One 27-year-old with multiple part-time jobs on how important — and easy — it is to get health insurance. With apologies to James Brown, Marcus Laban may be the hardest-working man in show business. He works part-time for a casting director, directs high school plays on a seasonal basis and just ended a tour with the Michigan Shakespeare Festival. To […]

Public services employees union AFSCME and the League of Conservation Voters (LCV) have joined forces to support the U.S. Senate candidacy of Michigan Democrat Gary Peters. The exciting new partnership shows the breadth of support that Peters has garnered. Today they are announcing a $2.1 million mail and voter turnout operation to elect Peters on November 4th. The program will […]

In Livingston County, one of the most conservative places in mid-Michigan, the Koch brothers’ front group Americans for Prosperity backed GOP House candidate Wendy Day, putting up billboards to support her bid for the nomination in the 47th House District Day is notorious for her time on a local school board (while she home-schooled her own kids) and for blogging […]

Yesterday morning, Congressman Gary Peters went to the polls to vote in Michigan’s primary election. With him was his daughter Maddy. Maddy was voting for the first time having recently turned 18. Peters ran unopposed in his bid for the U.S. Senate. WJRT spent the day with Peters and was there when the father and daughter did their civic duty […]

People don’t love Democrats but they hate the alternative Many the members of the GOP’s House majority have literally have had their districts drawn for them. And if Republicans wanted to draw a map that would give them a chance to take control of the Senate, it would look exactly like what we’re seeing in 2014. The party of Steve […]

By a decisive 69-31% margin, Michigan voters passed Proposition 1, giving businesses a $500 million tax break on top of the $1 billion tax break they were given by Rick Snyder and Republican legislators just after the 2010 election. Proposal 1 eliminates the Personal Property Tax, a tax businesses pay on equipment that they own. According to analysis by the […]

I’ve already detailed my reasons for voting NO on Michigan’s Proposal 1 which would eliminate the Personal Property Tax HERE. But there is another reason, in my opinion: Republican threats to screw over municipalities if voters turn it down: The GOP-led Legislature could eliminate the personal property tax with no revenue-replacement plan for local governments, [Truscott Rossman’s Kelly Rossman-McKinney] said. […]

Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan has extended the moratorium on shutting off water to the homes of Detroiters with unpaid bills for another 20 days, until August 25th. City officials are working on an improved process for collecting unpaid bills and plans to announce the new plan later this week: Detroit’s moratorium on residential water shutoffs over unpaid water bills will […]

Predictions for turnout in tomorrow’s primary election are pretty dismal. It’s ironic that progressives do so much to fight for voting rights and then turn around and stay home on election day. What that means is that our candidates for office are chosen by a tiny minority rather than a democratic majority. Don’t be “that guy” or “that gal”. Vote. […]

Michigan voters are being asked to vote on one statewide ballot proposal tomorrow, one that will eliminate the Personal Property Tax (PPT) imposed on equipment a business owns. Businesses hate this tax because it is essentially double taxation. They pay taxes when they buy equipment and then pay the PPT every year on the same equipment. This tends to disincentivize […]

Less than eight months after the House GOP Leadership embraced legalization for 11 million undocumented immigrants, the real leadership of the House — Ted Cruz, Michele Bachmann and Steve King — have passed a bill that demands maximum deportations. President Obama has already indicated that he will act to reduce the deportations of at least some of the law-abiding undocumented […]