Republican Governor Rick Snyder of Michigan claims that citizens have no right to vote for their local elected officials. His lawyer agrees.
According to WDET News, the authoritarian Governor is asking the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of appeals to throw out a lawsuit filed against him and the state Attorney General. Snyder and his lawyer insist that the Constitution of the United States gives citizens the right to elect state officials, but it doesn’t mention local elections. So, folks have no right to vote for the people who run their cities and towns.
The lawsuit stems from Michigan’s Emergency Manager Law. Under that law, the state is allowed to take over cities that are in emergency situations. During the 5 years that Snyder has been in office, the state has taken over management of seven cities and school districts.
Not everyone is happy about this situation. An article in the New York Times from this past January reported that plenty of people are angry at Snyder for overreaching. The City of Detroit had its schools put under emergency management way back in 2013. The guy they put in charge and given more power than the elected officials was a former bankruptcy lawyer with no experience in running a school district. Things didn’t get better.
A lot of people think that the moldy, rat infested schools should have a school board elected by the people who live in the city, not an emergency manager.
The Flint water crisis is also a part of the rage against the emergency management system, too. Once again, Governor Snyder, the fiscal super conservative, appointed an emergency manager to handle the financial crisis in Flint. One of the results was a choice to save money by switching to a new water source without bothering to treat the pipes. Now there are thousands of poor families who have been affected by lead and other toxins in their water.
The majority of the towns and districts under emergency management are poor and black. That doesn’t make anyone feel any better.
But Rick Snyder says that people can’t complain. They might think that they’re living in a democracy, but he knows better. They have no right to vote for their own mayors, city managers or school boards.
Right. Let’s see what the courts decide.
Featured image by DonkeyHotey via Flickr. Available through a Creative Commons License 2.0.
