Lansing — A protest planned for Wednesday at the state Capitol is the latest salvo in the uproar sparked June 14 by House Republican silencing two female Democratic representatives for a day after they said “vagina” and “vasectomy” on the chamber’s floor. Planned Parenthood Advocates of Michigan is organizing the rally from 11 a.m. to … Continue Reading →
With July quickly approaching, special interest groups will likely be rolling out their endorsements of candidates for the Michigan House of Representatives on an almost daily basis between now and the Aug. 7 primary. Last week, Right to Life of Michigan posted its endorsements for candidates for U.S. Senate down to county commissions. On Monday, … Continue Reading →
At the center of the House Republican majority’s controversial one-day silencing of two Democratic female representatives are claims that women are second-class citizens in the House of Representatives. State Rep. Lisa Brown’s now infamous June 13 “vagina” remark on the House floor and Rep. Barb Byrum’s disruptive yelling at Speaker Pro Tem John Walsh for … Continue Reading →
It’s been widely known in Lansing for months that state Rep. Lesia Liss, D-Warren, was on the outs with fellow Democrats. In March, building trades unions and the Michigan Nurses Association endorsed state Rep. Jon Switalski of Warren in the Aug. 7 Democratic primary for Macomb County’s 28th District. Liss, a registered nurse, was elected … Continue Reading →
State Rep. Phil Cavanagh, D-Redford Township, was the sixth of former Detroit Mayor Jerome Cavanagh’s eight children. The first-term state representative from the 17th District was just five years old when the late Jerome Cavanagh faced his greatest mayoral crisis — the 1967 Detroit riots. In the lead up to Father’s Day, Phil Cavanagh was … Continue Reading →
House Republicans have scheduled a vote Wednesday on two bills that would lower the state’s income tax by one-tenth of a percentage point and increase the personal exemption on Oct. 1. The proposed tax cut from 4.35 percent to 4.25 percent was scheduled to go into effect Jan. 1, but Republicans want to speed up … Continue Reading →
House Democrats are apparently stuck between competing agendas – helping Detroit Public Schools escape state-appointed emergency management and repealing the emergency manager law. The 17-mill operating levy that raises $87 million annually for the Detroit school district’s budget is up for renewal this year. But Public Act 4 of 2011 restricts school districts like DPS … Continue Reading →
Election clerks in western Oakland and Wayne counties could be up late on the night of the Aug. 7 primary counting Thads. U.S. Rep. Thaddeus McCotter announced today in a Detroit News column that he will mount a write-in campaign in the 11th Congressional District Republican primary after his re-election campaign failed to gather the … Continue Reading →
Senate Majority Leader Randy Richardville said Wednesday he supports moving all newly hired public school employees into a 401(k)-style retirement plan and closing the pension and health care plan. “Tell the Mackinac Center that, OK?” Richardville quipped to reporters, referencing the Midland-based free market think-tank that has called for ending the traditional defined benefits of … Continue Reading →
Some Michigan Democratic lawmakers were quick to blast presumed Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney today in light of revelations that he bullied classmates as a student at Cranbrook School while his father, George Romney, was governor of Michigan. The Washington Post reported Thursday that Romney led a prep school posse in the spring of 1965 … Continue Reading →