Dark times in Michigan due to dark political secrets

Flint.

Just the mention of that word, that troubled city, now conjures extreme political reactions across the state and across America.

But let’s add to Flint the DEQ, EPA, DPS, EAA, FOIA and SB 571.
What a distasteful alphabet soup, though certainly no match for Flint’s drinking water.

We, as taxpayers and the Michigan electorate, want to know what the governor and his staff knew, and when did they know it, regarding the reckless poisoning of Flint water with high lead levels.

Why is the governor’s office blocking a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to obtain emails and other correspondence that would shed light on the timelines of the Flint water crisis? For that matter, why does Michigan stand as one of just a few states where the governor’s office and the entire Legislature is exempt from the state FOIA law?

In detail, what was the response from the state Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) when the switch to Flint River water resulted in brown, smelly tap water? When did they get in gear when high lead levels were found in the drinking water last summer?

Is this response any different from years of documentation (ignored by state officials) that showed the state-created reform school district for failed K-12 programs, the Educational Achievement Authority (EAA), has been highly mismanaged and producing well-below-mediocre student test scores?

Why did it take teacher “sickouts” – a move that enhanced the anti-Detroit attitudes among many Republican legislators in Lansing – to expose the deplorable physical conditions at numerous state-controlled Detroit Public Schools (DPS) buildings?

In every case, darkness is the issue. A calculated shortcoming in public information. A lack of government transparency.

We can certainly add to this list the massive failures of a private contractor, Aramark, in managing state prisons (maggots in food, drugs slipped to inmates, sexual misdeeds between guards and prisoners). That information was exceedingly slow to surface, due to Snyder administration intransigence.

Now, it appears that the governor may have awarded a no-bid contract for state services to a crony who showered Snyder with campaign contributions.

And then we have SB 571, the controversial, Republican-pushed Senate bill that passed under sleazy circumstances in December and, after securing the "moderate" governor’s signature, essentially placed a 60-day “gag order” on local officials prior to elections.

As Snyder prepares to deliver tonight one of the most precarious State of the State addresses in recent U.S. history, it should be noted that, beyond Flint, the supposedly pragmatic governor has demonstrated extraordinary weakness and deference to the overwhelming Republican majority in the Legislature, including a far-right tea party contingent, on several far-reaching bills over the past five years.

Here is an excerpt from a column I wrote for Dome Magazine last week, which explained the dark, secretive forces at work in the rushed passage of SB 571:

This sordid episode places another black mark on a state that already ranks last in the nation in government transparency and integrity.

While state Rep. Lisa Posthumus Lyons argues that she doesn’t know who wrote key passages in the (SB 571) legislative document she presented to her colleagues for approval, many political observers in Lansing believe they know exactly how Lyons came to serve as an errand girl, and for whom she was carrying water.

The strong suspicion is that she was doing the bidding of the DeVoses (mostly Dick and Betsy), fellow west Michigan Republicans who have an astounding level of influence over the Legislature.  This wealthy family – just a small group of people – made $4.9 million worth of campaign contributions in the 2013-14 election cycle. That was twice the amount of cash doled out to politicians by any Michigan PAC representing a large corporation, labor union…or entire industry.

Lyons, chair of the House Elections Committee, who apparently has her eye on becoming Michigan Secretary of State someday, received her largest House campaign donation ($10,000) in 2014 from the DeVoses even as she was breezing to re-election.

One needs no more evidence of the DeVoses influence over SB 571 than this: The Michigan Freedom Fund—the family’s premier political organization—announced on the afternoon of Jan. 6 that the governor had signed the bill (“A major victory for Michigan taxpayers”) before the governor’s office made Snyder’s signature public.

“I don’t have any doubt that, in those House and Senate Republican caucuses, it’s made clear to them that ‘You’re here to serve the DeVoses,’” said Rich Robinson, the state’s main campaign watchdog as director of the Michigan Campaign Finance Network.  As for Lyons, Robinson said, “She is the DeVoses elected representative. I’m sure Rep. Lyons is attentive to her special constituents.”

You can read more here.