Republican hypocrisy is on display with Board of Canvassers vote

The two activist Republican members of the State Board of Canvassers refused to vote to certify the petitions of the Tea Party and place its candidates on the November ballot, resulting in a 2-2 deadlock and sending it to the courts.

The Tea Party had submitted 59,535 petition signatures, and based on sampling, the state found the group had 45,150 valid signatures, well above the 38,013 signatures required by law. The board of canvassers was only charged by law to verify the signatures, not how they were collected; and nothing else.

The fake, Astroturf teabaggers have always claimed this was a nonpartisan, grassroots effort that was neither Republican nor Democratic, and teabaggers are claiming this petition drive was an effort by Democrats to place the “tea party” on the ballot and drain off Republican votes.

That may or may not be true, and I could care less if they are on the ballot or not. However, it has proved that the teabagger farce is just the militant arm of the Republican Party that was bought and paid for by a pair of rightwing, Washington, D.C. think tanks and lobby firms, and not some nonpartisan, grassroots movement consisting of both Republicans and Democrats.

That’s what I and others have been saying since this farce began last year.
This vote by the two board members just displays the hypocrisy of the Republicans. A similar situation occurred in 2006 when fraud and deception were used to place Proposal 2 on the ballot that banned affirmative action programs based on race, gender, color, ethnicity or national origin.

Despite widespread allegations of fraud, no other body or office in the state was allowed to look into the fraud committed, In fact, Republicans went out of his way to take powers away from the state Board of Canvassers because they were concerned with the fraud committed.

The Board off Canvassers also voted 2-2 in 2006 to deny putting it on the ballot, but after court challenges, both state and federal courts ruled the board of canvassers did not have the ability to deny ballot access based on how signatures were collected or fraud was used to collect them.

That ruling should have prevailed today.

GOP primary in 11th Senate District now includes charges of inappropriate sex talk

There are a lot of interesting primary races, but the Republican primary in the 11th Senate District is spinning out of control.

The race already has a criminal, a carpetbagger and now charges of lying, inappropriate sexual behavior and playing an imposter entered the race yesterday to make it even more interesting after a pair of reports from MIRS and Gongwer that cover the Capitol.

Squaring off in the open 11th District to replace term-limited Alan Sanborn – one of the most extremists member of the Senate – are former state Reps. Leon Drolet and Jack Brandenburg and current state Rep. Kim Meltzer.

Drolet should be in jail because of his criminal acts in the attempt to recall Speaker of the House Andy Dillon, not to mention his recent campaign violation. Meltzer has been accused of being a carpetbagger because she just rented an address in the safe Republican district, and she also hired the person known for dirty tricks. Brandenburg had escaped notice; until now.

Brandenburg, as well as Drolet served as co-chairs of the crooked Proposal 2 campaign in 2006 that banned affirmative action programs that used fraud to get on the ballot.
Jennifer Gratz, who led the 2006 ballot proposal, said that a political action committee (PAC) she is involved with had mailed flyers into the district to accuse Brandenburg of lying about his role with the so-called “Michigan Civil Rights Initiative” campaign; Brandenburg claimed he was the co-chair. Gratz, now works for the American Civil Rights Institute, the California-based group that's primary purpose is to oppose affirmative action.

According to subscription only MIRS, when Gratz was asked what led to Brandenburg to leave the campaign, she had this to say:

"We were on a conference call with me, Leon, Jack and Ward," Gratz said. "There may have been some others on the call as well, but I can't remember exactly. "Ward (Connerly) asked for help more help from Leon and Jack. Then Jack said, 'F*** Off.'"
Gratz said that as far as she knows, that parting shot was Brandenburg's final involvement with the MCRI movement.

But Brandenburg had this to day to MIRS in response. "On that conference call Ward Connerly was basically chewing Leon and I out," Brandenburg said. "Leon and I had worked our butts off for a year. We weren't getting paid anything. It was voluntary. I think Gratz was getting paid at that time, but we weren't."
"So then Connerly wanted Leon and I to come up with $50,000," Brandenburg continued. "At that point, I said that even if I had $50,000 I wouldn't give it to him. He asked me if I could come up with the money tomorrow, and I said no. But when he said 'You haven't done anything,' that's what I really didn't appreciate. I said, "Hey Ward, F*** off."

But the story was even more explosive in Gongwer, and Gratz either didn’t tell MIRS the entire story, or MIRS chose not to include the allegation.

During an interview with Gongwer about the flyer, Gratz was asked why she just didn’t call Brandenburg and ask him to stop claiming he was the co-chair. Gratz apparently told Gongwer she would never contact Brandenburg because of “an incident that she said occurred in January 2006 when Mr. Brandenburg was serving his second term in the House.” Gratz claims she received a message Booth Newspapers columnist Rick Haglund had called to interview her.

Gratz said she “returned the call, and the first couple questions were standard journalistic fare. Then, "He said, 'Can I ask you a personal question?' He said, 'How do you feel about oral sex?'" Ms. Gratz said.”

Brandenburg denies the incident ever occurred.

Drolet served as co-chair of the ballot campaign with Brandenburg, but Drolet stuck with the racist campaign. Gratz is supporting Drolet in the primary election.

The right tries to stir up false controversy over a field trip

Rightwing bloggers in Michigan and Republican Senate candidate Leon Drolet are stirring up a false controversy over an elementary school field trip in Ann Arbor.

Apparently, 30 students at Dicken Elementary School that are members of an academic peer-support group called the Lunch Bunch went on a field trip to the University of Michigan to hear from a black rocket scientist in the hope it would inspire the African-American students to consider science and engineering as a career. All the members of the club, currently, are African-American, but it’s open to all students. The purpose of the club is to help students struggling academically.

The club was created to help improve African-American students' MEAP performance, but again, it is open to all students. Drolet is charging discrimination because invitations did not go out to other students. I’m not aware it’s against the law to not invite someone.

District spokesman Liz Margolis told the Detroit Free Press that the trip was not paid for with school funds. The only cost was the bus, which was paid for by a private donation.

Drolet is the former chairman of the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative, which successfully amended the state constitution with Proposal 2, that banned affirmative action; long a target of the right., and he claims the trip "absolutely" violated Proposal 2.

"If it was directed, guided, organized by the school district, they cannot say they are doing a field trip today for blacks only, or for whites only, or for Hispanics only or for Asians only," Drolet told the Free Press.

You will recall, there was widespread voter fraud involved in putting the measure on the ballot and in collecting signatures. Despite those widespread allegations of fraud, no other body or office in the state was allowed to look into the fraud committed, In fact, Republicans went out of his way to take powers away from the state Board of Canvassers because they were concerned with the fraud committed.

Capitol newsletter lists top Legislative accomplishments of the decade

With the end of the decade just three days away, reporters and writers are reflecting on both end of the year and end of the decade with the best of stories and lists. Subscription only Gongwer has put together a list of the most significant laws passed in the Michigan Legislature in the past decade.

My number one is the workplace smoking ban, but it was just number three on their list. Ironically, the Michigan Legislature finally passed a workplace smoking ban that includes bars and restaurants earlier this month after a fight that took the entire decade.

No. 10 – was raising the state’s minimum wage from $5.15 an hour to $7.40 an hour in 2006. Despite Republicans controlling both the House and Senate, Gov. Jennifer Granholm managed to get it done. It was accomplished by attempt to go around the Legislature. Democrats launched a petition drive, and when Republicans saw how successful it was, they went ahead and approved it in the Legislature.

No. 9 – was the groundwater withdraw package of bills to regulate withdrawals of Michigan's groundwater. “In 2006, the first regulations and permits were imposed. Then in 2008, the state went further with the Great Lakes Compact and significantly toughened those rules. Much of the debate surrounded the groundwater withdrawals of the Nestle water bottling plant in Mecosta County.”

No. 8 – was the energy reform package of 2008. It also reversed a legislative decision in 2000 to provide customer choice and instead capped that at 10 percent of the load for Consumers Energy and Detroit Edison to give them the demand stability they said they needed to be able to finance new power plants in the state. But the most important thing it did was create a Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS). It required the utility companies to provide least 10 percent of its power by a renewable power source by 2015. It doesn’t go nearly far enough, but it’s a start.

No. 7 – Was the mandatory minimum sentencing laws repealed in 2002. “ Michigan's tough anti-drug laws, especially its mandatory life sentence without parole for anyone trying to deliver 650 grams of cocaine or heroin, earned infamy in the pages of Rolling Stone, which profiled the case of Gary Fannon, who was serving a life sentence under the so-called 650 Lifer Law.” Even with that, Michigan’s incarceration rates were the 2nd highest in the 12-state Midwest region, and our rate is the 11th highest in the nation, according to a recent report by the U.S. Department of Justice.

No. 6 – was the constitutional ban on same-sex marriage in 2004. It was a low point in Michigan when we put discrimination into the Constitution. It was led by the state’s and nations’ leading anti-gay hate group, the American Family Association (AFA) of Michigan.
No. 5 – was the law passed in the lame duck session that made Michigan a “shall issue” state for concealed weapons. It was my introduction to how strident the pro-gun people really are. Not a word about it was spoken during the 2000 election season, but it was passed in the lame duck legislative session in December of 2000.

No. 4 – was the affirmative action ban in 2006. Some of the same people that were behind the same sex marriage ban were behind this ballot question that bans affirmative action programs based on race, gender, color, ethnicity or national origin. Even though there was widespread evidence of fraud in collecting the signatures, this was allowed to stand.

No. 2 – was the "Race to the Top” education reform legislation passed just two weeks ago. The package of bills seeks to position the state to compete for up to $400 million in federal funds through President Barack Obama's "Race to the Top" program that requires states to enact major education reforms to receive the funds. Among the things the bills would do is to expand the number of charter schools by allowing current charter school operators to open new charter schools, provide a path for alternative teacher certification and stipulates that districts with at least 25 percent of their students in the lowest achieving 5 percent of buildings in the state would be run by a CEO appointed by the state superintendent.

The top measure of the decade – according to Gongwer – was the replacement of the Single Business Tax (SBT) with the Michigan Business Tax (MBT) in 2007. The Republicans killed the SBT in the summer of 2006 with no replacement in sight as a campaign gimmick because they knew the Republican scandals would hurt them. It did, and they lost control of the Michigan House.

Newspaper rightwing editorial condones voter fraud and eliminating independent judiciary

Despite an anti-Republican swing in the nation, the OP-ED pages of the Daily Press & Argus continues its shift to the right. The latest evidence of that trend is the editorial in today’s edition that says Proposal 2, that bans affirmative action programs based on race, gender, color, ethnicity or national origin, should not be challenged in the courts. Their reasoning is because voters in Livingston County voted nearly 3-1 for it.

Apparently, they have forgotten there are three branches of government, and the independent judiciary job’s is to ensure laws pass Constitutional muster. Often, it’s the last resort for the poor and powerless who have been discriminated against and who have been treated unfairly. I’m sure if a Constitutional amendment banning African-Americans from voting had been placed on the ballot in 1962 in Alabama or Mississippi it would have passed by a similar margin, but that would note have made it right. Remember, Proposal 2 was opposed by both candidates for governor, and those who supported Proposal 2 included the KKK. Let the courts do the job the Founding Fathers intended it to do.

The editorial says opponents fought hard to keep it off the ballot, but they did not commit voter fraud like California’s Ward Connerly and his supporters. I don’t know what affirmative action plan Chris Ward has suggested, but I can safely say it will be like every alleged reform he has introduced and only benefit Republicans.

Ward’s position on Prop 2 was pretty clear. He asked the Attorney General to determine whether the Michigan Civil Rights Commission "may have exceeded its constitutional and statutory powers" in investigating the gathering of signatures for the ban. Legal experts have said they did not, and Ward conveniently ignored the fact that despite widespread allegations of fraud, no other body or office in the state was allowed to look into the fraud committed, In fact, Ward went out of his way to take powers away from the state Board of Canvassers because they were concerned with the fraud committed. He’s supposed to be so concerned about voter fraud with his unconstitutional voter ID bill, but voter fraud committed for something he supports is OK.

The reasons for the issue’s success are many. Most obvious was the fact that many voters — particularly white voters — saw logic in an argument that said discrimination by race is wrong, regardless of the motivation.
The opponents didn’t help their cause with clumsy and frantic tactics. They fought hard to keep the issue from the ballot, leaving the impression that they didn’t want voters to have a say in the matter.
Then they used scare tactics, including wild suggestions that the proposal would prevent women from getting cancer screenings.
The measure would have likely passed anyway, but many voters could not have enjoyed being treated as though they were idiots.
Now what? One tactic is for opponents to talk long and loud about how this places a stigma on the state. Do that effectively enough, and it could be come a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Another strategy was immediately announced by Mary Sue Coleman, president of the University of Michigan, which was the target of two U.S. Supreme Court lawsuits that centered on its affirmative action admission programs.
Coleman stridently vowed to begin litigation to fight the decision of the state’s voters. Apparently our voters are allowed to pay taxes to support the university — and to pay for lawsuits — but they aren’t competent to make informed decisions on complex issues.
There is another strategy. That’s to accept the decision of the voters and to accept the notion that affirmative action plans based solely on race are inherently flawed. Why not instead pursue affirmative action plans based on socioeconomic factors rather than race, as state Rep. Chris Ward, R-Brighton Township, suggested?
Why not also more seriously address the root problems that make affirmative action plans necessary? It may sound good if U-M adds a few minority students — some of whom may be in the upper middle class — under an affirmative action program.
But shouldn’t we, as a matter of state policy, be looking instead at why a majority of minority-dominated inner-city high school students have dropped out and aren’t candidates for any sort of college? Shouldn’t we be attacking the root problems that imply that minority students aren’t prepared to get into college unless they get a break?
Tuesday’s vote doesn’t mean that state government and universities have to turn their backs on minority progress. What it does mean is that voters feel the policies are unfair and that, despite some successes, ineffective.
In light of last week’s vote, state university, government and business leaders have two choices. They can find more effective ways to narrow inequities while promoting minority advancement.
Or they can file another lawsuit.