I am writing today to announce the closure of the Michigan Messenger. After four years of operation in Michigan, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news into a single site, The American Independent at Americanindependent.com. This is part of a shift in strategy, towards new forms [...]
An abstinence-only presentation provided to numerous school districts in Calhoun and Eaton Counties in October of this year provided false and misleading information to students about HIV, experts allege.
Two county registers of deeds filed a class action lawsuit Monday on behalf of Michigan’s 83 counties alleging that the Mortgage Electronic Registration Services owes millions of dollars in property title transfer taxes.
Despite evidence of the impact of mercury on children and public health, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette last month joined with 24 other state attorneys general in filing a lawsuit to scuttle new EPA regulations that would reduce mercury emissions from power plants.
Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers of Brighton really, really wants to expand the main runway at Capital Regional International Airport in Lansing. United Parcel Service does too.
And according to a report in USA Today, UPS has not been timid about ponying up for the congressman’s reelection efforts over the last several election cycles. But there’s no connection there, according to UPS.
From the USA Today story:
UPS spokesman Michael Mangeot said there is no connection between Rogers’ earmarks and the $45,000 in campaign contributions UPS’ PAC has given Rogers since 2005 — the maximum donation allowed by law. He called the timing of the contributions in March 2007 “coincidence.”
Meanwhile, Rogers has secured more than $6 million in funding for improvements at the Lansing airport.
The nonprofit Public Campaign Action Fund has already seized on the case as a crystal clear example of why the country should reform the way federal political campaigns are financed. According to a news release from PCAF:
[W]hile USA Today reported that Rep. Rogers had received $45,000 from the UPS Political Action Committee (PAC), PCAF found that Rep. Rogers’ leadership PAC, MIKE PAC, has received $30,000 more, for a total of $75,000 from the UPS PAC, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
“If it’s a day that ends in y, there must be another story about a member of Congress securing earmarks for a campaign contributor,” the release quotes David Donnelly, national campaigns director for Public Campaign Action Fund, saying.
PCAF goes on to suggest — with a strong sense of compensatory justice? or humor? — that Rogers should co-sponsor the pending Fair Elections Now Act (H.R. 1826) “to demonstrate that he is not doing the bidding of contributors.”
My question: Can’t Rogers argue that those airport improvements will help retain jobs and create new ones — like any good public infrastructure project — even if the campaign contributions do paint a sleazy, pay-to-play picture?
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