This past week I’ve been seeing an ad for Attorney General Bill Schuette (R-Michigan) for governor with Detroit Police Officer Nicholle Quinn-Abdullah.
See, black women in Detroit do like Bill Schuette, right? Officer Quinn-Abdullah says Schuette “has guts.” The police officer is legitimately concerned about human trafficking.
But I don’t think it proves Schuette has guts… I think it's easy for an attorney general to go after human traffickers. Unless he himself was a victim of human trafficking, which I think is unlikely for the Dow Chemical heir.
Much like Lt. Gov. Brian Calley (R-Michigan) tried to score points off the disgraced Larry Nassar, Schuette is now trying to score points off deviant sexual predators who trade human beings as if they were things.
The difference is that the traffickers are, as far as the general public is concerned, nameless and faceless. I could be wrong, but I don’t think Schuette will make a big deal of the time he sought to confiscate the pensions of Detroit Public Schools principals convicted of bribery.
These are their names: Ronald Alexander, Tanya Bowman, Beverly Campbell, Ciara Flowers, James Hearn, Nina Graves-Hicks, Gerlma Johnson, Stanley Johnson, Tia’Von Moore-Patton, Willye Pearsall, Clara Smith, Ronnie Tims. They did wrong, but they might be good family friends of some Detroit voters.
Also, I suspect that Schuette does not want people asking about his own pensions. The Dow Chemical heir could easily set up an annuity to pay him an amount equal to his pensions and give those back to the state.
Back in May, David Eggert reported for the Associated Press Schuette’s financial disclosure. The disclosure
shows a primary residence worth $688,000 in his hometown of Midland, a family cottage valued at $555,000 in northern Michigan and $323,000 in checking accounts. His 2017 income included a $112,000 salary as attorney general, nearly $46,000 from the legislative retirement pension system and investment earnings of $365,000.
Think about how that compares to the financial situation of Detroit Public Schools principals who retire without ever taking a bribe.
In any case, Michigan law is very clear about the pensions of public employees who are convicted of crimes in violation of the public trust. In this one instance, Schuette could honestly say he was just following the law.
Supposedly Schuette was also following the law when he squared off against Dana Nessel in court over gay rights. But the law in question was a somewhat recent amendment to the state constitution approved by the voters, and the voters’ views have evolved since then.
It does take guts to follow your religious convictions, even if it’s a perverted version that prioritizes hating gays and abortion doctors over helping the poor and the sickly.
Except that that perverted version of Christianity is endorsed by the very rich. Don’t hold the rich accountable for their crimes against humanity, instead focus your hatred on gays and fetus-murderers.
With such so-called “evangelical” support, Schuette has no choice but to strongly oppose gay rights. Overtly hating gays means major campaign contributions from so-called “Christian conservatives.”
This is not to say that Schuette’s hatred of gays is not sincere. Schuette hates gays so intensely that at times he’s blind to subtler but more effective strategies. For example, according to Joseph Hogan for The Nation, when Schuette went to court against April DeBoer’s right to marry Jayne Rowse, Schuette...
could have focused his argument on a 2004 amendment to the state’s Constitution that defined marriage as only between a man and woman—any federal interference with that, he might have argued, would be an encroachment on the state’s sovereignty. Such an appeal to states’ rights would be sufficiently right wing to maintain his conservative bona fides. Instead, Schuette opted for bigotry: Same-sex couples needed to be excluded from the state’s definition of marriage for the safety of Michigan children.
Schuette invited a group of “expert” witnesses to testify that, among other things, children raised by same-sex couples are more likely to commit crimes. ... Each of the witnesses, the judge determined, advanced “a fringe viewpoint that is rejected by the vast majority of their colleagues across a variety of social science fields.”
Schuette lost in district court, but only after he’d spent $40,000 on these phony experts and, as a commentator at the Detroit Metro Times put it, made “an utter fool of himself” in a “craven attempt to please the religious right.” The case finally got to the [U. S.] Supreme Court when it was folded into Obergefell v. Hodges. In all, Schuette’s campaign against gay rights cost Michigan taxpayers $1.9 million.
Yeah, okay, that did take guts. Deplorable, but gutsy.
Nessel, by the way, is the Democratic nominee for attorney general. Ignoring parties for a minute, I want an attorney general who wins in court. So vote for Dana Nessel in November.
Here are a couple of very admirable ways Schuette could show he really does have guts:
- Formally charge Gov. Rick Snyder (R-Michigan) for something, anything, connected to Flint, take him to court, even if the judge throws it out prima facie.
- Get elderly non-violent offenders released from prison early. Because you can be lenient to a frail old woman who was caught with a joint decades ago and still honestly say you’re “tough on crime.”
- Shut down Enbridge Line 5. Both Whitmer, who is running against Schuette for governor, and Nessel think they could get it done by January 2, 2019, so why can’t Schuette get it done today?
Not that he’d get my vote, but he’d certainly pick up quite a few votes doing these things.
Gretchen Whitmer showed guts when she talked to the state legislature about her experience as a survivor of sexual assault. By my understanding of her account, there was no external pressure on her to tell anyone about this.
External pressure might be the police asking her to testify to convict a rapist for more recent rapes. External pressure could also take the form of a news report that her rapist has been nominated to the Supreme Court.
This is not intended to diminish Christine Blasey Ford’s courage to accuse Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of attempted rape. She must be aware of the lengths Trump fanatics will go to silence women who accuse Trump of rape. That might extend to women who accuse Kavanaugh of rape.
Ford’s account of Kavanaugh’s rape attempt suggests to me a rapist pondering his method, trying out to see what works and what needs improvement, taking notes for future victim selection.
To be fair to Kavanaugh, no one has publicly accused him of a completed rape. It’s a distinction that a jury should care about. But it’s not a distinction that senators considering a lifetime appointment to the highest court in the land should care about, it should be disqualifying either way.
That’s the Republican Party of today. Bill Schuette might be a shining beacon of morality compared to Trump and Kavanaugh, but he’s still part of a party that hates gays, marijuana enthusiasts, straight ticket voters, women, blacks, immigrants and the poor.
Of course Whitmer will have to talk about her record as a prosecutor to appeal to a certain group of Michigan voters (she has authorized one ad about that so far).
There is certainly an element of political calculation for both Schuette and Whitmer to talk about their records as prosecutors. But if it was possible to measure sincerity numerically, I wager Whitmer would score 95% and Schuette would score 1%.
In November, vote Gretchen Whitmer for governor and Dana Nessel for attorney general.