Fascism alert - Rick Snyder seeks new Emergency Manager Law, immune from referendum [View all]

[HiPointDem]

Michigan voters rejected the state's last emergency manager law via referendum, but they may not have the chance to repeal its replacement. The "local government and school district fiscal responsibility act," backed by the Snyder administration and announced last week by the Treasury, is the state's latest attempt to help municipalities and school districts resolve fiscal crises.

The House could vote this week on the fast-tracked legislation...The Michigan Constitution establishes the right of citizens to repeal laws through referendum, but that right does not extend to acts that include appropriations, such as the pending emergency manager bill and controversial right-to-work legislation.

http://www.mlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2012/12/replacement_emergency_manager.html


The previous version of this law, Public Act 4, was enacted by the Michigan legislature 3/11 & repealed by the voters (by a dangerously narrow margin, 52-48) last month, 11/12.

Here's what the old version did:

- Gave the Governor broad powers to declare a local government to be in "financial emergency" & appoint an Emergency Manager with dictatorial powers.

- Specified that the manager could be either an official of the government or "a private contractor working as an agent of the executive branch of state government."

(Got that, everyone? The Gov could appoint a corporate honcho to run your city.)

- Specified that "The emergency manager’s powers extend not only to financial policy and decision-making, but also to all other areas of local government."

- Specified that decisions of the unelected Emergency Manager were not subject to review by either "local elected officials or local voters."

- Gave the Emergency Manager powers greater than the state legislature's powers, specifically the power to:

a. Contravene, and thereby implicitly repeal, local laws such as city and village charters and ordinances; and
b. Explicitly repeal, amend, and enact local laws such as city and village ordinances.

- Gave the Emergency Manager the right to seize/dissolve school districts.

- Gave the EM power to "seize and sell assets owned by the city, such as buildings or parks, without the approval of voters or local elected officials"

- Gave the EM power to "add to local debt, by putting property tax hikes on the ballot with confusing wording that hides the real cost of the tax hike"

- Gave the EM power to "outsource to private and out of state companies, lay off public employees, change or terminate the contracts of public employees, suspend contracts and collective bargaining rights for up to five years"

- Gave the EM power to fire elected officials

- Gave the EM power to write the local government's budget and all its contracts "for two years AFTER they are gone. No input from local residents, no collective bargaining."

The law was unprecedented:

"Through its provisions, the Local Government and School District Fiscal
Accountability Act, Act No. 4, Public Acts of 2011, MCL §§ 141.1501 et. seq. (the Act)
establishes a new form of local government, previously unknown within the United States or the State of Michigan, where the people within local municipalities may be governed by an
unelected official who establishes local law by decree.


On its face and in practice, the Act flagrantly violates the Constitution of the State
of Michigan by:

a) Delegating legislative powers without limiting standards to emergency managers;
b) Granting unelected emergency managers the power to enact local law without the
constitutional restraints placed on state and local governments;
c) Usurping the vested rights of local electors to adopt and amend local charters
which govern cities and villages within Michigan;
d) Suspending the rights of local electors to a republican form of government and to
elect the officials of local government through democratic elections; and
e) Imposing substantial new costs upon local municipal corporations without
providing offsets or additional revenue streams to affected communities.

http://sugarlaw.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Sugar-Law-Complaint-Brown-v.-Snyder-PA41.pdf

http://standup4democracy.com/


When this complaint was filed, Emergency Managers were already appointed in three poor majority black communities: Benton Harbor, Ecorse, and Pontiac; and over the Detroit Public Schools, also majority black.


Hey folks, this is naked fascism. And if it succeeds in Michigan, it will be coming your way as localities & states get into more financial trouble, which they are going to if the economy doesn't improve, and it's not going to any time soon.