In Michigan, Gov. Rick Snyder's popularity plummets as he attacks labor unions

By Michael J.W. Stickings

In Michigan, Governor (and would-be autocrat) Rick Snyder is deeply unpopular, not least because he has pulled a Scott Walker and attacked labor unions (and working people generally):

Last November, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) won a decisive 18 point victory in his race for the governor's mansion. Yet after less than three months of draconian budget proposals and unconstitutional assaults on collective bargaining, Snyder is hurting. A new poll finds that Snyder would lose his election if it were held today, and that a strong plurality of the state would support amending the state constitution to prevent Snyder from continuing his anti-union agenda:

Snyder's also earned the ire of the voters because of the perception that he's targeting collective bargaining rights. 59% of folks in Michigan think that public employees should have the right to collective bargaining while only 32% are opposed, and 49% of voters even favor a state constitutional amendment to guarantee collective bargaining rights while 37% are opposed to such a measure. While union households are obviously the most supportive of collective bargaining, nonunion households support it by a 53/39 margin as well so the voters Snyder is antagonizing on this issue go beyond who you might expect.

It's hard to see how anti-labor politics would ever go over well in Michigan of all places, but Snyder's clear overreach, against an overwhelming majority of the electorate (an electorate that has a long and distinguished union history and that has suffered some of the worst consequences of the Great Recession), shows just how extremist and out of touch Republicans are these days, both in that state and elsewhere. 

And now the people of Michigan, assaulted by their Republican governor (whom far too many trusted to be not this extreme, evidence of widespread delusion), may go so far as to try to amend the state constitution to safeguard their rights. They should have known better at the ballot box when they voted Republican, but this may be the only way to ensure that right-wing efforts to dismantle democracy, which won't end with Snyder, are blocked for good.

Well, another way is to vote Snyder and his Republican allies out of office at the first opportunity. Let's hope Michigan doesn't repeat its recent electoral errors.

Michigan power grab

By Mustang Bobby.

Via Steve Benen comes a story about the new governor of Michigan being granted basically limitless power to do anything he wants.

Newly elected Republican governor, Rick Snyder, is set to pass one of the most sweeping, anti-democratic pieces of legislation in the country -- and almost no one is talking about it.

Snyder's law gives the state government the power not only to break up unions, but to dissolve entire local governments and place appointed "Emergency Managers" in their stead. But that's not all -- whole cities could be eliminated if Emergency Managers and the governor choose to do so. And Snyder can fire elected officials unilaterally, without any input from voters. It doesn't get much more anti-Democratic than that.

Except it does. The governor simply has to declare a financial emergency to invoke these powers -- or he can hire a private company to declare financial emergency and take over oversight of the city. That's right, a private corporation can declare your city in a state of financial emergency and send in its Emergency Manager, fire your elected officials, and reap the benefits of the ensuing state contracts.  [Italics in the original.]

Ironically, this was the kind of thing all the tea-partiers were screaming about last year that President Obama was plotting to do with the stimulus and healthcare law: he's a tyrant who will stop at nothing to take away the power from the people and turn it over to the bureaucrats and the evil Soshulists.  So, naturally, you'd think that the tea-folk in Michigan would be apoplectic about this.  Well, you would be wrong.  They're delighted with it.

One of the Republican state lawmakers who supports this effort characterized the plan as "financial martial law" -- and as far as he's concerned, that's not a criticism, that a defense for this little scheme.

Rule Number 1 of Dictators: It's not tyranny when we do it; it's "emergency powers." (See: Mubarak, Hosni; Castro, Fidel & Raul).

(Cross-posted from Bark Bark Woof Woof.)