PLANK DECEMBER 17, 2012
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Michigan’s new "right to work" law may be the most prominent piece of conservative legislation that Republicans there have passed in their lame-duck session, but it’s not the only one to land on Gov. Rick Snyder’s desk. Last week, in a harried final session of the Michigan House that lasted until 4:30 a.m. on Friday, the outgoing members of the state's 2010 conservative wave successfully passed an omnibus abortion bill that will do profound damage to already-diminished reproductive rights in Michigan; a bill that amounts to a massive tax break for corporations at the expense of local government; and a bill mandating voters to affirm, in writing, that they are citizens.
And, just hours before the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Connecticut, the Michigan GOP caucus passed a bill that would allow gun owners permitted for concealed carry to bring concealed weapons into spaces that had previously been off limits—like churches, stadiums, day care centers, and schools.
Snyder indicated Friday afternoon that he may sign this last bill, pending changes to its language that he did not specify. In fact, the governor, whom the left once hailed as an honest broker in a party of wingnuts, is expected to sign off on much of the far-right agenda realized in Lansing early Friday morning. The genesis of Snyder’s sudden right-wingerism is disputable—whether these are sentiments he has held all along, or he caved to political pressure. Either way, the late-night dramatics in Lansing are an aching reminder of the damage done when Democrats up and down the ranks underprepared for and underestimated the strength of the midterm backlash. While the GOP received a teeth-kicking in this year’s elections and the Tea Party suffered major setbacks, their legislative achievements around the country will have ruinous consequences for years to come.
Nowhere is this more apparent than in Michigan, an otherwise left-leaning state where some of the most extreme bills to result from the 2010 GOP wave are those just now reaching Snyder’s desk. This, after the November elections saw five members of the state GOP's swollen House ranks voted out of office. “It’s extremely frustrating,” said State Rep. Lisa Brown, a Democrat from the suburbs of Detroit, told me. Brown made headlines in June when she was censored by Republican leadership for uttering the word “vagina” during a debate on legislation that would become the omnibus abortion bill. Speaking by phone, over the din of the statehouse floor during Friday night's marathon session, she ticked off the list of conservative-backed bills en route to a full House vote: a bill to place onerous licensing requirements on abortion providers; a bill requiring a woman to pay an additional expense if she wants her insurance policy to cover abortions; and a bill allowing employers to deny insurance coverage for any form of health care they oppose on religious grounds.
All but the latter passed and are awaiting Snyder’s signature. Once, as expected, he signs off on these and a raft of other conservative policies, they will be ensconced in law for at least the next two years, as the majorities that the GOP achieved in both houses in 2010 proved too hard to undo in November. The impact of the abortion bill on Snyder’s desk, the biggest item to come out of Thursday night’s debate, is hard to overstate. Abortion law in Michigan has been largely unchanged since a set of restrictions were enacted in the late ‘90s. Now, Michigan joins a tide of states placing new and daunting restrictions on the procedure.
Brown expressed hope that, with the Democratic minority in the House now slightly larger, extreme bills like these will face more friction in the next legislative session. But their consequences won’t be mitigated anytime soon. “I can only hope for the future—that perhaps in another two years we will have another governor, more seats in the House, and more seats in the Senate,” Brown said.
As for the concealed-carry bill facing Snyder, it may be hard to game whether he will sign it or modify its provisions, which would allow holders of concealed-carry permits—available to “any nominally sane adult without a felony record,” as the Detroit Free Press described it—to bring guns to schools, day-care centers, and other properties that have not taken steps to specifically disallow concealed carry. But the fact that the bill is on his desk speaks volumes. Essentially, in the wake of a tragedy that highlights the urgent need for better gun control, Snyder is weighing a bill that places the onus on schools to protect themselves, rather than seeking ways to protect schools.
A conversation that Brown had with aides and colleagues, at lunch on Thursday, serves as a fitting summary for the situation. “This, in a state that just overwhelmingly voted to reelect Barack Obama?” Brown said at the time, she told me. “We were like, where’s a progressive state nearby that we can move to? And aren’t we supposed to be that state?”
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9 comments
So is Michigan a state where just about every progressive-minded voter sat out the 2010 election? Or are they just extremely, er - labile in their political urges there? Damn, what does it take to get people to take mid-term elections seriously? (People other than older, whiter, more affluent voters, that is.)
- Haole45
December 17, 2012 at 1:01am
Michigan Democrats didn't get on their knees and pray that they wouldn't get fooled again. Liberals are very easy to fool, because they give sociopaths like Snyder the benefit of the doubt. They even crossed over in Michigan's open primary in 2010 and helped make Snyder the Republican candidate for governor, because he talked like one of them--a liberal. In reality he's a sociopathic, lying Right wingnut. And now it's too late. This is why I'm not a liberal. Democrats lie, but lying is the very essence of Republicans. And liberals obviously don't know that. They got what they deserve in Michigan. Idiots.
- magboy47.
December 17, 2012 at 2:19am
(the 2010 gerrymandering (nationwide) is gonna be regretted for a long time. so also will be any apathy/resignation in 2014.)
- cdmcl3
December 17, 2012 at 6:46am
magboy, You're not a liberal because you want to belong to the faction that lies most egregiously? Or did I misunderstand something in your post?
- IowaBeauty
December 17, 2012 at 7:33am
"magboy, You're not a liberal because you want to belong to the faction that lies most egregiously? Or did I misunderstand something in your post?" Yes, you did, IowaBeauty. I'm left of liberals. I call myself a Near Leftist. You might call me something else.
- magboy47.
December 17, 2012 at 10:32am
I don't really know why Democrats in blue-leaning states feel that they need to sit on their hands for a decade while Republicans in gerrymandered districts go off and pass extremist legislation to their hearts' content. They ought to do what Republicans did in Texas in 2003, when they didn't like the districts that resulted from the last gasp of Democratic statewide control in the early 1990's (that remained in place while GW Bush was too busy running for President in 2000). Those Republicans simply passed laws to conduct a mid-decade redistricting, while promptly eliminated five House Democratic incumbents. Who says Democrats can't do the same thing, or at least threaten to do the same thing when they take over governors' mansions in 2014 or 2016? If nothing else, it would get othewise quiescent Democratic voters to the polls with the prospect of cleaning out the barn of crazy Republican incumbents. And it might have the salutary effect of giving pause to Republicans who think they can pass right-to-work legislation, ultrasound bills and concealed carry laws to their hearts' delight and not have to face voters who object until 2021 at the earliest.
- wildboy
December 17, 2012 at 10:45am
I'm still a little puzzled as to where the Obama voters went to in Michigan while the other elections were happening. If they were simply sitting them out, that's really dumb. If they voted Republican, it's odd. I live in a state in which the Republicans now have a supermajority in the statehouse (an increase over 2008) and more people voted for Mitt Romney than voted for George Bush in 2004, so life is simpler, in a way.
- ironyroad
December 17, 2012 at 12:03pm
wildboy, If there's any state where Democrats would fight back, it would be my home state, Michigan. But they have to get dirty, like their opponents. Before Newtown, Snyder was ready to sign a bill that would allow Michiganers to take guns into schools. Right now is the time for state Dems to tie Snyder indirectly to the Newtown shootings, whether he signs the bill or not. The fact that he even considered allowing guns into schools is breathtaking. Detroit has had metal detectors in schools for decades, because of all the shootings in the past. People like Snyder ARE responsible, indirectly or not, for Newtown. Have Michigan Dems enough guts to play dirty? That's the only way they're going to beat someone who's at the opposite end of the political spectrum from where he campaigned. The creep is swimming in filth. And if Dems don't get aggressive in Michigan, the most leftist state in the union, they won't stand up for themselves anywhere. They may keep the White House, but they'll lose most of the states, where people have to actually live their lives, to radical Republicans. I will predict one thing. Snyder will be a one-term governor. Back-stabbing arrogance goeth before a fall.
- magboy47.
December 17, 2012 at 12:12pm
Magboy -- Play smart, not dirty. Be assertive, not aggressive. Fight forward, not back.
- Wonderland
December 17, 2012 at 1:36pm