The Only Campaign Promise Snyder Has Kept

This is Part 1 of a multi-part series of articles discussing the prediction made by Snyder a mere two days before the election that won him the governor’s office and how he has done everything possible to see that his prediction comes true.

We should have known... 

On October 31, 2010, then Michigan gubernatorial candidate Rick Snyder made the following statement to the Ann ArborNews in answer to why services need to be consolidated by municipalities.

“Literally there’s a fairly significant likelihood that you could have hundreds of jurisdictions going insolvent in the 2013, 14 time frame, if not sooner. It’s not just a Michigan issue. This is the next hidden national issue.”

This prediction was made a mere 2 days before the election that put Snyder in the governor’s office. It was the first time he had elaborated much on his campaign platform during the entire months-long campaign. Nobody caught it. He was elected by a large margin.

What else did we miss?

Were there other hints of pending problems in Michigan that were missed? Within a few weeks of the successful election of Snyder, former governor John Engler returned to Michigan, buying a home in Lansing a few miles from the governor’s mansion. One might ask what prompted his return to a state that counts his governorship as one of the worst times in the entire history of the state. Did his return have anything to do with the overwhelming number of Republicans elected to both houses of the legislature and the election of Snyder in the governor’s seat?

Snyder and Engler have a long history together but that doesn’t get much press time. Engler gave Snyder his first-ever job in the public sector when he selected him to head up the Michigan Economic Development Corporation, created by Engler under Executive Order1999-1. 

Why does it matter?

Why bother mentioning Engler at this stage in the game? Because the things that Snyder and his GOP heavy legislature are pushing are the exact same policies that Engler tried to get passed during his tenure as Michigan’s governor. The problem for Engler was that he didn’t have a cooperative legislature and common sense and cooler heads prevailed in the then Democratic leaning legislature. Snyder and the Republican Party control all three branches of the Michigan government right now and there are absolutely no checks and balances in place to stop them from steamrolling over the citizens in a haphazard fashion that is creating havoc along the way.

The dire prediction of municipal financial distress has been exacerbated since Snyder took office in January 2011. One of the first laws pushed through was the “local government and school district fiscal accountability act.” This law, better known as Public Act 4 of 2011 or the EM Law, is a thinly veiled paraphrased version of the Enabling Act of 1933. It allows the governor to legally remove democratically elected officials in municipalities that are determined to be in financial distress.
The citizens did not approve of the sweeping nature of this law. A petition drive was organized and successfully managed to put the law on the ballot in November 2012. A vote was taken and the citizens of Michigan voted overwhelmingly against this law. But that isn’t the end of the story…

This has been Part 1 of this series. Please stay tuned for Part 2 where I will discuss the timeline of events since Snyder took office that has put Michigan in the dire position she is currently in.