State Senator Rebekah Warren Becomes First and Only Democratic Michigan Legislator Targeted For Recall in 2011
Lawrence Kestenbaum has just 280 followers on Twitter. Not a grand following for the County Clerk of Washtenaw County. Kestenbaum, a Democrat, yesterday made the unusual choice to tweet about a new recall effort launched in the state of Michigan, this time against a Democratic legislator. Kestenbaum sent out two tweets, the first of which read, “Recall reasons filed today against State Sen. Rebekah Warren, over her vote against HB 4361 (biz tax repeal).” The next one read, “Clarity hearing on Rebekah Warren recall language scheduled for Wed July 20, 11am, 200 N. Main, A2.”
As Chris Savage wrote in his most recent A2Politico column, “There are over a dozen recall efforts against Michigan Republicans underway right now.” There are 20 GOP legislators in Michigan being targeted by various grass-roots groups and individuals. It was actually Michigan political analyst Jack Lessenberry who first wrote about the possibility of achieving political change in the state more expediently by recalling individual legislators, as opposed to tackling the recall of the state’s Republican governor. Turns out, Lessenberry was on to something. Not only are Michigan voters engaged in a recall effort to rid the state of its Republican governor, a task that will require the collection of a minimum of 880,000 signatures and probably closer to 1.1 million signatures, but voters state-wide have launched petition drives to toss out individual Republican members of the Michigan House and Senate, as well.
Now, in a move that does not come as a surprise to political insiders, a Democratic state legislator finds herself targeted for recall.
Senator Rebekah Warren, daughter-in-law of former gubernatorial candidate Alma Wheeler-Smith, is Michigan’s first, and so far only, Democratic legislator targeted for recall in 2011. Papers filed by a resident of Ypsilanti Township, Steven E. Wallis, ask that his petition language be approved by the three-member Washtenaw County Board of Election Commissioners charged with the task. Washtenaw County Clerk Lawrence Kestenbaum sits on that three-person panel, as does Judge Donald Shelton and the County’s Treasurer, Catherine McClary. The three last met in late-April to determine whether the language used in the petition to recall Governor Rick Snyder was sufficiently clear and properly worded.
As County Clerk Kestenbaum made clear in his second tweet, evidently Mr. Wallis is upset with Senator Warren for voting against HB 4361, which recently repealed the Michigan business tax.
Warren, a first-term state senator, defeated fellow Democrat former House Speaker Pro Tem Pam Byrnes in a hotly contested race in 2010. Byrnes, who was term-limited out of her seat in the Michigan House, saw her campaign undone in the final days thanks in part to a series of mailings attacking Warren done on “behalf” of Byrnes’s campaign, and paid for by the Republican-backed Great Lakes Education PAC, whose donors included several prominent Republicans, including Dick DeVos and the former Chair of the Michigan Republican Party, Ron Weiser. After the mailings hit voters’ mailboxes, Byrnes campaign manager told the local press her campaign was not behind the attacks. Kent Sparks said the campaign had been caught by surprise when the ads came out. Sparks told AnnArbor.com in late-July 2010, “We had no idea. This was an independent expenditure. We found out when the pieces hit.”
Warren, in response to the ads, told AnnArbor.com, “she [could] only conclude the DeVos family and other Republicans are opposing her because she is more liberal, pro-choice, pro-LGBT rights and supports strong public schools. She said they ‘hate’ those things and must find more support for their causes within Byrnes.”
When newly-elected Republican governor Rick Snyder entered the Michigan Legislature for the first time to speak to the legislators gathered there, he was accompanied to the podium by Ann Arbor’s Democratic Senator Rebekah Warren. In fact, for the first few months after Snyder was elected, Warren went on the record multiple times defending the Republican’s policies and his politics. Warren’s husband, Washtenaw County Commission Conan Smith told AnnArbor.com on March 21, 2011, shortly after Snyder signed the expanded Emergency Manager measure into law that, “We absolutely need it. When we have cities that are in crisis, they have to get some oversight….The fact of the matter is we were not utilizing the law and it needed to be utilized.” Warren voted against that bill.
When Rebekah Warren ran for office in 2010, she campaigned for the job by assuring voters that Michigan needed Democrats in the Senate who would be able to work with the state’s Republicans. To date, Warren has co-sponsored one piece of legislation with Republican counter-parts in the Senate. She has voted against several of the recently passed bills supported by her Republican colleagues, including HB 4361. Warren, and her Democratic colleagues in the Michigan Senate have been, to date, lone Democratic voices in what has become a Republican-controlled wilderness.
Now, Warren is the only Democratic senator in the state legislature being targeted for recall.
In Wisconsin, on June 8, 2011, the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board certified a sufficient number of signatures against all three Democrat Senators against whom recall petitions were submitted for filing, setting up recall elections for all three, or at least primaries if more than one Democrat, one Republican, or one Constitution Party candidate files to run, on July 19, one week later than the same for the 6 targeted Republican state Senators. The Democrats were targeted because they left Madison rather than vote on Governor Scott’s proposed budget.
As to why Steven Wallis chose to focus on Rebekah Warren, the petitioner was unavailable for comment.
Senator Warren released a statement in which she responded to Wallis’s recall efforts. She writes, “The recall process allows citizens to express their opinions.” Using almost the exact turn of phrase used by Governor Rick Snyder, Senator Warren goes on to refer to the recall effort as “democracy in action.”
@Pearl Corners:
“He has publicly refused to pay.” (re Commission Chairman Conan Smith).
There should be someone running against Conan Smith next election raising this non-payment as an election issue.
Early this year an online poll revealed that 93% of respondents felt that commissioners owing back sums found by the audit should repay them. That strong public sentiment has eroded with time as a substantial number of poll respondents believe the issue should die – but most do not.
Tom Wieder has done an outstanding job of keeping the County Commissions feet to proverbial fire and Verna McDaniels has said the next step is in the hands of the County Commission to enforce recoupment of sums found not properly payable. And of course nothing is being done because no one wantss to offend powerful political figures in this county. It is a matter of gross arrogance that has led to this story being rehashed ad nauseum in the media.
Enough is enough.
Tom Wieder’s next job is to find a candidate who will oppose Smith next year. It is the only remedy to a situation that has become a tremendous source of embarrassment to the enitire County Commission.
Leigh Greden was vilified over E-Mailgate and was voted out of office shortly thereafter. It is now Conan’s turn to learn that his dilatory and recalcitrant conduct will not rewarded, but that accountability shall be had.
I agree with Warren’s vote against the governor’s tax reforms and I agree with commenters above that the vote was not contrary to her past record.
And yet, I am tempted to sign that recall petition.
Warren’s career in politics has included association with MIchigan politics at its worst. Her close association with Andy Dillon concerns me. She is married to Washtenaw County Commissioner Conan Smith. Smith has been asked to return approximately $600 to the county for what have been deemed inappropriate personal sending of county money. He has publicly refused to pay.
$600 is just the tip of the ice berg. Smith has used the county’s resources as his personal expense account. These expenses, apparently, are allowed by the county but are completely unethical and inappropriate.
At a time when the county has suspended it’s insurance program for low income residents, Smith spent the county’s money to stay at the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island. He took a jaunt to Washington D.C. and Warren accompanied him. Who paid their expenses? Washtenaw county tax payers.
How can these expenses possibly be justified when the county claims that there isn’t money in the budget for the sherif’s department?
Senator Warren, can you ask your husband to pay back the tax payers’ money? Not just the $600 but the rest of the luxury spending he has indulged in? If you could do that, you would really show that Democrats in Michigan are standing up to the powers that be in the name of the disenfranchised.
Governor Snyder campaigned outside traditional GOP channels and employed a campaign organization outside Michigan to upset longtime GOP insiders Cox Aand Hoekstra.
Rick Snyder was largely an unknown commodity among GOP loyalists and had a general reputation as an ally of Ron Weiser, the state Republican chairperson. Snyder had no conservative credentials and benefitted from a split of the 2010 primary vote bettween conservative gubernatorial candidates Cox and Hoekstra. Liberals chose Snyder as the lesser evil when crossing over to vote in the GOP primary. Among the local GOP, Snyder enjoyed support as the anyone-but-Bernero candidate and was elected easily.
It is far too early to see what impact Snyder will have on Michigan, but as a political outsider and an unknown commodity both the GOP and Democratic crossovers got what they should have expected – plenty of novel and creative soltuions to an economic morass that Snyder inherited.
Rebekah has no hidden agenda. She won my trust when she began campaigning for State Rep. 18 months before the election. Everything she has done has deepened that trust. She knows so many of her constituents personally, and she is responsive to requests, problems and suggestions.
Why doesn’t someone find out why she voted as she did?
Snyder is not done with tax reform. Lansing insiders expect Snyder to propose repeal of the personal property tax after the bridge to Canada issue is resolved. Personal property taxes are paid by businesses and hit manufacturers especially hard. Personal property tax revenues go to local governments, including schools, so loss of this revenue stream will be another financial hit to local governments and will increase the likelihood of takeover by an emergency financial manager.
While part of the package is expected to be some way to make up the lost revenues to local governments, the locals are skeptical that the full amount of the loss will be made up. It’s also likely that the substitute revenue will have strings attached similar to the requirements to get statutory revenue sharing. For example, Snyder could say that locals have to privatize to get the revenue and then claim that turning over assets paid for with tax dollars to the private sector was voluntary.
From FACEBOOK: “Looks like petty revenge by some Snyder cronies. Waste of time since Rebekah has a very secure position in her district.”
Surely they jest. Unlike the stealth campaign by the Governor, Senator Warren was well known politician with a clear record. She is exactly what we expected her to be – a liberal democrat from Ann Arbor.
Conversely, the Governor’s campaign painted him as a moderate who would attend to the State’s financial stress in a business-like manner. Now we find out he is a power hungry radical who sees nothing wrong with supplanting elected officials and wiping out contractual obligations.
I don’t believe that anyone who voted for Senator Warren has buyer’s remorse. I’m pretty sure a few independent voters and “moderate” democrats are sorry they didn’t know more about Governor Snyder before they cast their vote for him.
Senator Warren is safe. But, let’s hope that Republicans spend lots of money and time on this futile effort. Maybe the recall will distract them from the harm they are doing to the State