Michigan’s ‘financial martial law’ headed for referendum in November

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

This is good news! Michigan's authoritarian "financial martial law" under which the state can summarily dismiss duly elected local government officials and replace them with an "emergency manager" appointed by the governor possessing absolute authority appears to be headed for a referendum in November. Petition drive seeking to overturn emergency manager law nears conclusion:

The Stand Up for Democracy coalition needs to collect roughly 161,300 valid voter signatures to get the issue on the November ballot. It said it has collected more than 200,000 signatures so far and plans to turn them in Feb. 29 for state officials to verify.

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Critics say [the law is] unconstitutional and gives too much power to state-appointed emergency managers, who have authority to toss out union contracts and strip power from locally elected officials.

Emergency managers are operating in Benton Harbor, Ecorse, Flint, Pontiac and the Detroit and Highland Park public school systems. The city of Detroit is under a state financial review that could result in an emergency manager.

The petition drive is just one way opponents are trying to slow down or derail the emergency manager law.

An Ingham County judge has issued a temporary order barring the review team analyzing the city of Detroit's finances from meeting unless it's done in compliance with the state's Open Meetings Act. Hearings in the case, which potentially could affect Highland Park and other entities with emergency managers or locations in the review process, are expected to resume this week.

Separately, the Sugar Law Center for Economic and Social Justice sued over the emergency manager law in June, saying it violated the state constitution. Snyder has asked the Michigan Supreme Court to fast-track the case so it isn't hung up for years in the appeals process.

The Supreme Court has not yet decided whether it will review the case early.

This law is easily the most extreme abuse of power by any radical extremist Tea-Publican legislature and governor in the country. If this law is allowed to stand in Michigan, this brand of authoritarianism will spread to other states as "model legislation" by ALEC or other similar right-wing organizations.

As Benjamin Franklin said, our Founding Fathers "gave us a Republic, if we can keep it." This un-American and anti-democratic law must be repealed and its supporters routed out of office.