the sb 1070 pioneered in arizona, imitated in alabama and south carolina and elsewhere is currently having its fate decided at the united states supreme court. they strip union rights in ohio before the people took them back and wisconsin where it s likely to end scott walker s time in office before the scheduled close of his first term. this michigan law is in my opinion the single most radical thing done by november the all red states since 2010. this law described as michigan s emergency manager law, it gets rid of local democracy, lets the state declare your town to be too broken, too financially broken for you to be allowed voting rights anymore. you re not allowed to have elected representation anymore. your right to support what happens in your town, your mayor, et cetera, effectively nullified by the state.
on the back end of this we re seeing it hitting african-americans, low income communities, high democratic party voting communities, hitting labor. this is not what democracy looks like. obviously, in a lot of towns facing these kinds of takeovers, facing having their local voting rights overruled, there are big financial problems. a lot of different kinds in these cities. do you think the concern about the overall health of municipalities in michigan is primary in people s minds or with the emergency manager law, are people worried about losing their rights? what do you see as the balance between those two levels of concern? they have a big impact on people s day-to-day lives. this is a false dilemma. we don t need financial we need recovery. let s deal with foreclosure. 90,000 foreclosures in the city of detroit. 90,000 forced evictions in the last three years. you look at 300,000 people leaving one city, you re seeing the tax base leave. it s not in financial strain
they stripped all payer from the mayor and commission and after being stripped all power, they tried to test that out. that can t be right. we were elected. you can t strip us of that power. they decided to have a symbolic constitution week in benton harbor. the emergency manager said you can t do that. they overturned that vote. there is no commission. forget constitution week, is there an overseer in charge with unilateral authority. we have seen it at work in places like flint, michigan and pontiac. on the eve of today s hearing whether the emergency manager law would get recalled. last night, with the prospect of the emergency manager law put on ice until voters can have their say on it last night with every emergency manager in the state having his unilateral authority cut off within hours, last night in flint, the emergency manager there posted a dozen new
instead, republican governor rick snyder appoints a single so-called emergency manner who gets put in unilateral control of just about everything emergency or not. we have seen this at its extreme in benton harbor, michigan where they stripped all payer from the mayor and commission and after being stripped all power, they tried to test that out. that can t be right. we were elected. you can t strip us of that power. they decided to have a symbolic constitution week in benton harbor. the emergency manager said you can t do that. they overturned that vote. there is no commission. forget constitution week, is there an overseer in charge with unilateral authority. we have seen it at work in places like flint, michigan and pontiac. on the eve of today s hearing whether the emergency manager law would get recalled. last night, with the prospect of the emergency manager law put on ice until voters can have their say on it last night with every emergency manager in the state
tried to test that out. that can t be right. we were elected. you can t strip us of that power. they decided to have a symbolic constitution week in benton harbor. the emergency manager said you can t do that. they overturned that vote. there is no commission. forget constitution week, is there an overseer in charge with unilateral authority. we have seen it at work in places like flint, michigan and pontiac. on the eve of today s hearing whether the emergency manager law would get recalled. last night, with the prospect of the emergency manager law put on ice until voters can have their say on it last night with every emergency manager in the state having his unilateral authority cut off within hours, last night in flint, the emergency manager there posted a dozen new