It’s a great day in the Mitten State! Justice may finally be done!
Former Republican Governor Ricky “The Squeak” Snyder has been reinstated as a defendant in a class action lawsuit related to the Flint Water Crisis by the same federal judge who originally removed him from the defendants’ list. The reason? Federal Judge Judith E. Levy blamed it on The Facts. The facts! Imagine that!
Citing what everyone with a brain in Michigan has known for years, Judge Levy wrote, in her 128-page decision today, “When plaintiffs state that by February 2015, the governor was fully aware of a public health threat posed by the water supply in Flint, and that by July 2015, at the very latest, the governor knew that the water supply was contaminated, these conclusions are supported by the well-pleaded factual allegations. It is reasonable to infer that Governor Snyder knew that the residents of Flint faced a substantial risk of serious harm emanating from the water.” AND DID NOTHING.
Michael Pitt, an attorney for the Flint residents, pointed out that the Constitutional rights of the Flint residents were violated by the Flint water crisis, which began when a Snyder-installed, democracy-killing emergency manager was put in charge of Flint, a once-proud and prosperous GM company town and home to the largest GM plant in the country. The emergency manager decided in 2014 that shifting the city’s water supply from Lake Huron and the Detroit River, which had supplied Flint with safe water for decades, to the Flint River would save the state a lot of money. Which Ricky could then hand out to his millionaire cronies.
The Flint River water needed to be treated with an anti-corrosive substance, and it was not, because that would have cost money that Ricky wanted saved for his buddies. So enormous amounts of lead leached from the city pipes into the water supply, exposing more than 100,000 residents to dangerously elevated lead and other toxin levels.
It’s important that you understand that there was absolutely nothing wrong with Flint water prior to that decision. What was “wrong” was that Flint, like so many other Rust Belt cities abandoned by the companies that had previously brought a good standard of living to their citizens, was poor. After GM left, everyone who could leave left. Those who were too poor stayed.
It’s hard to imagine a more disgusting and evil example of the lack of care for the basic rights of citizens and the cynical stockpiling of state money for cronies of the state’s leaders that typifies Republican decision-making than that.
Flint residents claim in their suit that Snyder violated their right to bodily integrity by repeatedly doing nothing as Flint used corrosive water that released lead from old pipes. In her decision today, Judge Levy said a right to bodily integrity is a "fundamental interest" protected by the U.S. Constitution. Thus, Ricky is back in the defendants’ list. He can be sued. He can be held accountable.
And just to give the media their due, WXYZ, the ABC affiliate in Detroit, noted this: “Snyder...has apologized for failures that created and prolonged the crisis.” Yeah. Thanks for that. Like anyone—and especially the people of Flint—give one flying crap about The Squeak’s “apology.”
Sue him. Bankrupt him. Show him for what he is—a millionaire GOOPer with no sense of fairness, no sense of community, and, in the end, no compassion for the people of Flint, who have suffered—and will continue to suffer—the horrible effects of all those GOOPer “money-saving” decisions for years.
I haven’t felt this good since the early hours of November 8, 2016, when we all knew that Hilary had it in the bag. Snyder more than deserves to be sued and held accountable for a terrible health crisis that he and his minions in Lansing created, perpetrated, and then lied about.