EDITORIAL: Schauer and Brown Must Show Voters Their Plan to Rebuild Michigan’s Economy

DEMOCRAT MARK SCHAUER’S choice of former state legislator Lisa Brown as his running mate serves notice that the Democrat’s 2014 gubernatorial strategy will focus on Michigan’s social fabric, which has become badly frayed over the past 36 months. The Republicans who control the Michigan House and Senate have, with the cooperation of Governor Snyder, supported economic policies which have not produced middle-class job growth, according to U.S. Department of Labor data. Rather, job growth in Michigan has been strongest in the lowest-paying sectors: service and hospitality.

Similarly, the Governor’s consistent efforts to play to his conservative base has meant that the middle-class, the poor, minorities, women and gays have seen their basic needs ignored and their rights comprised, eliminated and trampled.

In March 2014, Oakland County Clerk Lisa Brown testified in a federal trial challenging Michigan’s ban on gay marriage. She said that clerks received a memo from state Attorney General Bill Schuette telling them not to issue licenses to gay couples even if the ban was struck down. In her testimony, Brown said she would follow a judge’s orders, not Schuette’s.

In the House, Brown’s defense of women’s rights earned her a rebuke from her Republican colleagues, as well as national attention when she used the word “vagina” during a debate about abortion. The ensuing whoop-la was an embarrassing demonstration of the early 19th-century mentality among the Republican leadership in Lansing. Lisa Brown is a 21st-century breath of fresh air who has shown she is prepared to speak out on the side of equality.

While we support and applaud Ms. Brown’s dedication to progressive social issues, and while we believe Michigan’s Republican governor has little understanding of the connection between social equality and economics, Mark Schauer and Lisa Brown are going to have to show Michigan’s independent voters the money, as it were. Mr. Snyder’s job creation numbers have been repeatedly debunked by the Michigan media, including this newspaper, the Lansing State Journal and the Detroit Free Press. His failures have increased childhood poverty, hunger and homelessness.

Mr. Schauer and Ms. Brown must lay out economic strategies in detail. To rely on social progressivism is preaching to the Dem choir—a choir which may not be motivated to vote without a presidential election to decide. To win an election in a state in which the unemployment rate hovers around nine percent, Mr. Schauer and Ms. Brown need to stop talking about their support of equal rights. They need to show us a credible plan to bring economic equality to Michigan families and rebuild the middle-class.