When you don’t have the votes, you cheat

An anti-democracy group ironically called Citizens Protecting Michigan’s Constitution is asking Republican Secretary of State Ruth Johnson to throw away the petitions containing nearly 700,000 signatures to keep the Protect Our Jobs referendum off the November ballot, saying:

“We believe that you have a clear legal duty to reject the filed petition and to refuse to further process it, canvass the signatures or to refer the petition to the Board of State Canvassers for certification to the ballot.”

Over-achievers or show-offs? How about rock stars?! In a stunning display of the power of labor unions in Michigan, supporters of a ballot proposal to enshrine collective bargaining rights in the state constitution today turned in over twice as many signatures as they needed to but the measure on the November ballot. The group, Protect Our Jobs, needed less than […]

What’s the polite phrase for “dick move”? This past week, Michigan Republicans passed House Bill 4929 that prohibits school districts from doing automatic deductions from teachers’ paychecks to pay for their union dues. It was touted as a cost-saving measure by some. How much will it save? See, that’s the thing: Nothing. According to the most recent Senate Fiscal Analysis: […]

Stop the attacks on organized labor This past weekend at the Michigan Democratic Party Endorsement Convention, Michigan AFL-CIO President Karla Swift led a training session for people that will circulate petitions for the Protect Our Jobs constitutional amendment drive. As I wrote before, the effort has the goal of enshrining protections for collective bargaining rights in Michigan’s constitution. Bonnie Bucqueroux […]

Protecting Michigan workers A coalition of “front-line teachers, first responders, construction workers, and clergy” called “Protect Our Jobs” is holding a press conference this afternoon to kick-off a petition drive for a constitutional amendment to protect collective bargaining rights for Michigan workers. The purpose of the amendment is to enshrine into our state Constitution the basic right of every worker […]