I haven’t been following things in Michigan that closely. Here’s Gin and Taco’s take on the new “Financial Martial Law” bill:
Michigan’s widely reported ‘Financial Martial Law’ bill, soon to be signed into law by teabagging mannequin Rick Snyder, is portrayed by leftists as another salvo in the ongoing Republican war against teachers and public sector unions. I find that conclusion overly linear and too simplistic. This legislation – which allows the Governor to declare financial emergencies and appoint individuals or corporations to serve as city managers with the power to dissolve local elected councils and nullify employment contracts for public servants – is the first step in an effort to do away with municipal and local government altogether in favor of quite literally having private enterprises replacing government and contracting out its functions to the lowest bidder. How beautiful it will be: Wackenhut cops and local jails, Waste Management goons collecting trash, utilities sold off to Aqua America and Exelon, tax assessments mailed to homeowners from a financial services boiler room in Bangalore, and municipal employees of all types fired and replaced by temps from Manpower, Inc.
Gives a new and literal meaning to the phrase “company town,” doesn’t it? And the kicker is that the Governor is empowered to pay the new city managers any amount he sees fit before turning over total control so that they may further profit from a variety of harebrained privatization schemes.
[…..]It’s not removing government from the private sector; it’s replacing government with the private sector. For-profit education corporations running the schools. Private military/security outfits as cops. Subscription-only fire protection and ambulance service.
(bold mine)
Redshirt
Freedom is Slavery!
Yevgraf (fka Michael)
I don’t know what he’s bitching about. Omnicorp made an awesome Robocop.
Eric U.
slash and burn republicans in action again.
Punchy
How does this affect ostensibly neutral offices, like municipal/county/state courts? Do they replace the judges with whomever they like? How could this be constitutional?
Or are they just going the Arizona route, which is to pass a shit-ton of clearly unconstitutional crap, and hope they get a Republican judge to look the other way, or give them a reason to further demonize aktivizt jujez when it’s struck down?
Dave
It’s like returning to the 11th Century as the king hands out fiefdom after fiefdom. Break out the serf clothes…
malraux
@Yevgraf (fka Michael): dammit, i was just coming in here to make a robocop joke myself.
GregB
Erick Erickson was an advocate of privatizing law enforcement when he was an absentee lawmaker in East Dingleberry RFD.
This can’t be repeated enough to conservative police and law enforcement types who you know.
Tell them their pensions will be meaningless and they’ll be replaced by a
WaffenWackenhut rent-a-cop.Oh yeah and for profit fire houses won’ be union either.
Yevgraf (fka Michael)
RoboCop is programmed to follow three main prime directives (accompanied by a mysterious fourth), which are comparable with Isaac Asimov’s “Three Laws of Robotics”:
…
1. “Serve the public trust”
2. “Protect the innocent”
3. “Uphold the law”
4. (Classified)
…
The fourth directive, which he was programmed to be unaware of unless it became relevant, rendered him physically incapable of placing any senior OCP employee under arrest: “any attempt to arrest a senior OCP employee results in shutdown”. Senior President Richard “Dick” Jones stated that Directive 4 was his contribution to RoboCop’s psychological profile. Jones informed RoboCop that he was an OCP product and not an ordinary police officer. As a result, RoboCop was unable to act against the corrupt Jones until the chairman of OCP verbally terminated Jones’s employment with the company, allowing RoboCop to act against him.[5]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RoboCop_%28character%29
singfoom
Are there any legal challenges to this law yet? I mean, I don’t see how it can be constitutional and I would imagine any town affected would fucking FLY to the courts as soon as shit went down.
Roger Moore
Is it just me, or does this look like a last gasp move by people who don’t think they’re going to be in power again for a long time? I can’t believe that anyone will be happy with the governor dissolving the local government they just voted for and replacing it with an unaccountable corporation. If he actually tries to use the power, he’s going to permanently destroy the name of the Republican party in Michigan.
Poopyman
OK, not am I not a Michigander, and IANAL, etc. But if this doesn’t violate the US Constitution, does the fact that no one has said it violates the Mich constitution mean that it’s a valid law? Ain’t nobody taking this to court?
Comrade Mary
Welcome to the ranks of Comrade, Comrade.
Traftron
this isn’t really relevant, but have you seen this link for a new proposal to increase taxes on millionaires?
Even some of my republican friends think this is a good idea (though not this instantiation of it).
I love that there is a capital gains tax in there as well, but it seems like that makes it even less likely to pass.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20043928-503544.html
gene108
The great thing about this is corporations are really only responsible to their major shareholders or if it s a closely held corporations, the person owning 50%+1 of the shares.
Therefore, unless the people in the town become major shareholders of the corporation, the corporation would not have to be responsible to the people of the town, first and foremost.
PaulW
And THAT is what’s wrong with what’s happening in Michigan.
Government and social services are not meant to be For-Profit. For-Profits are designed to squeeze as much money out of a product or service at the lowest cost. Which doesn’t always apply to effective public services such as education, anti-poverty programs, care for the elderly, etc.
There are anecdotal tales of how privatized public services ended up costing cities or counties untold millions in damages because the private sector cut corners or flat out failed to do the job right, costing the city/county more in cleanup. Because the business focused more on the profit margin than on customer service or quality of product.
Gov. Scott Walker of WI is a perfect example. He attempted to fire off the public sector (and unionized) security guards for county buildings and hired Wackenhut to provide security. Not only did the county have to bear the brunt of the lawsuit by the unjustly fired public sector guards, but it turned out the private security guards cost DOUBLE what the public sector guards cost.
I hope to GOD the courts find the Michigan bill unconstitutional at both the State and Federal level (the elimination of elected officials could threaten the voters’ rights to local representation, for example).
fasteddie9318
*sigh*
Even the
useful idiotliberal Erskine Bowles:It’s been said before, but it bears repeating: the Republican Party fears their base, but the Democratic Party despises theirs.
Scott
I think the Republicans are still in their “permanent Republican majority” thinking. They won an election — that means they wield supreme power, right? What do you mean it’s blatantly unconstitutional? We can just ignore that, right? Why won’t those mean liberals let me have my evil fun?
PeakVT
Perhaps Michiganers will reverse the 2010 Republican sweep in 2012. Or not. Who knows in this country anymore?
Napoleon
@Roger Moore:
I think that has a lot to do with it. It is throwing so much sand in the gears as to f- the Dems for years. Basically GWB harebrain fiscal policies which have got Obama hogtied times 10.
PaulW
@Poopyman:
I think only persons directly affected by the law can file claim against it. It may be no one can attack the law until the Governor actually tries to implement it.
There is a possibility the law could get challenged at the federal level as it may interfere with voting rights, and with the Due Process part of the 14th Amendment. But I’m not a constitutional scholar, I just play one on the blogs. Ask Greenwald.
schrodinger's cat
Well this is not unprecedented. The British East India Company ran India before the crown took over. Welcome to the 17th century brought to you by GOP.
Alex S.
Meh, during the campaign Rick Snyder was one of the few republicans I considered to be electable. He pretended to be a moderate technocrat. Well, I won’t get fooled again.
Martin
Good luck Michigan. When the tsunami hits you, we’re not going to bail your corporate governments out. I expect they’ll instantly declare that all the dead and dying are unprofitable and move on to something new, like frozen yogurt. After all, would violate their fiduciary responsibility to shareholders to spend money on unprofitable victims. I’m sure you understand.
Someone needs to start a rumor that the governor plans to fence off upper peninsula into a private, for-profit hunting reserve operated by Haliburton. That’ll get you the turnout at the Capitol that you need.
Dave
I have read in a couple of places that some people think Snyder’s plan violates the Constitution under Article I, Section X. In it, States are prohibited from passing any “Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts”. In theory, Snyder’s law would let him unilaterally negate any labor contracts signed by a municipality. According to the Constitution, that can’t happen.
Another writer (I think at the GOS) made the point that this law would make it difficult for a company to do business with Michigan, or for Michigan to get a decent rate on bonds. The climate would be too unpredictable that lack of stability could cost the state more than it would “save” through these measures.
PaulW
What I’m worried about is if the Michigan governor eliminates county-level governments, would that not affect the county elections offices? Could the governor in effect shut down elections or force those elections into privatized control? If that happens… how the hell can we guarantee the votes? I’ve got a hard enough time trusting the electronic ballot machines as is.
schrodinger's cat
FYI. If you try to edit your comment more than once, it ends up in moderation. I tried to edit my comment and now it has disappeared.
Buggy blog is buggy.
Redshirt
@Alex S.: How anyone is fooled by any Republican these days is beyond me, but I suppose that’s all the “wedge” they need to break in.
It’s like a Jew voting for a NAZI in 1944 cuz he seems like a fair fellow (GOODWIN!).
Reader of the Most Depressing Blog Evah, Formerly known as Chad N Freude
Apologies for going OT, but just in case you don’t think “both sides do it”, we now have evidence that liberals can be as stupid and dishonest as conservatives. I’m looking for a new country to move to.
ETA: Well, I guess it’s not completely OT, since it’s MI.
New Yorker
The loony right in this country is ruining all my favorite satirical movies. Glenn Beck has ruined “Network”, Sarah Palin has ruined “Idiocracy”, and now Rick Snyder is trying to ruin “RoboCop”.
Reader of the Most Depressing Blog Evah, Formerly known as Chad N Freude
Not at all. She’s turned it into a documentary. With help from Michelle Bachmann.
RossInDetroit
Wouldn’t work. Most of the population is in the L.P. and I’d wager a majority would endorse that proposal.
Michigan is really two states and if it was permitted they’d probably be at war.
Poopyman
@Reader of the Most Depressing Blog Evah, Formerly known as Chad N Freude:
a: You didn’t really think there aren’t stupid and dishonest liberals, did you?
b: You don’t really think there are places where this isn’t so, do you?
PonB
What @Yevgraf (fka Michael) said…I also flashed on the 1975 “Rollerball”…which has always been a mental model for where our society is headed…
– PonB
Catsy
@Roger Moore:
This. For many of them, I think this is exactly it.
They can see the writing on the wall. The 2010 elections were an aberration driven by misinformation and economic discontent. They’re on the wrong side of public opinion on gay marriage, collective bargaining, immigration reform, tax cuts for the rich, and a host of other issues. The ones who aren’t drinking their own kool-aid know they’re going to get tossed out on their heads in 2012, especially after the way Walker and the GOP overreached in WI, and they’re scrambling to do whatever they can, while they still have the chance.
RossInDetroit
Snyder’s power play has finally made the news, against stiff competition from mendacious GOPers in WI and OH. And of course the ongoing disasters in Japan.
I have to wonder if he would actually have the stones to try and take over Detroit. It’s the obvious target, as it’s frankly a disaster. Imagine a governor appointing a CEO to void union contracts in Detroit and all of the possible outcomes come up as shitstorms of various magnitudes.
Sentient Puddle
@fasteddie9318: There’s nothing factually wrong with what Bowles said in that quote. If you’re going to be dinging him for anything, it should be this part from the article:
MattR
@RossInDetroit: I was flipping around last night looking for the latest Japan news and stumbled across Greta van Susterananananan discussing this on Fox. She had on someone from the Detroit Free Press who was pointing out some of the more odious provisions as well as the fact that this was far beyond the platform Snyder ran on in his campaign. I must confess I did not keep it on long enough to see if Greta was being “fair and balanced”, but I knew it was a good sign that it was even being covered by Fox.
Paul in KY
@Dave: ‘Bring out your dead!’
RossInDetroit
@MattR:
They may smell a major conflict coming. Conflict = viewers. Commercial media is always ghoulish that way. It will be interesting to see if they play the side of the many lower middle class Fox viewers who will lose their jobs or the Galtian superheroes who can step in to ‘save’ Michigan’s foundering cities.
Reader of the Most Depressing Blog Evah, Formerly known as Chad N Freude
@Poopyman: You’ve been reading this blog long enough to know that we work hard to maintain a dichotomy between dishonest conservatives and pure-hearted liberals.
Nerull
@Reader of the Most Depressing Blog Evah, Formerly known as Chad N Freude: They should have paid attention to republicans and the green party and just given lots of money to someone who wanted to run instead.
stormhit
@RossInDetroit:
I don’t want to be a buzzkill, but I still think Granholm started this mess by appointing mega-scumbag Robert Bobb to oversee DPS. This bill is overkill to alter the law that allowed her to do that. He ran into court issues which determined he wasn’t allow to do whatever he wanted and that the school board still had some power, so now they’re trying to do away with those issues in the most heavy handed way possible.
Paul in KY
@Alex S.: Right now, NO Republican is electable. I don’t care how sane they may appear.
Paul in KY
@Redshirt: Or a chicken voting for Col. Sanders.
Dave
@Paul in KY:
Who’s that then?”
“Must be a king…”
“Why?”
“He hasn’t got shit all over him”
The Political Nihilist Formerly Known As Kryptik
@Poopyman:
I think the problem is, this is obviously awful and stupid. But it will probably also be used to fuel the ‘SEE, only Dems commit voter fraud, they hate Democracy!! WE REPUBLICANS ARE THE ONLY PURE ONES LEFT!!!!’ bullshit. Watch this go national and crowd out the Snyder story.
Poopyman
@Paul in KY: You put too much faith in “informed” voters.
Never say never in American politics.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@New Yorker:
Well then we’d better hope that “Dr. Strangelove” is too old of a movie and will fly right under their radar, so to speak.
Yutsano
@Paul in KY: Yeah, well, we said that after 2008, and look where that got us. There will always be a certain number of folks who buy the Republican line no matter what. We just have to work to keep them in the minority.
Bulworth
I hope the lamestream media will cover the Tea Party Patriots in their protest against the governor’s actions in Michigan.
Xenos
@Dave: hey, we got the Domesday Book out it, right? I suppose Doomsday is the operative world for the commons of Michigan.
The system only works when the different branches of government are jealous of their power and authority. The GOP has broken the government by finding large numbers of people to run for legislatures who are happy to surrender huge chunks of legislative authority. It is amazing.
Paul in KY
@Poopyman: That’s just my opinion. Right now I don’t think I’ll live long enough to see a Republican that I would think ‘Boy, I think they’d make a good (insert elected position here)’.
Back in my youth (60s – 70s) there were many.
RossInDetroit
@stormhit:
The Detroit School Board is a massively dysfunctional entity and an immovable obstacle to change. I think Granholm was trying to do the right thing. I’m not surprised it isn’t working well and I have no idea what would.
RSR
The schools part is, I think, is a key (already taken) step in this process. In Pennsylvania, the then-GOP led state government stripped local control from Philadelphia and Chester city schools.
There was little outrage, and certainly no successful legal appeals.
They also took over control of the Philadelphia Parking Authority, which may seem much ado about nothing, but it is a bastion of Philadelphia-style patronage, and tons of money flows through it. The PPA had fallen–and may still be–far behind on the money it was supposed to turn over to–wait for it–the Philadelphia School District! hmmmm
For a brief period we had both a Democratic governor and state house, but the Pennsyltukians on both sides of the aisle hate the cities, so there was nary an attempt to return to local control of these institutions. Nor should I have really expected Mr. Anger Management, Ed Rendell to step up to the plate for his hometown.
Paul in KY
@Yutsano: I’m right with you on ‘WTF happened between 08 and 10 that made these idiots think Repubs were OK’.
I know, the blackity black guy from Kenyastan got in & changed all the drapes to kente cloth. My nation has too many dumbasses in it.
Paul in KY
@Dave: I live in an autonomous collective. What’s this ‘king’ you speak of?
stormhit
@RossInDetroit:
Yeah, I don’t disagree about the school board. My point was more just that this isn’t exactly an unexplainable naked power grab.
That and school board dysfunction or no, I think Bobb is a self-promoting asshole. I know more than one teacher who spent their entire careers in Detroit when they could have fled to the suburbs like everyone else that- due to his machinations- were forced into retirement and then fucked over on pensions. Machinations that now appear to have been mostly aimless flailing.
jake the snake
@Yevgraf (fka Michael):
“Nice shooting, son!”
vtr
That idea would stop dead in its tracks if President Obama said, “Hey! What a great idea! Let’s do that nationwide!” It’s obvious how that would lower taxes and lead to full employment.
beergoggles
Can I laugh at their misery now or can I wait till later when their houses burn down or the rest of that state turns into the slums of Detroit?
We know reason doesn’t work on the people who continue to vote Republican, just like reason doesn’t work on christians who continue to demonize gays and elect Republicans. All we’ve got left is ridicule. Really, all I can see myself doing is pointing and laughing at them like Nelson from the Simpsons. Har har suckers..
RossInDetroit
@beergoggles:
“Laugh while you can, Monkeyboy.”
Fair enough. MI Dems sulked in their tents instead of voting in 2010 and this is what we got. How far it will spread remains to be seen. But if union busting takes hold in the upper Midwest it’s got great chances elsewhere.
RossInDetroit
On phone with boss. Just got promoted into a school-related management position that I will hate 24 X 7. I am scrrreeeeewed!
rea
I don’t know how apparent this is to non-Michiganders, but this is aimed at Detroit, and has a powerful element of racism behind it.
terraformer
@Catsy:
Maybe. But one could posit that the BushCo years represented this – they had everything that they could possibly want and it failed miserably.
Or maybe the lesson then was that the real power is at home and not abroad, thus the focus on gubernatorial and state legislatures and subsequent wins. Never thought I’d see a Red Wisconsin; we barely missed it here in MN via a few thousands votes.
fasteddie9318
@rea: Well if those
blackety blackpeople in Detroit didn’t want their city government taken over byXeHalliburtona highly qualified, mostly white,and caring private firm, then they wouldn’t have electedthat blackety blackFitzpatrickin his black blackness, and they would have had a decentwhitecouncil president, who was not black,in line to replace him.Also, too, they might try not being quite so black themselves.MGB
@rea Born and raised in the city of Detroit, but in Chicago now.
Anyways…not just Detroit, this is aimed at Detroit and Flint, and all chock full of that racism that Michigan is famous for. Kind of similar when Engler dismantled Detroit Recorder’s Court back in the 90’s.
Rommie
Yeah, if you wreck Detroit, Michigan turns Indiana-Red. It’s funny, Snyder was the “sane” moderate R choice, if Hoekstra had won the primary the Hoekstroika would be pouring out fast and furious, as he tried to out-Walker Gov. Walker.
And somewhere, John Engler yuks it up over cocktails.
RossInDetroit
Detroit is screwed up in so many ways. Drove down to a relatively ‘safe’ area on Sat to visit a friend and on the way back got into a traffic altercation with an idiot who flashed the universal sign for handgun at me. Nice. How many cities have this problem on their roads?
I don’t happen to think Detroit should be taken over by a corporation but considering what happens when people from the suburbs go there it’s understandable that lots of others would support Financial Martial Law there.
AnotherBruce
Maybe we oughtta bring the Soviet Union back, you know just to balance the teeter-totter.
El Cid
Is it true that most leftists saw this as just an attack on unions and public workers?
I think that anyone I noticed who read this saw this for the hideous monarcho-corporatist power grab it was, preparing an all-out pillage of any place or government for private enrichment of the super-elites.
patrick II
One of the things that bother me about this is it seems to be such a one way street. Republicans can sell off publicly owned and maintained services and property, but once sold, the state can not impound or otherwise get much of it back. Once Wisconsin sells a power plant to the Koch brothers it is theirs. Democrats can’t take it back after the next election. Sooner or later repubs will win again and do the same thing again and more and more of what is public will become private.
Ratcheting towards fascism.
urbanmeemaw
@Dave: As in “Serfin’ USA”?
kay
@El Cid:
Well, I see that in Ohio. The public-private appointed boards that replace elected government are sort of a dead give-away. We’ve had two of those established in Ohio, one put in place by way of a wildly dishonest ballot initiative promoted by huge agricultural interests that no one understood.
It was almost sad to watch. Small farmers and landowners were lining up to turn control of land use and ground water to huge multinationals. They overwrote their own state law. They won’t have any legal tools when they go to reach for one.
PeakVT
@patrick II: I had a few thoughts along those lines. My question in Michigan is: if the entire basis of the financial martial law is later proved, can the state get the properties back? In contrast, Walker’s moves in Wisconsin seem likely to stick.
Do our local legal beagles have insight into this?
stormhit
@beergoggles:
You can, but that would make you a total fucking moron.
Gregory
I prefer the term “Emergency Manger” in the original Latin.
Zuzu's Petals
I always feel it’s better to speak from knowledge, not someone else’s opinion.
To that end, here’s a link to the bill itself:
HB-4214
Zuzu's Petals
@singfoom:
Well, here’s what one legal scholar has to say:
Zuzu's Petals
Uhm, somebody please take my last out of moderation? Thx.
Zuzu's Petals
@RossInDetroit:
Well, emergency financial managers have had the authority to renegotiate labor contracts in Michigan since at least 1990:
Public Act 72 of 1990
(SEC. 21)