Public To Private: The Iceberg Before Us

Michigan recently passed the Education Achievement Authority Act which will let the State take over 50 school districts and privatize them. This is the education equivalent of the Emergency Financial Manager law which allows the State to take over any local municipality that the Governor deems to be in financial distress. 

 The EFM is empowered to do pretty much anything he or she wishes, including stripping the power of elected officials, cancelling union contracts and selling property. For example, "Pontiac had 1,000 employees when the emergency hit the city four years ago. Now, the city has just 50. The Oakland County Sheriff's Office took over police patrols and Waterford now contracts firefighting to Pontiac." (Rod Meloni WDIV March 8, 2013)  

 In 2011,  Pontiac EFM Michael Stampfler dissolved the Pontiac Planning Commission and replaced it with hand-picked, unelected  people. He also "...made a contract for water treatment services with United Water Services permanent, outsourcing the water treatment to them and laying off city water treatment officials."(Eclectablog, June 9, 2011 http://www.eclectablog.com/2011/06/breaking-michigan-efm-outsources-water.html ). What was so noteworthy was that United Water Services was indicted in December, 2010 for violating the Clean Water Act. They were "...charged with manipulating daily wastewater sampling methods by turning up disinfectant treatment levels shortly before sampling, then turning them down shortly after sampling " (Ibid).

 If this is an example of privatization, we might want to reconsider the Emergency Financial Manager Act. Oh wait. On November 7th, 2012 the citizens in the State of Michigan voted to REPEAL the EFM law. But within a few weeks, the MI State Legislature passed ANOTHER such law but this time with a small budgetary appropriation. The State Constitution says that any law with an appropriation attached cannot be put up for a referendum. In essence, they made the new EFM law voter proof. 

 If we think that this is a direct attack on democracy in Michigan, consider this: over 80%of the communities under an EFM have 50% minority population or more.  (Maddow, 2013). And now there is an Emergency Financial Manager in the City of Detroit, the state's largest city and the one with the largest minority population in Michigan. According to Bloomberg, "When emergency manager Kevyn Orr arrives in near-bankrupt Detroit, almost half of Michigan’s black population will live under the rule of state overseers with little say in the governments nearest them (Mark Niquette & Chris Christoff - Mar 15, 2013).   Is this an accident?  No.

We have been watching the attempt by the Republican party and their masters (Koch Brothers, ALEC etc.) to suppress the vote in areas where there are high percentages of students and minorities. What is the connection? It is that both the EFM law and the voter suppression moves are attacks on populations most likely to vote for Democrats. If the GOP can stifle democracy in these areas, Republicans are more likely to be elected and privatization (for the benefit of large corporations) can take place with no effective opposition. On tap to be privatized: schools (private companies stand to make billions), city infrastructure like water, police and fire departments, trash collection, etc. All for the benefit of corporations and all at the expense of citizens. Unionized positions will be eliminated and low paying positions will replace them. 

Voter suppression and privatization and EFM laws are just the tip of the iceberg and democracy is heading for that iceberg all steam ahead. This potential shipwreck is made possible by the low voter turnout in 2010 and the election of more Republicans to state office. With increased majorities in the MI House and Senate AND control of the Governorship, the state GOP was enabled to pass these draconian measures and many others, setting the present course. There is only one way to reverse and avoid the iceberg: elect Democrats in 2014.