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Michigan Policast for Monday, July 1, 2019
Segment One: Governor Whitmer vs Lansing Republicans
“No one in any other field is allowed to go on vacation before they get their work done ... they’re expected to work, to stay on the job until their work is done.' ~@govwhitmer #FTDR @mi_republicans @misenateClick To Tweet It’s been crickets when it comes to an alternative plan to actually fix this “dangerous” infrastructure crisis. ~ @govwhitmer #FTDRClick To TweetChatfield and Shirkey have not committed to the idea but had asked the West Michigan Policy Forum to look into ways to finance additional road repairs without the 45-cent-a-gallon fuel tax hike proposed by Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
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The concept quickly met conservative opposition from Patrick Anderson, founder and CEO of the Anderson Economic Group and a former state deputy budget director in the Engler administration. Anderson argued it could violate the Michigan Constitution, break trust with pensioners and is “also a really dumb idea” from a taxpayer perspective.
- West Michigan Policy Forum – conservative thinktank proposing the pension bond
Segment two: AG Nessel follows through on her campaign promise to shut down line 5
.@govwhitmer tried her best to reach an agreement that would remove the pipelines from the Straits on an expedited basis, but @Enbridge walked away ... Once that occurred, there was no need for further delay.” ~@MIAttyGen @dananessel @flowforwaterClick To Tweet… an April 2018 anchor dragging incident – which ripped through several inches-thick steel cables – brought that threat home in a very real way. Although Line 5 was damaged – not ruptured – in that incident because the anchor hit a section lying directly on the bottomlands, if the anchor had dragged across the bottom of the Straits in an area where Line 5 is elevated, the likely result would have been a complete rupture of Line 5.
- AG Nessel's Summons and Complaint against Enbridge (pdf)
- Enbridge response to Michigan Attorney General’s Legal Filing
- Enbridge Line 5 Backgrounder and Timeline (pdf from Enbridge)
- Michigan AG Dana Nessel files lawsuit to shut down Line 5 in Mackinac Straits
- Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel moves to shut down Enbridge Line 5
- Oil & Water Don't Mix response to AG Nessel legal action
- Shut down Enbridge Line 5? Here are 6 things to know
- Statement from Governor Whitmer's Office on Today's Legal Filings Regarding Line 5
For several months the attorney general has indicated she would use her independent authority to seek to shut down the dual pipelines through the Straits if Enbridge did not reach an acceptable agreement with the governor. Today, the attorney general followed through on her promise by filing a separate action.
- Governor Whitmer's motion to dismiss the Enbridge lawsuit against the state (pdf)
- Line 5 pipeline system with spill locations marked

Segment three: Presidential primary debates
Any system that Donald Trump can worm his way through with D-list insults and 120 seconds of attempted memorization should be fumigated and then burned. The fact that it remains intact speaks to the extreme laziness and boundless cynicism of that system's architects, who evidently don't mind that the worst people can win the game they've created.
- Liberal Democrats Ruled the Debates. Will Moderates Regain Their Voices?
- Democratic Presidential Debate – June 26 (Full video) | NBC News
- Democratic Presidential Debate – June 27 (Full video) | NBC News
Segment four: SCOTUS strikes the citizenship question from the US Census
Maryland U.S. District Judge George Hazel wrote earlier this week that files found on deceased Republican operative Thomas Hofeller’s hard drives painted a “disturbing picture” and “potentially connects the dots between a discriminatory purpose” and the Trump administration’s decision to add the citizenship question.
“Taken together with existing evidence, it appears that Dr. Hofeller was involved in the creation of the pretextual [Voting Rights Act] rationale and worked with [Mark] Neuman, Secretary Ross’s ‘trusted advisor,' to drive the addition of a citizenship question.”
- GOP paid millions to operative who pushed census question aimed to help “whites”
- ACLU Census Sanctions Motion
- John Roberts Rejects the Census Citizenship Question Because Trump Officials Lied About It
- GOP operative pushed census question on Trump: It would help “whites,” hurt Democrats
The files revealed that Hofeller was hired in 2015 by the Washington Free Beacon, a conservative news outlet owned by billionaire Republican donor Paul Singer, to study how to implement political maps that only looked at U.S. citizens of voting age, rather than a state’s total population.
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Hofeller wrote that implementing these maps without adding a citizenship question to the 2020 census would be “functionally unworkable.”
Segment five: SCOTUS says gerrymandering best left to the states
Michiganders deserve to have their voices heard and their votes counted. #Gerrymandering undermines the basic idea of open and free elections. It’s disappointing that #SCOTUS has refused to review this unfair practice, despite other courts declaring it unconstitutional.
— Governor Gretchen Whitmer (@GovWhitmer) June 27, 2019
- Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson statement on U.S. Supreme Court decision regarding gerrymandering
- Citizens Redistricting Commission
- Here's how the Supreme Court's gerrymandering decision affects Michigan
Interview: Attorney Mark Brewer on SCOTUS gerrymandering decision
The court conceded that there was political #gerrymandering going on in the cases before them, but they decided that the federal courts have no place deciding these cases. ~ @MarkBrewerDems @MiVoterPower MichiganDems Click To Tweet The model for @MIGOP is .. Arizona .. they’ve sought to impeach commissioners, defund the commission, and TPTB who have benefitted from #gerrymandering for the last 20 years are not going to give up power. ~ @MarkBrewerDems @NotPoliticians Click To Tweet- Michigan’s political districts illegally gerrymandered, court rules (Background info, prior to appeal to SCOTUS)
- Redistricting in Arizona (Wikipedia article for background)
- What the U.S. Supreme Court gerrymandering ruling means for Michigan
- Goodman Acker || Mark Brewer
- The Gerrymandering Decision Drags the Supreme Court Further Into the Mud
60 years ago the @detroitnews had the same attitude toward the now-bedrock 1-person, 1-vote principle; someday @scotus and even the News will get it right and narrow-minded, partisan editorials like these will be historical oddities https://t.co/N3aHfVEgb1
— Mark Brewer (@MarkBrewerDems) June 30, 2019
Interview: Former State Representative Mel Larsen
'Daisy Elliot carried that civil rights bill around for 6 yrs and could not get a Republican co-sponsor until I was elected in 1973.' ~ Mel Larsen #ElliotLarsenCRA #CivilRights Click To Tweet To be honest, the #CivilRights movement was about being black, and everything else around it was secondary. the understanding of the #lgbt community was not well known, and that was very evident. ~ Mel Larsen #ElliotLarsenCRA #EqualityClick To Tweet To get that bill passed it was one terrific fight .. the #LGBT were not directly included, but they were not excluded in saying that you had a right to discriminate against them. ~ Mel Larsen #ElliotLarsenCRA #EqualiyClick To Tweet Jim Dressel was a wonderful guy, good legislator, he introduced an amendment to include #lgbt community, and was defeated in the next election. ~ Mel Larsen #ElliotLarsenCRA #Equality Click To Tweet Every day that goes by that they don't put #LGBT in #ElliotLarsenCRA is another day that they discriminate against citizens of Michigan. ~ Mel Larsen #Equality Click To Tweet- Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act (Wikipedia)
- Wikipedia biography on Mel Larsen
- The Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act: Celebrating the Progress of Michigan’s Civil Rights Laws (Michigan Bar Journal pdf)
- Whitmer joins LGBTQ Caucus Call to Expand Elliott-Larsen Protections
- Detroit Urban League honors civil rights giant Mel Larsen
- Michigan Bar Association – Michigan Legal Milestones || 37. The Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act
- Tim Skubick: Who is Elliott and who is Larsen? Groundbreakers, that's who
Other stuff:
. @Enbridge says we need Line 5's propane in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. We think you should hear the facts before you believe them. #GreatLakes #ShutDownLine5 #oilspillhttps://t.co/ln2PZsuvl2 pic.twitter.com/EEL9vKJ7wF
— Oil&Water Don't Mix (@OilWaterDntMix) June 27, 2019
Trump lied about his motivations, and five justices called him on it. His proposal to add a citizenship question to the census was nothing but a racist attempt to disenfranchise communities of color. https://t.co/OPZfQbpgNK
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) June 27, 2019
Hypocrisy: Rich Studley of the @michamber, which led the effort to gerrymander the Legislature and rig Michigan elections, should look in the mirror if he wants to see what the creator of a “banana republic” looks like https://t.co/0Z1JHVQT08
— Mark Brewer (@MarkBrewerDems) June 28, 2019