Someone that I hold in the highest esteem wrote this email to Stephen Henderson, Detroit Free Press Editorial Editor. I could not have said it better and my feelings about not recognizing MI or our populace still hold true. If the MI Legislature passes bills that further erode a state I have lived in my entire life (outside of several years of college), and Rick Snyder signs them, just maybe our populace will think differently when entering the voting booth in November 2016, or maybe not and MI will need hospice.
“I too am disgusted by the state of our roads and our inability to fix them. But my frustration lies in the entire process. We have a term limited legislature (6 years in the House) where special interests rule, accountability does not exist and and lack of knowledge is a given. How do you run government when a majority leader has two years of experience. Because of gerrymandering of districts we have a legislature that is overwhelming Republican and leans to the Tea Party – the legislature does not even remotely look like the general makeup of the Michigan electorate. We have a Republican governor, a super Republican majority in the Senate and a Republican majority in the House and there is no ability to achieve consensus. A conservative governor looks like a Democrat in the eyes of the majority of the legislature.
Yet you and the Free Press endorsed Rick Snyder in the last election. You questioned his ethics and asked that he be more forthright, and still endorsed him as the lesser of two evils. I recall you were concerned, among other things, with stalemate between the Executive Branch and the Legislature. We have worse – a same party Executive who has no control over a legislature and in the end gives in to what they want including right to work, and until recently a substantial reduction in school funding and higher taxes to individuals across the board without a corresponding benefit. Makes stalemate or gridlock look a lot better to me.
I was furious that a cowardly legislature was incapable of providing basic services for the people they represent. I was even more furious that something as basic as road funding was reduced to a Constitutional Amendment to raise the sales tax. Amending the Constitution because of incompetence is not the answer.
I have been a Michigander my entire life; I have never been less proud. I don’t even recognize the State I love.”
Governor Snyder, the MI Legislature and our voting populace, is anyone listening?