Michigan Populist Blog

According to a study by Metlife, as reported on in The Nation, job satisfaction is dropping amongst teachers.  Only 44 percent of teachers described themselves as “very satisfied,” and almost a third of teachers are considering leaving the profession.  This news comes as the conservative organization the State Government Leadership Foundation (SGLF) is set to air an attack ad in select states including Michigan.  The SGLF is essentially the 501(c)3 arm of  The Republican State Leadership Committee.  The Republican State Leadership Committee calls itself a ”national organization whose mission is electing Republicans to the office of Attorney General, Lieutenant Governor, Secretary of State and legislator.”    

The ad hits below the belt referring to teacher’s unions as bullies and implying that unions are the the reason the U.S. is scoring lower than the Chinese on the international science and math test known as the PISA.  Not surprisingly, the Chinese don’t play fair when it comes to these tests.  While most countries taking the PISA use a sampling of all the students in their country, the Chinese kids that topped the PISA were from Shanghai, perhaps China’s most advanced city.  No kids were tested from China’s rural areas where the droput rate sometimes reaches 40%!  Besides, even the Chinese have concerns about the the importance of these tests.  Some are concerned that creating ”test-takers” comes with the cost of a poor imagination and low creativity.  They are also concerned that creating “test-takers” comes at the expense of an enjoyable childhood.  Not only is the Chinese comparison suspect, so is the connection between unions and test scores.  In Finland, 95% of its teachers are in unions.  That is significant because Finland often holds the top spot in these type of tests, and they are often regarded as having the strongest education system in the world.  Back in the U.S. 9 out of the top 10 scoring states on the NAEP test are states with where school teacher’s unions are strong.

These attack ads should be seen for what they are, political action.  While these conservative organizations would like you to believe they care about kids, they really only care about making money and political power.  They will do anything to get conservatives elected so they can pass their extreme policies including privatizing education in order to profit from it.

Note: The SGLF and the RSLC share the same address and the SGLF’s page states that they are “affiliated with the Republican State Leadership Committee.”

The Michigan Education Association is going all-in with the Protect Our Jobs campaign.  The MEA, and most Michigan unions, are hoping that Michiganders will agree that collective bargaining rights should be protected under the Michigan constitution.  At a recent meeting of MEA leaders, five factions of the MEA emptied their savings accounts into a joint kitty in hope of getting the collective bargaining amendment passed.  The largest contributor was the MEA-Retired who donated a cool million dollars.  In all, 1.8 million dollars was contributed towards the effort.

While the money being contributed is both important and impressive, it is not the end-all be-all.  The people who support the Protect Our Jobs campaign are up against some of the richest individuals in the country, including our very wealthy Governor.  It is unlikely that they can be outspent.  However, they can be outmanned.  The collective bargaining amendment is good for just about everyone in Michigan besides rich CEOs.  The challenge is to get people to understand that fact.  Word of mouth may be the most important resource in this campaign.

Many believe that the Protect Our Jobs campaign could be the last hope for unions in Michigan.  Republican legislators have been like vultures picking away at collective bargaining rights since they took office a year and a half ago.  Now there isn’t much meat left on that bone.  Protecting collective bargaining with a constitutional amendment would allow unions, and therefore the middle class, to take flight again.

I recently received a flyer via email for a candidate for the 103rd House office.  I have particular interest in the 103rd district because I live in it, because I am not very happy with my current representative Bruce Rendon, and because it is a district that flipped from Democrat to Republican in the last election. It’s a seat Democrats need to win in November if they hope to take back the House.

The flyer for the candidate named Lon Johnson was pretty vague.  It consisted of a logo and information about a campaign kick-off event on April 28th in Kalkaska.  Since I wanted to know more, I started trying to research Mr. Johnson using the typical avenues like Google and Facebook.  I found the Lon Johnson campaign website, but it only had one page, and that page only displayed the aforementioned logo.  As I started digging deeper, I was surprised by what I found.  Instead of finding out Lon Johnson is just your run-of-the-mill local politician, I found out he is someone who has ties to President Obama.  According to my research, Lon Johnson is married to Julianna Smoot, the deputy director of President Obama’s re-election campaign.  Smoot also served as the social secretary at the White House for 10 months and was Obama’s finance director during the 2008 election.

So I learned a lot about Smoot and her political connections, but what about Lon Johnson?  It seems that Johnson grew up in suburban Detroit and went to college at Arizona State University.  According to one source, Johnson was the campaign manager for Representative John Dingell’s 2002 re-election campaign and also served as a senior fundraiser for Al Gore’s presidential campaign during the 2000 election.  According to his October 2011 wedding announcement, Johnson was working for the investment firm TVV Capital out of Nashville.  TVV Capital’s website still lists him as the Vice President and says he has been employed there since 2003.  In 2005 he was also working as a political organizer according to an article in the Toledo Blade.  Johnson’s Facebook page says he now lives in Kalkaska, Michigan.  His Facebook friends include former 103rd House representative Joel Sheltrown and Democratic Party Chair Mark Brewer.

While a few questions have been answered, many questions remain.  How did Mr. Johnson land in Kalkaska, Michigan?  Can he overcome the carpetbagger label?  Can he help the Democrats win back the House in November?  And maybe the least important, but the most interesting, how well does he know President Obama?  Things just got more interesting here in sleepy Northern Michigan.

The signing of House Bill 4929 is proof positive that our Governor is just another politician.  The bill prohibits school districts from automatically deducting teacher’s union dues.  Since the process is automated, the bill does not save money.  Republicans defeated an amendment to the bill that would have allowed the process to continue if the union paid for any associated costs.  This proves the bill is a political attack against teachers  because they have been the most vocal opponent of the Republican agenda.  Teachers have spoken out loudly against many Republican policies, most notably the stealing of money from the school aid fund to help give huge tax breaks to business, some of who are making record profits.  This bill is not about ”ensuring that public resources are used solely for their intended purposes” as Rick Snyder said after signing it.  If it were, state workers, who are part of the Service Employees International Union, and the state trooopers, who are part of the the Michigan State Police Trooper’s Association, would have also been included in the bill.  After all, both of these groups also have their dues automatically deducted.

So despite what he has said, Snyder has no problem ”picking winners and losers.”  He will sign anti-labor bills if they reach his desk even if they are “not on his agenda.”  He has no problems being involved in “divisive politics.”  The irony of it all is a few weeks ago he was on national TV talking about how people in Washington need to work together.  Clearly reaching out across the aisle is not on the Governor’s agenda.  Rick Snyder has become your run-of-the-mill politician.  If anything has been reinvented in Rick Snyder’s tenure as Governor, it is Rick Snyder.  He went from being a millionaire nerd CEO to another fat cat politician who is only out to serve the best interest of his wealthy brethren.  The more things change, the more they stay the same.