Detroit NAACP Slams Michigan Republicans for Trying to Limit
Democrats Power
By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA
Newswire Correspondent
@StacyBrownMedia
Rev. Wendell Anthony,
D.Min, isn’t taking the latest efforts by the outgoing
Republican administration in Michigan sitting down.
Anthony, who’s president
of the NAACP in Detroit – the Civil Rights organization’s
largest branch – is leading an effort to stop several bills
proposed by lame duck Republicans who lost the midterm
elections.
Anthony said the actions
taken by the GOP-led legislature are “more crooked than the
great train robberies committed by Jesse and Frank James in
the Missouri territories.”
“The only thing the
legislature in Michigan lacks is a face mask and a
six-shooter,” Anthony said. The outspoken Anthony listed
seven bills as troublesome:
Senate Bills 1238-1240
undercuts the Promote the Vote proposal.
Senate Bill 1254 undercuts
the anti-gerrymandering proposal.
Senate Bill 1252 shifts
the oversight of campaign finance law from the incoming
Secretary of State.
House Bill 6553 would
allow the Michigan House of Representatives and the Senate
to interfere with legal proceedings involving the state
(traditionally the responsibility of the state Attorney
General or the Governor’s office).
Senate Bill 1175 would
change the way employers provide paid sick time and the
number of employers exempted by various business entities.
Senate Bill 1171 would gut
the minimum wage initiative, a measure that would assure the
minimum wage would rise according to inflation. “Rogue
lawmakers are already trashing the one fair minimum-wage
agreement, fought for by workers across the state,” Anthony
said.
Senate Bill 1182 would
change the way law suits and civil actions should be awarded
to both the attorneys representing the plaintiffs and the
defendants. “It is designed to discourage citizens and
organizations filing civil actions against various
injustices,” he said.
Anthony told NNPA Newswire
that the actions are “a treacherous mean-spirited,
underhanded and deceptive Republican theft of what should be
a democratic process.”
“They have not gotten the
memo that we won the election and they are mad, and they are
upset and trying to offset the result of the election by
setting themselves up to maintain power before the
Democratic administration can come in,” Anthony said.
Together the proposals,
which would still require the signature of outgoing
Republican Gov. Rick Snyder, would essentially take away or
greatly diminish the power from Governor-elect Gretchen
Whitmer, Secretary of State-elect Jocelyn Benson and
Attorney General-elect Dana Nessel.
The GOP-sponsored bills
came within hours of similar efforts in Wisconsin, where
lawmakers voted earlier to shift clout to the
Republican-controlled Legislature and weaken the Democrat
replacing the GOP governor.
In January, Michigan
Democrats will jointly hold the governor, attorney general
and secretary offices for the first time in 28 years, but
the Legislature will continue to be controlled by
Republicans.
A day after GOP lawmakers
finalized an unprecedented maneuver to gut minimum wage and
paid sick leave laws, a Senate panel passed legislation that
would create the Fair Political Practices Commission to
enforce the campaign-finance law rather than Benson, who ran
in part on a pledge to advocate for election transparency.
Democrats called the bill
a blatant power grab that would fly in the face of voters,
according to NBC News.
“At no point did voters
say they wanted the rules manipulated. At no point did they
say they wanted bills rushed through a hasty lame-duck
session,” Patrick Schuh, state director for the liberal
group America Votes, told NBC News.
He, like Anthony and
others, questioned the timing, saying such a commission was
not proposed until a Democrat is on the verge of leading the
secretary of state office for the first time in two-dozen
years.
Chief among the many
proposals rankling Democrats and voters alike is a proposal
that requires a legislative committee rather than the
Attorney General to sign off on withdrawing from federal
lawsuits, now sits on the table.
In Wisconsin, it would
also give the legislature oversight over Governor-Elect Tony
Evers, potentially preventing him from seeking waivers for
health care.
Outgoing governor Scott
Walker is even backing away from his promise to ensure
coverage for people with pre-existing conditions, made
during the height of the recent election.
“He is hiding behind a
political mask of a lawsuit filed this past February which
attempts to declare the Affordable Care Act
unconstitutional,” Anthony said.
Two years ago, several
similar measures were declared unconstitutional in the state
of North Carolina. One measure in particular was the 2016
ruling by the federal courts that ended the practice of
gerrymandering in the state.
Judge James A. Wynn of the
U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit Court indicated,
“When maps are gerrymandered, the government no longer
reflects the will of the people.”
The ruling questioned
North Carolina’s general assembly’s “Commitment to acting
constitutionally compliant, nondiscriminatory election
laws.”
“One can recall the July
2016 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling indicating
that North Carolina legislators, in their efforts to
discriminate against black voters, had drafted a law that
would target African Americans with almost surgical
precision,” Anthony said.
Today, in the state of
North Carolina, the election in the 9th Congressional
District is still not certified. This is due to allegations
of voter fraud, and the elimination or destruction of over
1000 absentee ballots, predominantly from African Americans,
Anthony said.
“There has been an illegal
solicitation of absentee ballots by paid individuals of a
Republican operative McCrae Dowless. Why has there been no
outcry of voter fraud from President Donald J. Trump? Where
is the former chairman of the Presidential Advisory
Commission on Election Integrity, Kris Kobach, when you
really need him? Do you hear the crickets chirping?”
The resolution to these
issues in Michigan, Wisconsin, and North Carolina is very
simple, Anthony continued. “Respect the will of the people.
Get better policies and you will win more voters. Don’t try
to steal it, after you have lost it,” he said.
There’s little question
the actions are a prelude to the general election of 2020,
according to Anthony. Some lawmakers are running scared, he
said while urging voters in Michigan not to be discouraged.
“Now is the time to be
encouraged. We must not step back. We must all step up.
Governor Rick Snyder, please don’t go off into the pages of
history having turned back the page on Michigan democracy,”
Anthony said.
“When these bills arrive
on your desk, remember the words of the former First Lady
Nancy Reagan, and ‘Just say No.’ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
reminds us, ‘Our lives begin to end the day we become silent
about things that matter. The time is always right to do
what is right.’ We shall not be silent because the time is
always right, to do what is right, to preserve and protect
our democracy,” he said.
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