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When Michigan’s sons and daughters, husbands and wives put aside their safety to protect ours and serve in the military, it’s our responsibility to ensure that they can exercise their right to vote. Dealing with a deployment is stressful and nerve-wracking for any military family. I know — I am an army wife, and . . . → Read More: Our Duty With those three words, Senate Democratic Leader Gretchen Whitmer captured the essence of last week’s embarrassing silencing of State Representatives Lisa Brown and Barb Byrum. Because as Former State Representative Maxine Berman later emphasized, if they have no voice, then neither do any of us. The banning of two female legislators from speaking on . . . → Read More: “Vagina, Voice, Vote!” Two years ago, the US Supreme Court held that corporations have a first amendment right to spend unlimited amounts of money to influence our elections and lobby our elected officials. Since then, we’ve all heard plenty of calls for reform. Governor Snyder even included such a call in his 2012 State of the State . . . → Read More: The Corporate Accountability Amendment: It’s Up to Us The promise that citizens choose their elected officials is a basic foundation of our democratic process. So is the simple tenet that victory comes through playing by the rules, not by altering the rules so that you can declare yourself the winner. Last week, the Michigan State House passed a bill that violates both . . . → Read More: State GOP Changing Rules, Taking Power Away from Voters Last month I was meeting with a group of citizens in Berrien County, when a young man approached me with his parents and introduced himself. A Marine, he had just returned home from serving on active duty and was looking for work. He had enlisted shortly after graduating high school, and we talked about difficulties he encountered from employers who – though this young man had spent four years as an active-duty Marine – questioned whether he’d ever had a “real job.” . . . → Read More: VOW to Hire Heroes Act Only the Start of What Returning Service Members Deserve I am proud to be a part of Wayne State University Law School’s Damon J. Keith Center for Civil Rights. It is a good example of how successful people in the private sector and dedicated public servants in government can work together to achieve remarkable things. As the Center’s associate director and a former . . . → Read More: Finley Off the Mark on “1 Percent” My parents were teachers – special education teachers. Which meant a childhood spent in classrooms while my mother worked late to meet with parents or finish reports for the day. And conversations around the dinner table involved dad talking about the importance of studying history and mom sharing stories about her students’ achievements. Their work was a mission that continued long after the end of the school day. . . . → Read More: War on Teachers will Harm Education Reform As I talked about a lot last year on the campaign trail, I believe that the answers to the problems that plague our state lie with the people who are engaged and active in their local affairs. That’s why the current trend in our state, and nationally, where corporations and special interests often have more . . . → Read More: Engage Michigan Governing, and leadership, is about making choices. And every day, political leaders make choices. Choices between preserving Medicare and giving tax breaks to Big Oil. Choices between improving education or providing $900 million in subsidies to large corporations. Who – or what – do politicians think about when they make these choices? Do they . . . → Read More: Leveling the Playing Field I’m not the most popular person among the politicians in Lansing right now. Why? Because I believe that citizens must have a meaningful say in one of the most important political decisions in our state: redistricting. And right now, they don’t. At the heart of our democracy is the principle that voters choose their . . . → Read More: Your Districts, Your Voice |
  
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Paid for by the Michigan Democratic State Central Committee, 606 Townsend, Lansing, MI 48933, (517) 371-5410 |
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