An End to Democracy in America?

 
 by muon

This is the United States. We live in a democracy where we elect officials at all levels of government to represent us. We don't bow to dictators and tyrants. If we see our elected officials usurp too much power, we oust them. Right?

In 1990, Michigan passed a law that allowed the state government to take over state institutions (such as schools) by assigning an emergency manager. As I understand it, the manager's job was to help the institution out of financial difficulties.

A year ago, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder passed an act that expanded this takeover authority to include cities with high budget deficits. The managers have the power to suspend council meetings, layoff employees and fire elected city officials. Each city is expected to foot-the-bill for its emergency manager, and their salaries range from $132,000 to a quarter million annually--more than the salaries of the elected officials they were sent to replace. The cities of Ecorse, Pontiac, Benton Harbor, Lansing and Flint have been placed under emergency manager control.

The takeover of Benton Harbor occurred a month after Whirlpool pulled its last manufacturing plant out of the city. The company then proposed to build Harbor Shores, a half billion dollar golf course and residential development. Three holes of the golf course was to be on public lakeshore land taken over from a city park. The emergency manager not only fired Benton Harbor's mayor and stopped council meetings, but replaced members of the planning commission with his own appointees, thus ensuring the development could proceed without public input. It should be noted that the sponsor of the act that allowed Gov. Snyder to take over the city was Al Pscholka, state representative for Benton Harbor, former VP for the development company building Harbor Shores and on the Board of Directors for another organization involved with the development.

As if this weren't enough, when Benton Harbor's public radio station protested the takeover, the manager shut down the station and put it up for sale on Ebay, blatantly violating the citizens right to freedom of speech.

If you're still not convinced that a war for democracy is being waged in Michigan, consider that the democrats of the state's legislature have filed a lawsuit to force the Republicans to follow the state's constitution on the procedures for taking roll call votes. Currently the Republicans, who are the majority, are denying requests for roll call votes from the Democrats, more or less taking away their right to vote.

The scary thing is that these sorts of shenanigans are springing up all over the country. The GOP governor of Ohio took over school districts in Columbus and elsewhere, and just last month, GOP governor Tom Corbett of Pennsylvania took over the city of Harrisburg. Most Pennsylvania citizens never heard about this and don't realize that they could be the next ones to be denied their democratic right to elect local government representatives.