Lots of thrilling (not) news out of Michigan this week during the lame-duck session; here are two examples out of many. Rep. Pete Lund, R-Shelby Township proposed to alter the allocation of Electoral College votesstarting in 2016 (HB 5974). Snyder and his administration supported the decision of AG Schuette to move to disallow the 300+ same-sex marriages that were performed during that tiny window of opportunity last March.
A couple of years ago, during the lame-duck session of 2012, we saw other horrible legislation passed and signed, particularly the so-called Right to Work Law and the legislation overriding the voters' rejection of PA-4, the Emergency Manager statute. I'm not sanguine about our prospects this year, so please let's keep each other apprised of actions we can take in protest.
Please follow me after the jump for another time-sensitive topic for the week.
This Saturday morning, the Democrats of Washtenaw County will be meeting to vote on membership of the county's Executive Committee. Here's the language from the MDP bylaws:
Every even-numbered year, the delegates to the Fall County Convention in each County in this State having a population of less than 1,500,000 shall convene at the call of the County Chairperson within twenty (20) days following the November election. The purpose of the Convention is to elect a number of persons equal to twice the number of candidates for County, State legislative and U.S. House of Representatives offices for which candidates were nominated at the most recent fall primary election for that office. Those persons, together with the persons most recently nominated by the Party for each of those offices, shall constitute the Executive Committee of the Party for that County. When a new nomination is made for an office, the nominee for which is entitled to serve as a member of the Executive Committee, the new nominee shall replace the former nominee as a member of the Executive Committee. (No, I don't have a webpage to link to, unfortunately; I received this language in an email.)
Basically this means that every county besides Wayne (which contains Detroit, for you non-Michiganders reading) holds one of these conventions, which chooses an Executive Committee, and then this Committee chooses the Board and Officers for the county in question.
I'm planning and hoping to become significantly more involved in my county party leadership, so this could be an interesting ride. How about you? Any news yet to report from your own county's convention? And Wayne County residents, what's happening there? I'm rather new at all this state party stuff, so perhaps you-all can chime in with your greater expertise.
I know that this regular column has a bit of tilt toward SE Michigan, but it doesn't have to stay that way. Other folks are welcome to chime in, even to write an occasional Weekly Open Thread diary yourselves. It's not hard, and it can be fun.
While you're mulling that over, do please weigh in about the main topics mentioned above, and feel free as well to raise anything else that you find pertinent for this forum. And let's also offer our sympathy to everyone on the Lake Michigan side of the Lower Peninsula, hit early with all that snow. (Well, everyone except snowbunnies, skiers, and ski-resort operators.)