A2POLITICO: If I Eat At Your Restaurant and You Donate My Money To Rick Snyder. Should I Care?
by P.D. Lesko
BY NOW, MIDDLE-CLASS Democrats and independents all over the state of Michigan are reeling from the consequences of voting (or not) for a gubernatorial candidate who ran a campaign that, in essence, was short on substance and lacking in detail. Rick Snyder’s “10 Point Plan” to “reinvent” Michigan and put Michigan “back to work,” included nothing about right-to-work or giving $1.8 billion in tax breaks to business while eliminating the Earned Income Tax Credit for the most vulnerable of Michigan’s families. His blowsy 10 point plan didn’t include mention of the Emergency Financial Manager legislation which, according to critics illegally changed collective bargaining agreements and violated the property rights of city workers.”
Governor Rick Snyder ran a “feel good” campaign. He shelled out over $1,000,000 to a Hollywood advertising firm that specializes in helping Republican candidates such as George W. Bush, Christine O’Donnell, Arnold Schwarzenegger and John McCain shape campaign messages. Snyder spent millions, some might argue, misleading voters.
Snyder’s campaign got a boost from his friends in Ann Arbor, where he doesn’t live and in whose public schools his daughter does not study. In fact, Snyder got more in donations from Ann Arbor, Dexter, Chelsea and Saline residents, than Democrat Virg Bernero did, over $814,000 dollars from 1,400 donors. Then again, Bernero took Ann Arbor by only 1.5 percent of the votes cast for governor. Snyder got 58,029 of the 123,672 votes cast, and Bernero got 59,829 votes.
According to Snyder’s most recent annual campaign finance statement, on October 11, 2013, he held a fundraiser in Ann Arbor and raised $322,000 from 75 attendees, over a dozen of whom are executives at DTE. Individual donation records reveal who donated to Governor Snyder’s campaign on what date. Records show that along with the gaggle of DTE donors on October 11, 2013, two others were Dennis and Ellie Serras. Each donated $3,400 to Snyder’s campaign. In 2010, Ellie and Dennis Serras donated $1,600 and $3,400, respectively to Rick Snyder’s gubernatorial campaign.
Dennis Serras lists his occupation as “Restauranteur” and Ellie lists hers as “Homemaker.”
Two weeks after the October 11, 2013 fundraiser, a reporter asked Snyder this question: “It is ‘acceptable’ in Michigan to fire an employee for being gay or even just ‘perceived’ to be gay? Is being gay a good reason to be fired?” The Governor replied: “Well…that’s a broad statement, so it’d depend on the particular facts of the situation. That’s a hypothetical, that’s very general in that context.”
The reporter pointed out that in Michigan “People are being fired because they’re gay though, that’s not hypothetical. An employer can do that. That’s not a hypothetical situation, that’s a real situation…”
From slashing employment benefits to tossing tens of thousands of Michigan children off of the state’s food assistance program, Governor Rick Snyder’s political record makes clear that he is not a moderate. He is a Reagan-throwback, trickle-down economic-loving, crony capitalist.
Dennis Serras is a partner in the Main Street Ventures restaurant group. So, if you have enjoyed a meal at The Chop House, Real Seafood, La Dolce Vita — At The Chop House in Ann Arbor, Carson’s American Bistro, Gratzi or Palio, you have eaten at one of Mr. Serras’s Ann Arbor restaurants. In January 2014, Main Street Ventures announced it was opening a new restaurant in downtown Ann Arbor. Piata, a Mediterranean–style restaurant, will open on the corner of East Liberty Street and Fourth Avenue.
Ellie Serras was one of the main donors to, and main forces behind, the ultimately failed effort to convince Ann Arbor voters to pass a $65 million bond to raze and rebuild the Downtown library. Ellie Serras donated $5,005 to the Our New Downtown Library Campaign committee. Hers was the single largest donation.
I didn’t vote for Rick Snyder, and I have nothing to say about Ann Arbor residents—be they Democrats, independents and Republicans—who did vote for Rick Snyder. Voting is a responsibility, and the privacy of one’s political leanings or choices are revealed by an individual’s campaign donations, which are public record.
Former Democratic Ward 2 City Council member Stephen Rapundalo and former Democratic mayor of Saline (now Democratic state representative) Gretchen Driskell both donated to Rick Snyder’s campaign in 2010. After I reported Rapundalo’s donation in a column, local reporters brought it up as an issue in his failed 2011 bid for re-election to City Council. Election to office from a party indicates party affiliation and those who take party affiliation seriously generally expect party loyalty from their candidates.
Dennis Serras has every right to support Rick Snyder in his bid to make Michigan the comeback state. However, I believe we have a governor whose political agenda is dragging us back to the social and socioeconomic era of the Eisenhowers. Snyder’s record on women’s rights, gay rights and the middle-class is abysmal.
We elected as governor a self-made millionaire who embraces the diversion of public money—including K-12 money—to private enterprise. While he was a recipient of that public largesse at Ann Arbor SPARK, careful public oversight of his use of that public money was virtually non-existent.
Dennis Serras may or may not want to see Rick Snyder have another term. I can’t know Mr. Serras’s motivations. However, I can tell you that eating in a Main Street Venture restaurant means my meal is supporting Rick Snyder’s candidacy and his campaign. Ellie and Dennis Serras’s $10,000 in donations are symbolic, given Snyder’s wealth. My refusal to patronize Serras’s restaurants is equally symbolic.
Politics, however, is all about making gestures and putting your money where you mouth is.