I thought Andy Dillon joined the Republican Party yesterday when I heard the news. But as I thought it about, his remarkable proposal to group all Michigan state employees, including local municipal and teachers, into one insurance pool with the same insurance choices, could rationally fit into several political paradigms - liberal or conservative. Regardless, Andy Dillon stepped out on to a political ledge - and the MEA (Michigan Education Association) is trying to blast him off.
Peter Luke covers the basics of the story here, although we don't have alot of details (the devil is in the details, and this isn't a full endorsement of the Dillon idea until he does more than show us press releases). But when the MEA criticizes an idea as a "government expansion," you know something mighty odd is going on.
The Michigan Education Association blasted the proposal. The union's insurance arm, the Michigan Education Special Services Association, which covers more than half of the teachers in Michigan, would have to compete with other insurers in a new health care program administered in Lansing.
"This is a massive expansion of government at a time when we can't even get the budget balanced," said MEA spokesman Doug Pratt. "These savings aren't here and the taxpayers shouldn't fall for it. Why would public school employees trust the health of their families to a state bureaucracy in Lansing?"
Dang. The MEA and MESSA almost sound like Republicans there, and its in that comment that one can hoist the entire "national health care movement" on its own petards. Imagine if the MEA had spent its millions last year attacking national health care because it didn't "trust the health of ..." anyone to the bureaucracy. There's a contradiction brewing up in there somewhere. Maybe the MEA wants teachers to have better health care than, say, firefighters, or certainly the police officers that Granholm wants to whack. But if you're a true egalitarian, why would teachers deserve better care than anyone. Its in this context that Democrats should abandon the MEA on their own philosophical grounds - despites the odds being against so many of them biting the benefactor's hand that lavishly feeds them.
But conservatives can get behind a public health care pooling, too. It makes fiscal sense. Once you accept the notion that government is an employer - at least for necessary government (obviously there's much work to be done there) - and that employers should and do competitively offer insurance (of course, why should they offer any in the future Obama-care potentiality?) - then doing it in the most efficient way seems logical. And common-sense tells you that a larger pool gets you a better price - with few or no "losers". Conservatives and conservative groups have been proposing similar ideas for school insurance for a long-time - altough none that are perhaps as expansive to all public employees as Dillon's idea. Why should teachers be upset if they are getting reasonable insurance and the state is saving a buck? Of course, their union leaders might not like it because MESSA is a source of private economic and political power, and its profits grease a whole bunch of chains.
Chains that a Democrat - Andy Dillion - might actually break if he can survive the beating he's about to take. And for that, he'll get a rare applause from this corner.
The Snyder camp released the following letter and links attacking Granholm for her recent - but six years late - consolidation of History, Arts, and Libraries. He takes issue with the vast similarities between the proposed new name of the sub-division taking over those functions and his campaign message. I take issue with Granholm on her delay as Snyder also points out - Granholm's word games seem a bit Orwellian and insincere but I doubt she's listening to Snyder speeches or YouTube videos (if only she would listen to someone) - this could have been done logically and more orderly years ago.
Below is some of Snyder's press materials. (note to campaigns, we're open to all press materials, or you can create your own account and save a step by posting your own "diaries" -- if you want them promoted to the lead page and almighty RSS feed, drop me a note and I'll press a button).
Anyone listening President Obama's US Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor confirmation testimony will understand one thing quickly. She's running from her statements that "life experiences" and "skin tone diversity" have appropriate roles in the proper role of judging.
What does Sotomayor's flat-out statements that skin color and gender, and conversely, the "life experience" they allegedly necessitate (allegedly, because Clarence Thomas' under-privileged life experience is as equally interesting, if only because the philosophical outcome is diametrically different), should not influence except in the most background-like way (we struggle to hear her define that, as we did also struggle to understand protagonists in previous legal and political battles).
What does Sotomayor's retreat prove? It proves she understands a majority of Americans support the principles of equality - as commonly understood and re-iterated by Ward Connerly and others through things like MCRI. Sotomayor knows she can't just admit to her beliefs that diversity should be a criteria to judge people and society, so she evades admitting to what she plainly said a number of times.
What's perhaps more distressing is that this show will go on and the farce ignored. The Emperor-ess will be crowned Justice of the United States Supreme Court despite her statements and this deception. Honest answers to confirmation hearing questions are a thing of the past - a pre-Bork era relic. If I were a Senator, I'd be more inclined to confirm her if she was honest about her feelings on diversity - after all, a previous Supreme Court itself pre-varicated on the issue, and ultimately, whomever Obama appoints is going to hold the same view. It appears unlikely the rest of Sotomayor's body of work is so extreme as to justify rolling the dice on something worse. Then again, in an era where we don't get honest Supreme Court nominee answers, how can I even know that?
The Michigan Senate Democrats are still wasting money - even here but everywhere apparently - on google advertising. Just noticed one to the left, again.
This is the group that complained about the differential between the minority Senate alotment and the majority's slightly larger alotment, something that is reversed in the House as a turnabout. Apparently, they can be trusted with the difference. Click on the ad if you see it - I'll appreciate it.
I don't know whether it was a paid ad or just a plug by Paul W. Smith, but just seconds ago he announced, with the caveat that he "doesn't know if [he] could ever remember U-M football tickets being offered this way". He proceeded to describe an offer of season ticket packages for all 8 home games that were a one-time opportunity (no renewal privileges).
You know, I don't ever remember tickets being available like that either, let alone at this late date in the year.
I dare say Michigan's football program might be suffering a small dip in demand. Some of that is demand driven no doubt - the economy has depressed everyone's boat. But another part is supply - the quality of the Michigan product is in jeopardy for the first time, with Michigan's abysmal performance last year.
I actually called the reporter, Jim Totten, of the Livingston Argus, last night, to verify that Police Chief Wightman of the City of Brighton actually said it. According to Totten's story yesterday, which I hadn't had time to dig up in my post then, the Chief took a whole new tack - the ordinance has worked. So amazingly well that it has never needed to be enforced because "so many people know about it" that they've been "deterred" (paraphrasing here).
That is, Brighton is obviously now among the least annoying cities in the land, apparently. Their citizens are apparently more gentile than the citizens of other less enlightened towns without the regulation, or at least more cowered in their submission to and fear of Brighton policing powers.
Why do I find that remarkable?
First, it flips the City's initial whining about publicity being unfair on its head. Without the publicity, you can't have the deterrence. Second, it admits the goal all along was to have a "chilling effect" on speech. If people are aware of the law and have modified their speech - given the law's facial overbreadth and difficulty in defining - then those people have already experienced a negative First Amendment impact.
That is, the Founders didn't envision a perfectly tame, bland, oatmeal-like civic discourse where the people or civic society is annoyance free. Being annoying - at times and within reason and the bounds of not physically or measurable way - is both a consequence of and necessity of truly free speech. The speech we all agree with needs to defender or First Amendment - the speech at annoys is most vulnerable.
I also found curious this clip:
"This ordinance is not there to violate one's constitutional freedom-of-speech rights," he said.
Wightman said he didn't know if officers had actually warned people they could be ticketed under the amended rules because that information "doesn't make it to me." He said officers don't report to him every warning they've issued.
Hmm. Does that mean you don't communicate well with your officers, or you just don't want to know on this issue. Or maybe you just don't want to be transparent about it.
I've heard of spin and putting a positive light on things. The spin however digs you deeper usually, if you look at it closely.
The media has revisited the Brighton annoyance ordinance, and mentions our FOIA work and "citizen journalism" in a note of respect. Here at the blog of WDIV Detroit and WILX & WLNS Lansing, which appears to be a rehash of an AP story by the Press and Argus of Livingston that I can't handily find. Here's a clip:
Six months after it adopted more stringent ordinances that outlawed annoying behavior and harassment, the city has not ticketed anyone under the revised rules.
Police Chief Tom Wightman tells the Livingston County Daily Press & Argus of Howell the ordinances serve as a deterrent because people know about them.
But a political consultant who runs two citizen journalist Web sites focused on politics and local government says the changes were a bad idea and illegal.
Chetly Zarko said the ordinances are too subjective and not easily understood.
Why is the portion I have underlined funny to me. First, it proves that the Police Chief believes at least that the law has a "chilling effect" on conduct. That's unconstitutional First Amendment restraint (I've noted the law is unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment Coates v. City of Cincinnatti analysis due to vagueness). Second, its a reversal from the whining and complaining the City officials went through in January about how the media blew this out of proportion. To get the "everyone knows" about it argument, the City would have needed and wanted to encourage media attention.
Maybe that was the plan all along.
I've lost respect for Wightman. Which is it? Unfair for the media to broadcast your stupid policy, or good deterrent if they do? I suppose this blog has contributed to deterring crime?
The timing of this one is interesting in that it overturns a ruling by a nomiinee for the high court itself. Here's a short clip about the ruling from Fox News politics online, and how Sonia Sotomayor's Court of Appeals decision was overturned.
For us here in Michigan - particularly supporters of and participants in the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative (MCRI) - the ruling is also a bittersweet vindication.
In assessing claims of race discrimination, “[c]ontext matters.” Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U. S. 306, 327 (2003).
Ah. Right out in the open now. So the Constitution is a flimsy guide where "context matters," (context in this light is if you're white, you are assumed to not have the "history of being discriminated against") at least regarding the 14th Amendment. This is a core dispute though between modern conservative Constitutional doctrine and modern liberal doctrine. The "living, breathing Constitution" versus one where the original words have relatively defined meanings and should be given ordinary construction. Ginsburg goes on to predict the majority ruling will not "have staying power." Certainly, in her view of history, almost nothing should have staying, let alone can, if indeed, "context matters." If Ginsburg is right, the 14th Amendment to, and the entire Constitution itself, are the things that won't have "staying power."
The majority decision is written by Justice Kennedy, and while that might leave room for concern, it indicates where he is now in the mix of the court. It should be noted that Kennedy's dispassionate ruling against disparate-treatment of any kind focuses on detailed analysis of arcane nuances of the Civil Rights Act, and hence is not a master key into proper construction of the 14th amendment or Equal Protection Clause theory. But it is a key for preference opponents into a backdoor (some observers thought the Center for Individual Rights (CIR) should or could have litigated the U-M cases using either state law or Civil Rights Act law, but had they done that they would not have had a shot at the key for the obvious ... front door equal protection analysis) to ensure equality, and it closes a circle of argument by preference supporters that the Civil Rights Act forced preferences somehow. Ricci is therefore a major step forward for the anti-preference movement, but it is not nearly as a big a step backward as represented by Grutter. The only saving grace of Grutter is that it contained enough other language and a type of analysis that sows its own seeds of destruction in the future.
The preference v. non-preference has become a long, ongoing battle in legal and social history, one which will continue many years, in many chapters, and on many fields of political and legal contest. Ward Connerly, pictured above, is right to see it as a battle that can't be won without political and social force. The success in 2006 in Michigan may have contributed to the outcome in Ricci in subtle ways, although we must all be careful and vigilant to guard and expand upon the equality movement in the future.
Below are the press releases from Arizona announcing what was difficult to accomplish last year via signature drive has been accomplished by legislative vote. The signature-drive last appeared to have enough signatures but was disqualified by Arizona municipal clerks on technicalities because their signature margin was too close and AzCRI didn't have enough time to complete challenges to the challenges against the signatures.
Arizona voters will have the opportunity they missed last year in 2010, and its an issue we'll continue to follow for Michiganders interested and those that helped in 2006 pass the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative (MCRI).
Many of you may have noticed the new blog and facebook group "Race for Michigan" that purports to be a new source of information for Michigan political races, particularly at the top of the ticket.
OutsideLansing.com research however indicates its an anonymous "attack blog", and recent posts have racial overtones, as the post here attacking Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land suggests. The post accuses of Land of failing to act on a campaign finance complaint against Kwame Kilpatrick for using campaign funds for personal purposes, and then both in words and visually juxtaposes Land with Kilpatrick. It suggests her lack of action was intentional - an effort to "get Detroit votes" - and attacks her for that. Outsidelansing condemns the attack - both in its style and substance. Land was not wrong to not prosecute Kilpatrick because Michigan campaign finance law is weak, unclear, and probably doesn't actually apply to this situation, and Kilpatrick has already received the brunt of his punishment and campaign finance law would only allow a further slap on the wrist anyway.
Furthermore, Race for Michigan is registered by GoDaddy's "Domains by Proxy" service, meaning that short of litigation and court order, the identity of the owner will remain unknown. Since there is no way to contact Race for Michigan - OL left a message on its Facebook feed/wall and we were told to contact them by Facebook e-mail (which didn't appear to work at first but did after our request). Our e-mail with questions has remained unanswered for several weeks now.
Anonymous speech is a time-honored tradition in America, dating back to greats like Ben Franklin and Thomas Paine - but they made lasting and truthful points about liberty. Race for Michigan is a nothing more than an attack tool for someone - and lest speculation be that it is run by a Republican, it is entirely possible a Democrat or anyone is operating for whatever long-term reason. It has attacked several other Republican candidates, and its difficult and unclear whose horse the operator may have a stake in. It would seem that Race for Michigan has a right to exist - even anonymously - but it is also right for everyone to recognize it is NOT a legitimate or unbiased "news" source, that it has an agenda, and for us to condemn it when it launches into questionable attacks.
The timing of this one is interesting in that it overturns a ruling by a nomiinee for the high court itself. 
