Once is happenstance

The Republicans talk a good line about, "small government", but when the rubber meets the road, it's all talk. The recent mess in Wisconsin, that was really central planning; with no right of the people to negotiate with the government.

Michigan is set to go one better^§, the Governor will soon have the power to take over any city, or school district he wants to. void any contracts, strip collective bargaining rights, sell of city/district assets, all at his sole discretion.

Here are some of the explicit justifications for exercising the option, (e) Failure to eliminate an existing deficit in any fund of the local government within the 2-year period preceding the end of the local government's fiscal year during which the review team report is received.
(h) Existence of material loans to the general fund from other local government funds.

I really like this little gem, (l) Any other facts and circumstances indicative of local government financial stress or financial emergency.

What checks are there on this ability to intervene? The supplanted gov't may appeal to a specific court. To do this they have to get a 2/3rds vote. Then the court decides if it's capricious, or otherwise non-meritorious.

What happens to a governor who is making an, " unwarranted exercise of discretion.?
So far as I can tell... the court reverses him. That's it. Not even a requirement that he be censured. It was just an "oops". Caught with your hand in the cookie jar of abusing your powers? Smile and move on. If the voters remember, they can deal with it later.

What happens when the governor isn't overturned?

(9) The consent agreement may include a grant to the chief administrative officer, the chief financial officer, the governing body, or other officers of the local government by the state financial authority of 1 or more of the powers prescribed for emergency managers in section 19 for such periods and upon such terms and conditions as the state financial authority considers necessary or convenient, in the state financial authority's sole discretion, to enable the local government to achieve the goals and objectives of the consent agreement.

Just who is this manager to be? How is the office to be filled?
c) The emergency manager may be an individual or firm.
(d) The emergency manager shall serve at the pleasure of the state treasurer, with the concurrence of the superintendent of public instruction if the local government is a school district.
(e) The emergency manager's compensation and reimbursement for actual and necessary expenses shall be paid by the local government and shall be set forth in a contract approved by the state treasurer.
(6) In addition to staff otherwise authorized by law, an emergency manager shall appoint additional staff and secure professional assistance as the emergency manager considers necessary to fulfill his or her appointment.

No chance for cronyism there. The governor declares you to be in "financial distress" takes over your government, appoints "an individual or firm" who has carte blanche to hire such "staff and... professional assistance" as they deem necessary.

Sounds good to me. What could possibly go wrong?

Once the financial manager is appointed, all bets are off they can do, pretty much whatever they want. The sacred contract (you remember those... the one's that made it mandatory to allow banks we'd bailed out with our money to pay tens of millions of dollars in bonuses to the guys who tanked them* is null and void, because (c) The modification, rejection, termination, and renegotiation of contracts pursuant to section 19.

(f) Any other actions considered necessary by the emergency manager in the emergency manager's discretion to achieve the objectives of the financial and operating plan, alleviate the financial emergency, and remove the local government from receivership. is part of the appointee's powers.

This includes collective bargaining. It's not, quite, as drastic as the one in Wisconsin, but that's not to say it can't be, just that the implementation isn't quite so draconian, but it's just as arbitrary. It's within the managers purview to, (j) Reject, modify, or terminate 1 or more terms and conditions of an existing contract. After meeting and conferring with the appropriate bargaining representative and, if in the emergency manager's sole discretion and judgment, a prompt and satisfactory resolution is unlikely to be obtained, reject, modify, or terminate 1 or more terms and conditions of an existing collective bargaining agreement.. There is a lot of boilerplate about the terms and conditions which need to be met, but it looks like that (recurrent) line, "in the emergency manager's sole discretion and judgement."

A lot of power is in those four words. Because all of the safeguards are to be filtered through that "discretion and judgement." This is the power of a dictator.

They even have, metaphoric, lictores: (2) If an order of the emergency manager to officials or employees of the local government under subsection (1) is not reasonably carried out and the failure to carry out an order is disrupting the emergency manager's ability to manage the local government, the emergency manager, in addition to other remedies provided in this act, may prohibit the official or employee from access to the local government's office facilities, electronic mail, and internal information systems.

This isn't small government. It's not even fiscal responsibility. It's autocracy. The Governor decides an entity is in, "financial distress", and appoints someone to fix it. They are then able to do whatever they like. If in their discretion, the folks they have usurped don't turn to with alacrity, they get turned out of what office they have left.

The people writing these, and enacting them (by hook, or by crook) are "Republicans", but they don't seem to believe in a Republic, a system of checks and balances. Rather when they have a majority they favor brute force, no negotiation, just a declaration that this is the way it is because, "elections have consequences". When they are in the minority, all procedural obstructionism is legitimate, because, "the minority must be heard†. Gov't must "let people alone", unless it's a question of whom to marry, or sleep with, or what to do with one's body.

The mind reels anytime one tries to reconcile the contradictions in the various parts of the platform. I can do it, but the ways which do it... require making conclusions which are ugly.

I don't want to, but the more of this shit I see, the harder it is to not come to them.


§ A law to allow the Governor to take over city/county governements, and school boards

*which seems odd to me, I'd think bonuses were based on either the merit of a person's objective performance, or some demonstrable benefit from an organisation in a company... these appeared to be salary in another guise. A way to keep huge operating costs off the books, so the shareholders wouldn't see that the paychecks to the executives were as large as they were, and remain, but I digress

† Where are those vaunted, "straight up and down" votes on the President's appointees now?

Once is happenstance

The Republicans talk a good line about, "small government", but when the rubber meets the road, it's all talk. The recent mess in Wisconsin, that was really central planning, and no right of the people to negotiate with the government.

Michigan is set to go one better^§, the Governor will soon have the power to take over any city, or school district he wants to. void any contracts, strip collective bargaining rights, sell of city/district assets, all at his sole discretion.

Here are some of the explicit justifications for exercising the option, (e) Failure to eliminate an existing deficit in any fund of the local government within the 2-year period preceding the end of the local government's fiscal year during which the review team report is received.
(h) Existence of material loans to the general fund from other local government funds.
I really like this little gem, (l) Any other facts and circumstances indicative of local government financial stress or financial emergency.
What checks are there on this ability to intervene? The supplanted gov't may appeal to a specific court. To do this they have to get a 2/3rds vote. Then the court decides if it's capricious, or otherwise non-meritorious.

What happens to a governor who is making an, " unwarranted exercise of discretion.?
So far as I can tell... the court reverses him. That's it. Not even a requirement that he be censured. It was just an "oops". Caught with your hand in the cookie jar of abusing your powers? Smile and move on. If the voters remember, they can deal with it later.

What happens when the governor isn't overturned?

(9) The consent agreement may include a grant to the chief administrative officer, the chief financial officer, the governing body, or other officers of the local government by the state financial authority of 1 or more of the powers prescribed for emergency managers in section 19 for such periods and upon such terms and conditions as the state financial authority considers necessary or convenient, in the state financial authority's sole discretion, to enable the local government to achieve the goals and objectives of the consent agreement.

Just who is this manager to be? How is the office to be filled?
c) The emergency manager may be an individual or firm.
(d) The emergency manager shall serve at the pleasure of the state treasurer, with the concurrence of the superintendent of public instruction if the local government is a school district.
(e) The emergency manager's compensation and reimbursement for actual and necessary expenses shall be paid by the local government and shall be set forth in a contract approved by the state treasurer.
(6) In addition to staff otherwise authorized by law, an emergency manager shall appoint additional staff and secure professional assistance as the emergency manager considers necessary to fulfill his or her appointment.

No chance for cronyism there. The governor declares you to be in "financial distress" takes over your government, appoints "an individual or firm" who has carte blanche to hire such "staff and... professional assistance" as they deem necessary.

Sounds good to me. What could possibly go wrong?

Once the financial manager is appointed, all bets are off they can do, pretty much whatever they want. The sacred contract (you remember those... the one's that made it mandatory to allow banks we'd bailed out with our money to pay tens of millions of dollars in bonuses to the guys who tanked them* is null and void, because (c) The modification, rejection, termination, and renegotiation of contracts pursuant to section 19.

(f) Any other actions considered necessary by the emergency manager in the emergency manager's discretion to achieve the objectives of the financial and operating plan, alleviate the financial emergency, and remove the local government from receivership. is part of the appointee's powers.

This includes collective bargaining. It's not, quite, as drastic as the one in Wisconsin, but that's not to say it can't be, just that the implementation isn't quite so draconian, but it's just as arbitrary. It's within the managers purview to, (j) Reject, modify, or terminate 1 or more terms and conditions of an existing contract. After meeting and conferring with the appropriate bargaining representative and, if in the emergency manager's sole discretion and judgment, a prompt and satisfactory resolution is unlikely to be obtained, reject, modify, or terminate 1 or more terms and conditions of an existing collective bargaining agreement.. There is a lot of boilerplate about the terms and conditions which need to be met, but it looks like that (recurrent) line, "in the emergency manager's sole discretion and judgement."

A lot of power is in those four words. Because all of the safeguards are to be filtered through that "discretion and judgement." This is the power of a dictator.

They even have, metaphoric, lictores: (2) If an order of the emergency manager to officials or employees of the local government under subsection (1) is not reasonably carried out and the failure to carry out an order is disrupting the emergency manager's ability to manage the local government, the emergency manager, in addition to other remedies provided in this act, may prohibit the official or employee from access to the local government's office facilities, electronic mail, and internal information systems.

This isn't small government. It's not even fiscal responsibility. It's autocracy. The Governor decides an entity is in, "financial distress", and appoints someone to fix it. They are then able to do whatever they like. If in their discretion, the folks they have usurped don't turn to with alacrity, they get turned out of what office they have left.

The people writing these, and enacting them (by hook, or by crook) are "Republicans", but they don't seem to believe in a Republic, a system of checks and balances. Rather when they have a majority they favor brute force, no negotiation, just a declaration that this is the way it is because, "elections have consequences". When they are in the minority, all procedural obstructionism is legitimate, because, "the minority must be heard†. Gov't must "let people alone", unless it's a question of whom to marry, or sleep with, or what to do with one's body.

The mind reels anytime one tries to reconcile the contradictions in the various parts of the platform. I can do it, but the ways which do it... require making conclusions which are ugly.

I don't want to, but the more of this shit I see, the harder it is to not come to them.


§A bill to allow Michigan's governor to take over any lesser government in the state

*which seems odd to me, I'd think bonuses were based on either the merit of a person's objective performance, or some demonstrable benefit from an organisation in a company... these appeared to be salary in another guise. A way to keep huge operating costs off the books, so the shareholders wouldn't see that the paychecks to the executives were as large as they were, and remain, but I digress

† Where are those vaunted, "straight up and down" votes on the President's appointees now?