Judge tells GOP to honor requests for roll call votes in (Michigan) Legislature | The Detroit News

Judge Clinton Canady III issued a temporary restraining order Monday afternoon compelling House Republicans in the majority party to hold recorded roll call votes when at least 22 Democrats request one.

Democrats in the minority party sued House Speaker Jase Bolger and the GOP leaders last week because Bolger or Speaker Pro Tem John Walsh, R-Livonia, would not recognize their request for a recorded roll call vote. The state constitution states that a roll call “shall” be conducted whenever requested by one-fifth of the House members.

[…]

The Democrats lawsuit dealt with three recently passed bills, which prohibited public school employers from collecting union dues, prohibiting university graduate assistants from forming a union and getting approval of the state Board of Canvassers to circulate a petition amending the constitution.

Canady’s order means the “phony” immediate effect votes on those new bills are overturned and they can’t go into effect until late March or early April of next year, said Michael Hodge, attorney for House Democrats.

The immediate effect of others bills already passed by the House and awaiting approval in the Senate may be “in jeopardy” if the House doesn’t take roll call votes requiring a two-thirds majority, Hodge said.

(Source: sarahlee310)

Gov. Perry loses his 2nd straw poll in two days; Romney wins in MI by 34%

(Source: sarahlee310)

Victory! Julie Bass No Longer Facing Jail For Growing Veggies

From Care2.com:

Common sense and a good dose of political pressure prevailed in Oak Park, Michigan as city officials dropped misdemeanor charges against Julie Bass for planting a vegetable garden in her front yard.  Bass faced a possible 93 days in jail.

Thousands of people from all over the country rallied behind Bass, seeing her story as the perfect example of government-run-amok, including our own Care2 community.  Your petition pressuring the city to drop their case helped do just that.  Mark Milotay, the petition author had this to say:

“I am overjoyed to hear about the charges being dropped, and I hope that the City of Oak Park will take the opportunity to review the bylaw after this. They can learn from cities like Victoria, BC, Portland, OR, and Denver, CO about the importance of local sustainability and food security, as well as how to foster it.This campaign showed how viscerally people react to basic rights like growing food being threatened. I am extremely impressed with the support that we received from Care2. Their services helped us exceed our initial number of target signatures by almost 30 fold and to gather support for the Bass family from around the world. I wouldn’t hesitate to use or recommend them for future campaigns.”

According to Bass she was overwhelmed by the showing of support.

“I just would want to thank everyone from the bottom of my heart for all of the support and kindness that they have shown to our family during this time. i am amazed and humbled by how many people have gone out of their way to help and support us, and it touches us deeply.”

Congratulations to Bass and the Care2 community!

Petition drive to recall Michigan Governor Rick Snyder starts Saturday

  By Chris Bowers for Daily Kos

If you live in Michigan and wish to help recall Governor Rick Snyder, go to FireRickSnyder.org and sign up to volunteer.

Tomorrow at 1pm local time in Lansing, The Committee to Recall Rick Snyder (FireRickSnyder.org) is officially launching a petition drive to recall Michigan’s new Republican Governor. In order to put the recall on the November ballot, they need to submit 807,000 valid signatures before August 5.

The process for recall elections in Michigan is different from other states. If the recall is successfully placed on the November ballot, voters will choose between recalling or not recalling Rick Snyder. If the voters side with recall, then “a special election is conducted on the next regular election date to fill the office vacancy.” This would most likely mean the 2012 Michigan primary.

The petition effort is undeniably a longshot, as it lacks any official support—and thus any significant  resources—from either the Michigan Democratic Party or local labor unions. Compared to the well-heeled efforts we have seen in Wisconsin and Ohio, the Committee to Recall Rick Snyder is an all-volunteer organization with barely enough money to print petitions.

Still, it’s too early to count them out. I have spoken with members of the organization, and they have signed up over 1,200 volunteers, conducted numerous trainings, and can boast organizational captains in every county in the state.

Rick Snyder’s abysmal approval rating will also help this campaign. In mid-March, less than three months into his term, PPP found Snyder at 33% approve, 50% disapprove. More recently, and using a different question wording, EPIC-MRA found (PDF) that 27% of Michiganders thought Snyder was doing an “excellent” or “pretty good” job, while 60% thought he was doing a “just fair” or “poor” job. So, while they Committee to Recall Rick Snyder probably needs to gather 1,000,000 signatures with little money, they will have a large pool of discontent to draw upon. […]

Florida Cuts Unemployment Benefits To Pay For Corporate Tax Cut

In the last few months, Republicans in several states have moved to limit unemployment benefits, even with the national unemployment rate at 9 percent and more than 40 percent of the unemployed having been out of work for six months or more. 

Republican lawmakers in Utah falsely claimed that cutting jobless benefits would be “motivation for people to get back to work,” while Michigan gutted its unemployment insurance system despite having one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation.

Florida Republicans this weekend also succeeded in reducing their state’s unemployment benefits, sending a bill to Gov. Rick Scott (R-FL) for his signature:

A bill that would establish some of the deepest and most far-reaching cuts in unemployment benefits in the nation is heading for the desk of Gov. Rick Scott…The legislation would cut maximum state benefits to 23 weeks from 26 when the jobless rate is 10.5 percent or higher. If lower, the maximum would decline on a sliding scale until bottoming at 12 weeks if the jobless rate was 5 percent or less.

…

Adding insult to injury, the money saved from cutting unemployment benefits will be used to reduce business taxes in a state where the corporate tax rate is already exceedingly low. Scott had been looking to cut corporate taxes even further, but was rebuffed by the legislature. […]

The Heartless Way Republicans Treat Young Women Who Choose to Have Babies

If you get pregnant outside of their very narrow parameters of what’s acceptable (middle class, married, white), conservatives simply want you to suffer for it.

Last week, “The Rachel Maddow Show” ran a story on Michigan politics that had footage so distressing it apparently created an avalanche of mail for the show. The new Republican governor of Michigan, Rick Snyder, signed a law that allows the state to functionally dissolve local governments and hand them over to “emergency managers,” who are using their new powers to enact a series of wish list items for conservatives under the guise of fiscal responsibility. It’s a project that’s been dubbed “fiscal martial law”, and the latest victims were a group of school girls that were manhandled by police and arrested, all because they wanted to keep their current educational opportunities. Maddow’s show ran the unnerving footage of police shoving, cuffing and pushing around teenage girls, while the sirens wailed over the girls’ shouts and cries.

The girls were arrested for holding a sit-in to protest the closing of their school, the Catherine Ferguson Academy, which was established to serve students who are pregnant or mothering. The school provides day care and parenting classes, and focuses on getting students to college and giving them skills that help future self-sufficiency. Supposedly “pro-life” conservatives should not only be supporting this school, but demanding that every high school in the country provide these services to teenage mothers. After all, these girls did what anti-choicers ask of them. They chose to have their babies. And now the very same conservatives that wax sentimental about “choosing life” are working to shut down the educational opportunities of young women who did what anti-choicers want, by having their babies.

The imminent shut down of Catherine Ferguson demonstrates the emptiness of Republican claims that they oppose reproductive rights because they value life. Instead, Republican policies are rooted in a sadistic desire to punish and control, and to deprive women—-especially young women, poor women, and women of color—-of any opportunities whatsoever. Lynn Paltrow, the executive director of the National Advocates for Pregnant Women, explained, “I think the range of actions being taken against pregnant women reflects what has been underlying attacks on Roe and abortion all along, a fundamental disrespect for pregnant women, regardless of what decisions they make. The combination of attacks that seek to deprive women not only of reproductive health care but food (through cuts to the WIC program) as well as education for pregnant teens makes clear that it is pregnant women’s personhood and not just their right to choose that is being targeted.” […]