Michigan gives up on democracy

>>> all right. let's cue the michigan tape. if you live in michigan and your town goes broke -- hey, it happens. come on -- the state of michigan has the option to come in and take over your town or your school district , right? the state abolishes your local democracy . so it doesn't matter whoever you voted for, that gets overruled. instead they give you a single state -appointed overseer. the new unelected boss can do whatever he or she wants, no matter what you voted for. that overseer can fire officials, eradicate the town, close the schools, whatever. on their own terms, nobody else gets a safe. democracy is out. the emergency manager gets full control, personally, full-stop. a local website called eclectablog noticed that if you consider the racial makeup of michigan and the racial makeup of the towns that michigan has taken over, little towns like allen park and benton harbor and ecorse and larger towns like pontiac and also flint, if you then add in detroit , which the state has long been on the verge of taking over , what emerges from the stats is that michigan has been on the verge of eliminating local democracy , the meaningful right to vote for your local officials, it has been on the verge of eliminating that for almost half the black population of the state , something like 49% of michigan african-americans that has been the warning from democratic activists in the state . but it is not just a warning anymore, because now you can go ahead and fill in detroit on this chart. the state is taking over the largest city in michigan . 49% of african-americans in michigan will no longer have local democracy . republican governor rick snyder announced today he will appoint an emergency manager will nearly unilateral control over the city. governor snyder called this a sad day for detroit . he said he hoped detroit and the state would work together on this. one of the local papers in detroit ran a helpful piece trying to explain the implications of this for local detroit residents. question, if an emergency financial manager is appointed, will detroit elections for mayor and city council still go forward? answer, yes, detroiters will have a primary election in august and a general election in november. what powers those elected officials will have, though, will be up to the emergency manager . so have fun voting. no, it does not really matter anymore who you vote for. perhaps not surprisingly, a lot of people in detroit today did not react to this news with tons of excitement over having the state abolish the local democracy . some people welcomed the news, definitely. others did not. the head of the local naacp said the city does not need an emergency manager . quote, we urge the state to be our partner. we do not call upon the state to be our overseer. the news agency reuters, quote, it don't take a genius to know what this is all about. they want our money and our land, and no one cares about us. and we're the ones who stuck around, not the white folks. members of the detroit city council today said they were likely to appeal the governor's decision. the reverend david bullock, who has been a guest on our shows with the rainbow-push coalition he calls it, quote, the death of democracy in detroit . he continued, it also means disaster for detroit with the track record of the emergency manager . the track record. what the reverend is referring to is the track record for putting an emergency manager in charge in michigan , because they have tried this before, right? they have done this in these other places. does it make you less excited to do this to the biggest city in the state , to learn how well it has or has not worked the other places it's been tried? because on the one hand, governor snyder is saying hey, detroit is in trouble, desperate times, desperate measures , we have to fix this. however distasteful, we have to do this. if you take away local democracy , if you take away people's right to vote for people who represent them and instead put one person in charge, in complete personal control, that may be distasteful given we're a democratic country, but it will be efficient. it will work. with respect to the governor, history has not proved him very right in his state . in the other places where this has been tried, what he is proposing for detroit has not worked there is one exception. the village of three oaks had an excellent experience with an emergency manager . three oaks is a place with 1600 people, very little poverty, a 96% white population, its own poet laureate and a art scene popular enough to attract tourists. they took over three oaks in 2008 under the previous governor. the overseer balanced the budget. the next year turned the government back over to the locals. it was a short-run thing there, and it worked. that's the example of it working. that's the one. it does not seem to have worked out like that anywhere else. the town of hamtrannic which is tucked inside detroit remained under control until 2007 . by 2010 , they were asking for permission to declare bankruptcy. and by 2013 , they are still broke. the city of flint , michigan , got put under emergency manager control in '02. got out in '04 and failed again. emergency management was imposed in flint again for a second time in 2011 . the mayor is now asking for the city to get its democracy back. the emergency manager says actually, you'll have to take that up with the governor. the town of ecorse got put under emergency management in '09. ecorse still has an emergency manager now. the city of pontiac got an emergency manager imposed that same year. pontiac still has one also. asked about an emergency manager trying to fix detroit , the emergency manager in pontiac said, yeah, quote, good luck. also in '09, the detroit public schools got an emergency manager , a state overseer. after a rough few years, people in the detroit schools are begging the federal government to please come and step in. benton harbor , another largely african-american town in michigan , very poor, got imposed emergency management in 2010 . they still haven't gotten their democracy back. last year a new emergency manager was imposed in the muskegon heights school district . he handed the schools to a for-profit company which was soon found to be hiring uncertified teachers, teachers who are not certified to legally teach in the state . or how about highland park next to hamtranick. they got taken over in 2001 . now the former manager is facing trial for embezzling highland park . and highland park 's school district is under an emergency manager . the town got out in 2009 , and then the school district got put back under last year. the track record for emergency managers in michigan kind of makes you wonder what the view must be in allen park , right? the last town that the state took over last year before detroit . that is the track record for emergency managers in michigan . it did work in that one cute little town , 1600 people. so far i don't think you can say it has worked anywhere else. what are we doing with this emergency manager law in michigan , and in detroit now specifically? what we're doing is giving up on the idea that we fix problems in america through a system of government that is called democracy . and we're giving it up for something that has no proven record of being any better. you lose democracy . you don't necessarily have any hope of fixing anything. why did you give up your deem democracy then? why this is not a bigger national story still