The Democrats won the Governorship in Michigan, so the lame-duck Legislature is hustling to assert control over the state’s education system.
GOP free-market policies have severely damaged education. The state’s NAEP standing has plummeted over the past decade. But they can’t let go. The DeVos Republicans want to stay in power after losing the election.
“Republicans are working to rein in power over Michigan’s public schools from an incoming Democrat governor and before a Democrat majority is seated on the State Board of Education.
“Bills now being considered in the Michigan House of Representatives during the frantic lame-duck legislative session would create a commission largely appointed by Republicans that would have broad authority over schools. In essence, it would serve as a shadow State Board of Education that would not be accountable to the incoming governor, the elected State Board of Education or the state Department of Education.
“And, apparently, Republican Gov. Rick Snyder is all in on stacking the commission with his appointees before his Democratic successor takes office.
“The bills have flown under the radar in Lansing, with much of the media attention focused on Republican bills aimed at gutting minimum wage and paid sick leave laws and diluting the authority of incoming Democrats Gov.-elect Gretchen Whitmer, Secretary of State-elect Jocelyn Benson and Attorney General-elect Dana Nessel.
“If passed, the new commission would almost certainly have a huge impact on K-12 education in Michigan ‒ from which schools are closed, to which would get extra money and how much classroom instruction students receive.
“These bills basically strip the next governor of the ability to reform education,” said a person intimately involved in negotiations over the bills who asked not to be identified because he works with both parties. “That’s why we’re jumping up and down over this. It’s such a complete power steal from Whitmer that no one should be participating in this.”
“The sponsor of the bills, term-limited Rep. Tim Kelly, R-Saginaw, doesn’t shy away from the power-grabbing implications of the legislation. Michigan schools are flailing, as measured by standardized tests, and the State Board of Education and the Department of Education haven’t succeeded in turning the state’s K-12 system around.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
There will be challenges to this legislation in the courts. If the judges have not been bought, I think this legislation will be tossed out in court. Of course the GOP will appeal until they reach the US Supreme Court.
Sounds reasonable unless Scott Walker and Rick Snyder appointed the judges.
I suspect that is possible at the state level but the court challenges will move up the ladder to the federal level if federal law allows it.
And at that level?…. I am not at all optimistic about how the SCOTUS will look at this issue…
Yeah, Lloyd, Kavanaugh will sort everything out properly. 🙂
Yeah, Lloyd, K a v a n a u g h will sort it out.
But Kavanaugh is one of nine. Will the other four conservative justices fall in line behind him?
I just checked Supreme Court Decisions since Oct 1 2018 and after and Kavanaugh took no part in the decisions of those two cases.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/17-587
And who are the conservative justices?
Roberts has cast pivotal votes 5 times that joined the liberal justices.
In the 1990s, all the conservative justices voted to not allow taking race in to account to create solidly black districts. All the liberals said that it would be ok. Now (in Cooper v. Harris) all the liberals are saying it is not ok to take race in to account when destroying Democratic districts through gerrymandering and the all the conservatives said it would be ok, save Clarence Thomas, who remained consistent with the previous ruling, giving the liberal justices a victory.
In 2017, Clarence Thomas Just Voted with Liberals, Changed Course of U.S. Politics
In a surprising ruling on Monday, conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas sided with the liberals on the court to strike down North Carolina’s gerrymandering of congressional districts.
In its 5-3 decision, the court found that North Carolina Republican legislators had unconstitutionally used race as a factor in drawing congressional district lines after the 2010 census to give Republicans an electoral advantage in two of its congressional districts.
https://secondnexus.com/news/politics/clarence-thomas-voted-liberals/
Odd Alignments At Supreme Court As Thomas Joins Liberals, Scalia Attacks Alito
https://www.forbes.com/sites/danielfisher/2015/06/18/odd-alignments-at-supreme-court-as-thomas-joins-liberals-scalia-attacks-alito/#5866db492e7c
In April 2018, Gorsuch voted with the Supreme Court’s liberals on an immigration case.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/4/17/17248094/neil-gorsuch-immigration-trump-supreme-court
5-4 decisions in SCOTUS are rare… they more likely than not tend to agree in a large part and are pretty friendly with each other. – hszmv Apr 10 at 19:40
We still don’t know how Kavanaugh will vote on individual cases yet but already Gorsuch voted against Trump in one immigration case.
In addition, let’s not forget that Robert Muller is a life-long Republican who was nominated to become the Director of the FBI by President G. W. Bush and Obama kept him on for an additional two years, and this Republican might be responsible for taking down Donald Trump especially after:
“Michael Cohen may have flipped on Donald Trump, offering federal prosecutors audio recordings and other evidence incriminating the President of the United States in felony campaign finance violations — but he likely won’t receive a get out of jail free card. “Cohen’s decision to plead guilty — rather than seek a pardon for his manifold crimes — does not make him a hero,” federal prosecutors wrote as they recommended Cohen be sentenced to at least 51 months in prison in documents filed Friday.”
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/muller-michael-cohen-manafort-764068/
By the way, guys, can you spot the difference between my two posts? Nobody can tell us anymore, we are paranoid.
OK, so please look at the difference between my two posts. One is posted, the the other one is waiting.
DeVos’ ed reform was rejected by voters. Why can’t she accept that?
The public probably noticed Michigan public education has dropped in national rankings every year since ed reform lobbyists captured state government.
None of the ed reformers would notice- they don’t have children in public schools.
“As Robin Lake recently observed, it is time to move past the phrase “education reformer.” In a curious linguistic twist, over the past decade, opponents of transformational change have co-opted the word “reform” and essentially converted it into a malediction.”
Ed reformers seem to be struggling with where to go from here after 2 decades bashing public schools and promoting charter schools and private schools.
Maybe they could return to what they originally promised the public: they could improve public schools. That’s why they were hired. No one asked them to “reinvent” government according to their ideological preferences or launch thousands of new publicly-funded private entities or create a whole new industry composed of professional public school critics or eradicate labor unions.
Why don’t they try offering some practical added value to any public school anywhere in the country? That’s what they sold the public.
It’s really pretty funny. Having contributed absolutely nothing to Michigan public schools during Snyders whole tenure, the ed reform echo chamber rouse themselves just long enough to block ANYONE ELSE who might support the state’s schools.
Not only won’t they do their jobs- they’ll make sure that no one else can either.
Unfair! Not true to say they have done nothing.
The GOP has swung a giant wrecking ball at public schools and introduced for-profit frauds. That’s something. They don’t want to stop.
Last week, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington obtained DeVos’ 2018 financial disclosure report. CREW summarizes that Betsy’s report doesn’t show how she divested from the 24 assets (pose potential conflicts of interest) she included in her ethics agreement.
Same crap is happening in Missouri where the Rethugs are attempting to pass “right to work” legislation again, and had it planned even before the last election wherein “right to work” lost by like 65-35%.
Michigan. Wisconsin. North Carolina. Trump’s conspiracy with Russia. Republicans, the NRA, and Russia. W Bush’s failure to take imminent threats of terrorist attacks seriously, and then trying to cover it up, and lying to the public about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and starting a costly war and refusing to pay for it. Republican supply-side tax cuts that pile up deficits and debt and pass the cost along to the working and middle classes. The stolen presidential election of 2000. Voter suppression and electoral fraud. Lies, lies and more lies.
The Republican party is a clear and present danger to the American democratic republic.
If the legislation passes, the Democrats and the State Board will be hamstrung until their lawsuits work their way through the courts… which means the GOP will achieve its REAL goal, which is to stymie any efforts to undo what they have wrought over the past several years and simultaneously ignore the will of the voters.
There was a time when the will of the voters was respected… but that time ended when the GOP began to lose power. Senate leader Mitch McConnell set the course for his party when, after Barack Obama was elected, he stated that he would do everything in his power to make sure Obama was a one-term President. He kept that promise by making sure the GOP was unified in opposing every action President Obama undertook to improve the economy and honor the will of those who voted for him.
I think all of us are being given hard lessons on how frail our democracy is when the process is rigged so those currently in charge, now Trumpster aligned Republicans, are eager and able to deny rights to those elected to succeed them.
“I think all of us are being given hard lessons on how frail our democracy is ”
I do not think democracy is properly protected by our laws, and the Constitution is at fault. It must be, since that’s the basis of our laws.
The Constitution did not anticipate the election of an unindicted criminal
The Founders did, though. Read Alexander Hamilton, Federalist Paper #68.
The Electoral College was to be composed of wise men who would block the election of frauds and foreign agents.
Anti-democratic, but it was supposed to block The Donald.
However, it is obvious, at last to me, that the Alt-Right found a way to manipulate and/or corrupt the Electoral College.
“Only five US presidents in history have been elected despite losing the popular vote: John Quincy Adams in 1824, Rutherford Hayes in 1876, Benjamin Harrison in 1888, George W. Bush in 2000 and Donald Trump this November”
Between July 4, 1776 and 1888, only three presidents that lost the popular vote won through the Electoral College. That was one every 63 years.
Then no president was elected through the Electoral College for 112 years before G. W. Bush.
Now, we’ve had two GOP presidents out of three counting Obama that were elected through the Electoral College in the last 18 years. We have outside manipulation of our elections by Russia/Putin and election fraud and/or voting restrictions in multiple states totally controlled by the GOP.
“What we know about the alleged election fraud plot in North Carolina”
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/12/7/18128973/north-carolina-9th-district-voter-election-fraud-mccrae-dowless
“4 States Where Voting Restrictions Could Impact the 2018 Election — How Should Voting Systems Be Structured?”
North Dakota
Georgia
Ohio
Arkansas
https://www.countable.us/articles/12458-4-states-voting-restrictions-impact-2018-election-voting-systems-structured
“North Carolina Race Roiled by Claims of Voter Fraud — But Not the Kind the GOP Worries About”
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/11/voter-fraud-north-carolina.html
“21 states targeted by Russian hackers in 2016 election”
“The list of targets includes battleground states like Wisconsin, Ohio and Iowa, but other key states like Michigan said Friday they were told they were not targeted. It also included states that were not seriously contested like California and Texas.”
https://www.aol.com/article/news/2017/09/23/dhs-21-states-targeted-by-russian-hackers-in-2016-election/23220243/
“How Trump won the presidency with razor-thin margins in swing states ”
“Of the more than 120 million votes cast in the 2016 election, 107,000 votes in three states effectively decided the election.”
States Trump won with a margin less than 2 percent: Michigan, Florida, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania.
https://www.aol.com/article/news/2017/09/23/dhs-21-states-targeted-by-russian-hackers-in-2016-election/23220243/
“Florida, George, North Carolina still purging voters at high rates”
“Between December 2016 and September 2018, Florida has purged more than 7 percent of its voters.”
Trump won Florida by a margin that was less than 2 percent of the vote but 7-percent of its voters were purged and could not vote. Most if not all of those purged voters were Democrats.
https://www.brennancenter.org/blog/florida-georgia-north-carolina-still-purging-voters-high-rates
Well, we know that the electoral college is a mistake. Those wise men in the EC nowadays simply cast their votes unanimously to whoever won the popular vote in their state—even if the popular vote was decided by 1 vote. This makes it possible that somebody with only 20% of the popular vote can become president.
But even if the EC is discarded, the problem remains that the winner of the presidential election gets to choose the whole cabinet, though he may represent 50.000001% of the population, leaving the 49.999999% unhappy.
Perhaps what we can agree on is that the Constitution requires periodic, thorough revisions, as it was suggested by Jefferson.
I am not suggesting, the Founding fathers were idiots, as Newton was not an idiot either, though his physics is outdated and has been outdated for well over 150 years. Nobody, not even Newton can see more than a few decades into the future, hence the reasonable position seems to be Jefferson’s.