The Politics of Buyer’s Remorse: Group Files Petition to Recall Gov. Rick Snyder

According to a piece published today in The Detroit News, “A group that wants to recall Republican Gov. Rick Snyder says it will file its proposed petition wording with the state of Michigan this morning. Michigan Citizens United, which last month filed paperwork to form a political action committee, announced the development Sunday on its website, firericksnyder.org.”

When Republican Governor Rick Snyder took office, he had stellar approval ratings. He coasted along during his post-primary campaign on a carpet of money (his) and support from Michigan Democrats and Independents attracted to Snyder’s say-little, feel-good 10-point plan to “reinvent” Michigan and put Michigan “back to work.” Now, some six months after the November elections, Snyder’s approval ratings are among the lowest of any of the Republican governors elected this past November. Approval ratings for most of the new Republican state leaders have fallen since November 2010, but none so quickly and as far as the approval ratings of Rick Snyder.

Snyder, who told The Detroit News in December 2010 that he had no intention of trying to target organized labor, 60 days later championed a piece of legislation that has been described by national news pundits as “fascist.” Snyder’s Emergency Financial Manager (EFM) law, HB 4214, passed in March and was signed into law. The Utne Reader published a piece titled, “Fascism comes to Michigan,” on March 16, 2011. The piece sums up Snyder’s “rule” thus far:

Snyder is like his other Tea Party Republican governors a product of crony-capitalism at its worst. After campaigning on concepts of limited government and democratic by-the-people rule, once in power Snyder, Walker and the others have almost immediately taken the unprecedented steps of trying to secure unilateral authority in the hands of the executive branch of government and granting unto themselves the ability to reward their corporate backers with the keys to the taxpayer safe.

Michigan’s Governor has become a term in the Urban Dictionary. “Rick Snyder,” according to an entry in the Urban Dictionary, “is often used to convey the sense of brutal violation – physical, emotional or any other kind.” In a sentence the term would be used something like this: “Shut up, bitch, or I’ll Rick Snyder you.”

A piece posted to the San Francisco Examiner’s web site in March 2011 by Examiner writer Dave Paulson is titled, “Fascism is Alive and Gaining Strength in America.” In his piece Paulson writes that, “public employees are just a stepping stone for the neo-fascists. The wave of Republican governors elected to office in 2010 is engaged in a full frontal attack on working Americans of all stripes. From Rick Scott in Florida to John Kasich in Ohio, from Rick Snyder in Michigan to Scott Walker in Wisconsin, backed by newly elected right-wing legislatures, these wannabe tyrants are all talking about ‘shared sacrifice’ while cutting taxes for the wealthy and then attempting to balance their budgets with spending cuts that impact everyone else.”

Even right-leaning Forbes magazine has called Snyder’s power grab just that, and writer E.D. Kain who writes a column for Forbes titled “American Times,” characterized Snyder’s Emergency Financial Manager legislation, an idea born in the  Mackinac Center think tank, “one of the most sweeping, anti-democratic pieces of legislation in the country.” Since 2002, the Mackinac Center has been funded by some of the most powerful and influential right-leaning foundations in the United States. While MSNBC news analyst Rachel Maddow focused on the connection between the Koch Charitable Foundation (Texas oil billionaire funders of Wisconsin Governor Scott) and the Prince Foundation (Blackwater ties) and the Mackinac Center, the amounts given by those two foundations were minimal in comparison to other donations. While the Koch Charitable Foundation gave the Mackinac Center $10,000 between 2002-2006, the Dow Foundation forked over over $2 million dollars during the same time period, according to financial disclosure forms filed with the federal government.

According to the same financial disclosure forms, Rick Snyder’s union-busting EMF legislation was born in a think tank supported in part, during 2002-2006, by the General Motors Foundation, Inc. ($30,000) and the DaimlerChrysler Corporation Fund ($150,000).

Prior to his inauguration, naive newspaper editorialists and political pundits praised Governor Rick Snyder for not attacking Michigan’s public-sector union employees, or like Wisconsin’s Governor, trying to restrict collective bargaining on the part of public-sector unions. Reporter Nathan Bomey at AnnArbor.com posted a CliffsNotes piece based on reporting from The Detroit News in December 2010 titled, “Targeting public employees’ collective bargaining rights unlikely, Snyder says.”In that piece we read, “Michigan Gov.-elect Rick Snyder, who has indicated that he believes public employee compensation cuts are necessary to stabilize Michigan’s budget, told the Detroit News in an interview that he doesn’t think it’s necessary to restrict public employees’ collective bargaining rights.”

After Snyder’s inauguration, in a February 27, 2011 piece published in the Macomb Daily, we read: “Don’t expect the battle over the collective bargaining rights of state workers to blaze a trail through Michigan.”

Snyder told the Associated Press in late-February that, “he’s had a good dialogue with labor unions since taking office and wants to work with public employee unions to seek concessions he says are needed to balance the state budget….I respect the other governors, clearly, but as a practical matter I think we’ve already made our decision that there’s a different way of doing things.”

In short, Rick Snyder misled the public and the media. Such behavior should not have come as a surprise.

Rick Snyder’s consistently dishonest representation of his “accomplishments” in job creation and job retention as the CEO of Ann Arbor SPARK should have tipped the state and national news hounds that Snyder would not hesitate to invent facts, massage the truth, fund and push the same crony capitalism he pushed for years in Ann Arbor. However, thanks to a local newspaper willing to play ball, Rick Snyder spent years in Ann Arbor having his Ann Arbor SPARK deceptions conveniently overlooked by local reporters (one of whom went on to find work at the Mackinac Center). While Publisher of the Ann Arbor News, Laurel Champion sat on the Board of Ann Arbor SPARK. As VP at AnnArbor.com, Laurel Champion still sits on the Board of Ann Arbor SPARK, and AnnArbor.com’s “coverage” of SPARK’s “accomplishments” borders on fanzine material at times, albeit finally with a “disclaimer” that Champion sits on the Board.

In many ways, Michigan has Laurel Champion, the Ann Arbor News and AnnArbor.com to thank for Rick Snyder’s election, and his subsequent implementation of the EFM law now being attacked by national media heavy-hitters as “undemocratic,” “fascist” and “crony capitalism.” Had Snyder’s dishonest and deceptive leadership at Ann Arbor SPARK been thoroughly investigated and written about by the local press, it would have served as a trail of bread crumbs for a national media prepared to follow such leads. Instead, Snyder was able to tout bogus “accomplishments” at Ann Arbor SPARK during his campaigns instead of having to explain how he signed an Annual Report in 2008 that claimed SPARK had created/retained 12,000 jobs when there was no evidence or data to support the claim. Snyder was able to rest on his SPARK laurels despite a presentation before Ann Arbor City Council by the Chair of the LDFA that funds Ann Arbor SPARK that no jobs had been created as a result of the incubator’s “job creation” work.

The firericksnyder.org announcement says the group will try to collect at least 1.1 million signatures to be sure it has 807,000 valid ones that will withstand what is sure to be intense and well-funded scrutiny. The recall effort must collect signatures equal to 25 percent of the total votes cast for governor in the 2010 election.

Governor Snyder’s office issued a statement in response to the recall effort:

The Governor’s committed to making the tough fiscal and policy decisions that have been put off for far too long. He knew full well that it wasn’t going to be easy or a popularity contest, but he does hope that Michigan citizens will realize down the road that it will be well worth it.  He’s staying focused on the job he was hired to do – turning around Michigan’s economy and making sure this is a place where we ALL can live, work, do business, play, and prosper.