thefts in some areas of the state. However, the Michigan Auto Theft Prevention Authority reported in February that auto thefts in Detroit fell 14.2 percent from 2006 to 2007. Statewide, vehicle thefts have plummeted 42 percent since 1986. Yet insurance rates have not gone down.

Senate Republicans did a great injustice this week to all the hard-working Michigan families who are trying to survive in a very tough economy. My bill deserved thoughtful consideration: a committee hearing so that people could come in and testify followed by debate on the Senate floor. Instead the Republican voted my bill to the Senate floor so that they could defeat it and deny Michigan citizens fair and affordable auto insurance rates. My bill may have gone down to defeat but I will continue calling for auto insurance reform and fair rates for everyone.

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.

Monroe County Democrats mourn the loss of a dedicated and close friend

My friends at the Monroe County Democratic Party are grieving over the loss of their close friend and dedicated activitist Otis Henderson.

He suffered a very severe brain aneurysm on Wednesday evening. On Thursday, the doctors removed him from all equipment, except for the ventilator, and on Friday evening, the hospital staff removed Otis from the ventilator. However, he was such a young, strong man and a fighter that he did not pass away until 12:30 a.m. today.

A memorial account set up in Otis’ name at Fifth Third Bank. The family requests you provide the account number when making a donation to this fund. That account number is 9341471218. You can make a donation at any Fifth Third Bank branch nationwide, and the donation is in lieu of flowers. Funeral services are pending at Merkle Funeral Home in Monroe.

The leadership of the party is devastated because Otis was much more than a dedicated and dependable volunteer who showed up on any and every occasion, as well as photographing events for them, he was their close friend. The party is renaming the annual chili cook-off set for Nov. 21 in his honor, calling it the Annual Otis Henderson Memorial Chili Cook-Off.

I only interacted with Otis a few times, but he made you feel like you were old friends. I marched with him in the Monroe County Fair Parade in August and later that day volunteered with him at the party’s booth at the fair. I saw him again during the Labor Day dedication of the Monroe Labor Museum.

Don’t forget to make a donation in his memory at the Fifth Third Bank, account number 9341471218.

Another GOP false talking point bites the dust

Republicans have their favorite whipping boys and boogyman, and in Michigan, state employees are a bigger target than even ACORN.

However, their claim that state employees are overpaid and state government continues grow has already been debunked. In August, respected Michigan State University professor of economics Charles Ballard issued a report that said state employees earn less than their private-sector counterparts with comparable educational attainment. The report also confirmed what we already know: state government is smaller now than it was in 1973. But that hasn’t stopped Republicans, like the rightwing think tank Mackinac Center, from continuing to make the claim that state government is bloated and workers are overpaid.

Republicans have fudged a bit in the face of actual facts, and the new lie is that state workers aren’t making the same kinds of sacrifices the private sector is. An article in the Detroit News last week debunks that lie, and it found that state employees have been hit as hard or harder than private sector workers.

The report said, in fact, that state government is only about 80 percent of what it was at the beginning of this decade, and it’s going to get smaller.

“Michigan's eight-year recession has slashed one in six state workers and one in five state government dollars. Since 2000, the state has shed the equivalent of three auto assembly plants worth of workers -- a busload of employees taking their personal belongings and their last paychecks home every two weeks.”

Tourism has been one of the few bright spots in the Michigan economy as people come here to take advantage of the state’s beautiful and unique natural resources, yet the people who look after those valuable assets, the Department of Natural Resources, has 38 percent fewer employees than in 2000. Agriculture is another bright spot in Michigan, yet one in four Department of Agriculture employees is gone just since the beginning of the decade.

The caseload for Department of Human Services’ workers has risen more than 20 percent since 2000, but the department has lost more than 3,600 employees over that same period.

Demand for government services goes up during a recession because more people need help, yet those services are cut; a fact noted by Professor Ballard.

The Mackinac Center, of course, disagrees, and it claims - even in the face of those facts - that state government has grown during the recession. It says total spending from state resources is up 7 percent in the 2008-09 budget year than in 2001.

But the News debunked that, noting that:

“But those figures don't take into account inflation. While the state's total spending over the eight years increased 7 percent (reaching $27.5 billion in '08-'09), inflation during the same period was triple that (21.7 percent).

“When adjusted for inflation, total spending has decreased 14 percent. Spending from the general fund, the Legislature's main source of discretionary money, is down 21 percent. By comparison, Ohio's general fund was down less than 2 percent, and Indiana's increased 5 percent.”

Another GOP false talking point bites the dust.

Another day another report that says secondhand smoke kills

Just in case there was any doubt cast on the U.S. Surgeon General’s and the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) conclusion that there is no safe amount of second smoke and that it kills, the nonprofit, nongovernmental Institute of Medicine (IOM) confirmed that with a report of its own that says the same thing.

Earlier this month, the IOM issues a report called “Secondhand Smoke Exposure and Cardiovascular Effects: Making Sense of the Evidence.” The report concludes “smoking bans are effective at reducing the risk of heart attacks and heart disease associated with exposure to secondhand smoke.” Reports and evidence like this continue to come out almost monthly, but the Michigan Legislature continues to sit on their hands, making Michigan one of only 13 states who refuse to protect the majority of its citizens who do not smoke from deadly secondhand smoke.

"It's clear that smoking bans work," said Lynn Goldman, professor of environmental health sciences, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, and chair of the committee of experts that wrote the report. "Bans reduce the risks of heart attack in nonsmokers as well as smokers. Further research could explain in greater detail how great the effect is for each of these groups and how secondhand smoke produces its toxic effects. However, there is no question that smoking bans have a positive health effect."

I agree with the editorial board of the Jackson Citizen Patriot when it says:
“We hope lawmakers, who have toyed with a smoking ban the last couple of years, will take these findings seriously. Once they finish the drama with the overdue state budget, passing a ban ought to be their next order of business.”

Based on what the Legislature has been taking up in the last couple of weeks, like a bill allowing fuzzy dice to be hung on an automobile’s rear view mirror, they can find the time to pass something that has overwhelming and bipartisan support that protects the public health.

The Institute of Medicine (IOM) is an independent, nonprofit organization that works outside of government to provide unbiased and authoritative advice to decision makers and the public. Established in 1970, the IOM is the health arm of the National Academy of Sciences, which was chartered under President Abraham Lincoln in 1863.

Push poll ignores the fact that the Governor was sent a school aid budget bill that was not properly funded

The rightwing noise machine went into high gear after Gov. Jennifer Granholm vetoed $54 million from House Bill 4447, the School aid funding bill.

The money was cut for the 40, 20J or “hold harmless districts” that have higher funding levels than other school districts. The Governor also cut $127 cut per student as part of a proration that was dictated by shrinking revenues.

One example was a push poll on rightwing radio station WBCK in Battle Creek. It asks: “Why did Governor Granholm cut funding to schools more than the budget required?”

It seems like a reasonable question, until you look at the answers the poll provided. The real answer is that the Governor was sent a bill that was not properly funded. According to subscription only Gongwers:

“State officials have estimated that, including the $100 million in new revenue not yet enacted, the School Aid Fund budget as passed will be short $264 million for the current fiscal year.”

Instead of having that as one of the possible answers, it has three answers that attempts to influence the reader; the very definition of a push poll. Here are the false answers they provided:

She believes the schools are over funded.

She is playing politics with our children’s lives.

She feels the money is more needed for social programs (i.e. welfare programs).

Obviously, none of those things are true, but one has to get the most votes; leading people to believe the top answer is true.

I used the station’s email contact to ask them to include a legitimate choice in the poll. I got an email from some guy named Rink. Apparently, he is a local host that goes on before the usual lineup of rightwing hatemongers like Limbaugh, Hannity, Neal Boortz and Dennis Miller.

After some seven emails from him, he ignored the request. He said he “double checked and triple checked the poll and it is correct,” and then he made the false claim that he provide a source.