Archive for the ‘Jocelyn Benson’ Category

Jocelyn Benson

Many people disagree over the expanded use of Michigan’s Emergency Financial manager law under the Snyder-Dillon administration.  According to a recent Detroit Free Press poll, 42 percent support it and 45 percent want to see the law repealed.

Those in support of the law allowing a state appointed manager to assume the major oversight responsibilities for a city or school district, including the expanded power to terminate collective bargaining agreements, generally argue that state oversight is the only way to ensure localities on the verge of bankruptcy implement difficult fiscal decisions, cuts and layoffs that are necessary to ensure solvency.  Opponents counter that the state-appointed managers, which assume the power and authority of local elected officials, are a direct affront to the democratic voice and power of citizens.

But nearly everyone agrees that something must be done to aid our failing cities and public educational institutions. From Flint to Benton Harbor and most recently in Detroit, there is widespread consensus that agrees that a municipality in fiscal crisis hurts everyone.

That’s why those opposing the Emergency Financial Manager law must not only collect signatures in support of an initiative to overturn the law.   They must also propose an alternative solution to ensure that our localities are financially strong.

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Jocelyn Benson

Last Friday, across the country, thousands of citizens and grassroots organizations occupied courthouses, law firms and sidewalks calling for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Why? Because two years earlier, on January 20, 2009, the United States Supreme Court struck down an important federal law that limited the ability of corporations to directly influence political campaigns.  In Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, a slim majority of five Justices voted to expand the First Amendment protections for corporations, enabling them to spend millions of dollars on commercials and other media in an attempt to influence the outcome of elections.

In interpreting the First Amendment to find that corporations are entitled to the same sorts of free speech protections that citizens enjoy, the court notably cast aside any concern that allowing corporations to spend unlimited amounts of money on political campaigns would invite an appearance or perception of corruption.

But they premised their dismissal of the corruption concern on the idea of disclosure and transparency.  In finding that corporations now have a “right” to influence our elections, citizens, the court reasoned, also have a “right” to know who is spending what.   And, Justice Kennedy wrote in Citizens United, “disclosure permits citizens and shareholders to react to the speech of corporate entities in a proper way. This transparency enables the electorate to make informed decisions and give proper weight to different speakers and messages.”

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Jocelyn Benson

“Life’s most persistent and urgent question,” Martin Luther King Jr. once remarked, is “What are you doing for others?”

On today’s observance of Martin Luther King’s birthday, we can honor King’s legacy by emulating his life, reaching out and serving others in our state and community.

Consider spending a few hours of your holiday in service to your fellow residents.  Wherever you live in Michigan, there is a need that you can fill.

If you live in the Lansing area, for example, the City of East Lansing’s Environmental Stewardship Program is hosting an event at Henry Fine Park.  Volunteers can arrive between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m., and can work to improve a public trail and make improvements to the Hannah Community Center.

In Kalamazoo, visit City Hall early in the day and volunteer for the 11th Annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Communitywide Day of Service, and participate in projects ranging from assisting pre-school children to making improvements to community centers and parks.

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Jocelyn Benson

Last week, as over $14 million of Super-PAC ad money sank Newt Gingrich’s presidential campaign in Iowa, the Montana State Supreme Court handed down a curious ruling.

Montana Justices held that a state law banning corporate political expenditures was constitutional, rejecting a lawsuit that claimed the law was a violation of corporations’ right to free speech.

This would seem contrary to the now-infamous 2010 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Citizens United.   A central premise to Citizens United was that corporations are “people” for purposes of First Amendment protections for free speech.   As such, the Court reasoned, large businesses possess, just as human beings do, a constitutional right to participate in politics – and spend money to influence elections.

But that right is not without its limits or constraints.  In fact, the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision to allow corporations to spend unlimited amounts of money to influence elections rested on two important assumptions.  The first was that states would enact disclosure laws to ensure that “We the People” knew who was buying and selling our elections.  Sadly, at the federal level and in nearly every state – including Michigan – there are no comprehensive disclosure requirements for corporations spending money to influence elections.

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Jocelyn Benson

In our democracy, the right to self-governance is fundamental. That’s why, over 50 years ago, the United States Supreme Court held that voting, the quintessential act and affirmation of self-governance, is a fundamental right. One component of protecting that fundamental right is ensuring that no eligible voter is blocked from casting his or her ballot. And another is making sure that this ballot is counted accurately and is not “cancelled out” by a vote that is cast and counted by someone who is ineligible.

Our current political debate over voter identification, which sees these two components as competing, is misguided. One side argues that every voter must produce certain forms of photo identification or even proof of citizenship in order to cast a vote, or else our system of democracy will collapse under the weight of fraudulent votes. The other side points to the lack of evidence that fraud is prevalent enough to require such a blanket response, and proffers other data showing that onerous identification requirements will result in discouraging otherwise eligible citizens from voting. In fact, the New York Times recently reported that, according to a study by the Brennan Center for Justice, more than 5 million eligible voters may be blocked from casting their ballots in 2012 as additional voter identification requirements are imposed throughout the country.

No citizen benefits if the democratic process is tainted with fraud. At the same time, our country and state cannot prosper if its citizens are blocked or discouraged from participating in the electoral process. That is why the most effective system of election administration is one that will make it simultaneously easy to vote and hard to cheat.

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Jocelyn Benson

Twenty-two years ago this month, the parliament of Czechoslovakia elected Vaclav Havel president. His death on Sunday marks the loss of one of the world’s most strident and poetic voices for democracy.

Havel demonstrated true political courage throughout his service as president – first of Czechoslovakia and then of the Czech Republic after the nation split.  And as the leader of the country’s Velvet Revolution in 1989 – his greatest legacy – he fought to give “Power to the Powerless,” toppling the communist regime that had ruled his people behind the Iron Curtain for more than 40 years.

Havel was a true public servant. Having no ambition for a career in politics, he sought to empower his fellow citizens through words that communicated the moral imperative of freedom. A self-taught playwright, Havel was denied the education he should have enjoyed. But he worked at his craft, usually having to simultaneously work a variety of odd jobs to make a living. Eventually, his work gained him notoriety and gave him a platform to advocate for basic human rights and freedoms.

He was a fighter dedicated to shining a light on injustice.  His plays were banned for decades. After he published Charter 77, a manifesto calling on Czechoslovakia’s communist regime to adhere to international standards of human rights, he was jailed three times.

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Jocelyn Benson

The promise that citizens choose their elected officials is a basic foundation of our democratic process.  So is the simple tenet that victory comes through playing by the rules, not by altering the rules so that you can declare yourself the winner.

Last week, the Michigan State House passed a bill that violates both of these principles.

Just a few weeks after a three-judge panel of the Michigan Court of Appeals voted unanimously to uphold the legality of Oakland County’s newly drawn county commission districts, the House voted to enact legislation that would invalidate the map and require the county commission to draw a new one.

But the worst thing about this bill is not just that it changes the rules of Oakland County’s redistricting process after the process has already produced a legal map.  And it’s not the fact that this change, led by Oakland County Republican legislators, will invalidate a county commission map that they believe will make it difficult for Republicans to maintain their majority on the commission.

The worst thing about this bill is that it actually takes the power to draw commission lines out of the hands of an independent – albeit political and partisan – committee and gives that power to the commissioners themselves to craft their own districts.

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Jocelyn Benson

Republicans in the Michigan Legislature are on the right track with a proposal to reform the state’s election recall laws. Current laws are too vague and establish virtually no standards for why a lawmaker can be recalled. But the proposed reforms – while they are a step in the right direction – go too far in taking away certain voter discretion.

Accountability is the very heart of a democracy.  Without it, voters are devoid of any real opportunity to ensure their elected officials are serving their interests.

That’s the idea behind giving voters the power to recall an elected official in the middle of a term. It’s a chance for citizens, unhappy with the job performance of their chosen representative, to yank them from office and replace them with someone more dutiful.

But in Michigan, one of 19 states that allow citizens to recall their officials, the current law is too vague and needs to be amended.

It allows a recall attempt for any reason, including a false one.  This is what happened recently in Grand Rapids, where Democratic State Rep. Brandon Dillon recently faced a potential recall based on a false claim.  Petitioners sought to recall Dillon because, they said, he voted against House Bill 4408.  In reality, Dillon supported the bill, which called for an investigation into unemployment fraud.

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Jocelyn Benson

Michigan’s strangely contorted new congressional districts should be subject to serious scrutiny in the courts. But the uncertainty of success for litigants in such a case contributes to the growing unlikelihood of any legal challenge to the new map.

Earlier this year, the Michigan Legislature enacted a plan for new congressional districts that could arguably be the most oddly shaped plan in Michigan’s history.  It turns out we were not alone.

A few weeks ago, Roll Call asked whether the most recent national redistricting cycle was the “ugliest” in history.  And as an example of their assertion that this cycle was “particularly ugly and hypocritical,” the national publication pointed to Michigan’s very own, increasingly infamous, 14^th Congressional District.  The new district, dubbed the “8 Mile Mess,” groups voters in Southwest Detroit and Grosse Pointe with residents of West Bloomfield and Pontiac.  Roll Call considers it on a level of irregularity with Maryland’s contorted 3^rd District – the “Pinwheel of Death” – and Ohio’s 9^th – the “Mistake by the Lake.”

Yet despite this national notoriety, there has yet to be a single lawsuit filed to challenge the legality of Michigan’s Congressional District map.  Why?

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Jocelyn Benson

Last month I was meeting with a group of citizens in Berrien County, when a young man approached me with his parents and introduced himself.  A Marine, he had just returned home from serving on active duty and was looking for work. He had enlisted shortly after graduating high school, and we talked about difficulties he encountered from employers who – though this young man had spent four years as an active-duty Marine – questioned whether he’d ever had a “real job.”

Service members make enormous sacrifices to ensure our freedom and security. It is incumbent upon all of us to ensure that when we welcome them home, we also offer job training and career placement assistance as a reflection of our thankfulness.

Yet as citizens across the country and in Michigan face a bleak job market, our veterans are struggling to find work at an even higher rate. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the unemployment rate among veterans who have left active duty since 2001 was just over 12 percent in October – more than 3 percentage points above the civilian unemployment rate.

Today, President Obama signs the VOW to Hire Heroes Act, a component of his overall jobs plan that Congress enacted last week with bipartisan support.  The bill, among other things, provides tax credits, ranging from $5,600 to $9,600, to companies that hire unemployed veterans.

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