And now, the anti-worker spaceship touches down in Michigan, where the new Republican governor wants virtual single-handed control over state contracts and bargaining rights. Reuters:
The Michigan bill allows a governor-appointed emergency manager to modify or end collective bargaining agreements. With the governor's approval, the emergency manager also could dissolve a city government or recommend consolidation.Democrats called the bill an attack on public sector unions similar to legislation signed by Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker last week and said the changes would add to pressure on cities and school districts.
Republican Rep. Al Pscholka, the bill's sponsor, said on Tuesday that the changes would give emergency managers more tools to turn around failing schools and cities.
"For years we have allowed cities and schools to be on the verge of bankruptcy without any intervention," Pscholka said. "When the state finally does arrive, in many cases we find the financial records in disarray and leave emergency managers with very few good options to balance the books."
The bill expands the powers for the state to name emergency overseers and gives them powers over academics and finances in the case of school districts. The emergency manager also could close schools and buildings.
This kind of thing could well be called for with regard to some Detroit schools. But an emergency overseer accountable only to the governor? A protest today in Lansing, the capital, drew what looks like a few thousand people.
In Wisconsin, they're going to recall Scott Walker next year, and they just might succeed. In Ohio, new GOP governor John Kasich is in the toilet - 35% approval already, and he'd lose a rematch against Democrat Ted Strickland by 15 points based on what voters have seen of him so far. Also in Ohio, Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown, a liberal who faces reelection in 2012 and was neck-in-neck in polls with plausible GOP foes, now leads them by 15, 18 points.
These aren't exactly flaming liberal states, but they're not right-wing states, and two of the three (Michigan and Wisconsin) are normally Democratic states at the presidential level. What these governors think they're doing politically is beyond me.
And yet, they will win these concessions, as Walker won in Wisconsin, and even if Walker is recalled and Kasich and Michigan's Rick Snyder are defeated and all three states go for Obama in 2012, it'll still be hard to round up the votes in those states to undo the damage these people are doing. A reminder that there are political stakes for the political class and real-life stakes for the working and middle class.
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