The Michigan Supreme Court has asked Gov. Rick Snyder to supply more information about why he thinks the high court should rule directly on a legal challenge brought against the Emergency Manager law in Ingham Circuit Court.

In June, a group of 28 plaintiffs from across the state filed suit against Snyder and Treasurer Andy Dillon over the new law that gives state-appointed Emergency Managers virtually complete control over financially-troubled local governments.

The plaintiffs argue that the law violates the state constitution’s “home rule” provisions and the Headlee amendment, which bans the state from enacting unfunded mandates (towns must pay the expenses of Emergency Managers assigned them).

They also say the the law violates the separation of powers between the legislative and executive branches and tramples on voting rights.

The governor petitioned the Michigan Supreme Court to rule directly on these legal questions rather than waiting for the lower courts to rule on it first.

In an order issued this week the court said that it is still considering his request and asked Snyder to more fully explain why they should move the case from the trial court.

The court also asked both parties to file briefs on the questions raised in the case by Dec. 14.

John Philo, legal director for the Sugar Law Center for Economic and Social Justice, which is representing the plaintiffs, said the high court should reject Snyder’s request to bypass the trial court and make an immediate decision in the case.

“Initial fact-finding and critical evidence occurs at the circuit court level,” said Philo. “This is why we have an established judicial system and for the governor to want to skip that process is troubling.”

The on again, off again recall election against Rep. Paul Scott (R-Grand Blanc) is heating up now that the courts have said the recall must proceed.

Scott had been trying to get the courts to throw out the recall. When that failed, Gov. Rick Snyder and Attorney General Bill Schuette, both Republicans, appealed to the Michigan Supreme Court to move the recall election to February’s closed Republican presidential primary election. The Michigan Supreme Court last week rejected that claim and ordered the recall election to proceed.

As a result, Snyder traveled to Scott’s district to stump for him on Friday. Snyder and Scott hosted a call-in town hall, reports the Flint Journal. The Journal reports about 4,000 on the telephone town hall.

But advocates for the recall are also ramping up their work, knocking on doors and asking voters to support the recall.

The recall has been backed by the Michigan Education Association, in part because Scott is the chair of the House Education Committee that pushed through cuts to K-12 education earlier this year in the budget battles.

Residents of southwest Detroit and members of Occupy Detroit stopped truck traffic to the Ambassador Bridge Thursday as they protested the business practices of bridge owner Matty Maroun.

The Detroit News reports that dozens of people formed a human chain in front of the truck entrance to the bridge.

They chanted slogans and hoisted signs to show their opposition to what they call elite business interests blocking a second span that could bring more jobs to the region.

“This shows how much people are really beginning to be fed up with this 1 percent,” said the Rev. Charles Williams II, pastor at Detroit’s historic King Solomon Baptist Church and a leader with Good Jobs Now who joined the protest.

Last week, amid intense lobbying by Maroun, a state Senate committee blocked legislation that would authorize Michigan to work with Canada to create the New International Trade Crossing — a publicly owned bridge that would connect freeways between Detroit and Windsor.

Gov. Rick Snyder and business and labor groups support the new bridge and say that it will bring construction jobs and strengthen trade.

Mlive reports that there were no arrests at the demonstration which blocked traffic for nearly an hour.

“They have the right to protest,” Detroit Deputy Police Chief James Tolbert said at the scene. “We’re working with them to keep everyone safe and get these trucks moving when we can.”

A state fund that helps low income and unemployed people stay warm over the winter will be unavailable this winter unless the Legislature takes action to reauthorize the program.

The Michigan Citizen reports that the state’s Low Income Energy Efficiency Fund typically provides $90 million a year in assistance with energy bills and weatherization.

In July, the Michigan Appeals Court granted the wishes of the state’s largest energy customers — business and industry — to opt out of paying into the fund.

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The court case began in 2009 when former Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox joined ABATE, a business interest group representing large industrial energy users including auto makers, in a lawsuit challenging the Michigan Public Services Commission’s authority to oversee LIEEF.

The Michigan Court of Appeals ruled on July 21 that the Michigan Public Services Commission (MPSC) was not authorized to manage the fund.

MPSC spokesperson Judy Palnau says $62 million in energy assistance was already announced for 2011, but those monies will now be unavailable to agencies assigned with distributing them.

Maureen Taylor of the Michigan Welfare Rights Organization told Michigan Citizen that energy companies including General Electric are trying to convince state officials that LIEEF money should be invested in research and development of weatherization technologies.

The LIEEF money represents the bulk of the utility assistance funds distributed through the Salvation Army, the Michigan Community Action Agencies, and the Heat and Warmth Fund.

The legislature could make the money available by passing a bill that authorizes a system for administering the program.

Rather than take this up the Legislature has moved bills to kick families off cash assistance and deny food aid to college students.

The suspension of the LIEEF program comes as Congress is considering slashing funding for the federal Low Income Home Energy Assistance program. Though Gov. Rick Snyder has called on federal lawmakers to maintain funding for that program, he has yet to take action on the suspension of Michigan’s program.

On Thursday, Republican Gov. Rick Snyder signed a package of bills to make mortgage fraud a felony in the state of Michigan.

The new laws make it a crime to provide false information on a loan application, and also makes it a crime to file fraudulent documents in connection with property purchases.

“Tougher penalties are needed to protect against scammers who think nothing of bilking unsuspecting homeowners and lenders out of tens of thousands of dollars,” Snyder said. “This legislation makes it clear – mortgage fraud will not be tolerated. Try to steal someone’s house, go to prison.”

The signing resulted in a barrage of praise from lawmakers.

“As Michigan residents struggle to keep a roof over their heads, I am doing everything I can to protect them from being taken advantage of, whether it’s by the banks, the courts or crooked companies,” said Sen. Tupac Hunter (D-Detroit), Minority Vice Chair of the Senate Banking and Financial Institutions Committee that generated the package. “Mortgage fraud and other corrupt behavior only exploits the state’s housing crisis and will continue until the appropriate laws are in place to stop them, and making mortgage fraud illegal is a good first step.”

Both Hunter and Snyder pointed to a 2010 FBI report noting the high prevalence of mortgage fraud in the state:

According to the 2010 FBI Mortgage Fraud report, Michigan was among the top 10 states in terms of mortgage fraud activity, with Detroit having the fifth highest number of pending mortgage fraud investigations nationwide. Since 2005, the Wayne County Deed and Mortgage Fraud Task Force has been forced to initiate hundreds of deed and mortgage fraud prosecutions using existing inadequate laws with convictions often resulting in only minor fines and probation.

But not everyone is happy with the new laws.

Ingham County’s Register of Deeds Curtis Hertel Jr. says the laws do not do enough to address the reality of the problem on the ground. Since April, Hertel has been leading the charge in the state over robo-signed documents filed in every county in Michigan.

Robo-signing is a process by which people are paid to sign the name of a person charged with the authority to execute legal documents, often initiating foreclosure proceedings or evictions after foreclosures.

The first round of signatures Hertel found were from “Linda Green.” She was uncovered originally by the television news program “60 Minutes.”

But as Hertel dug in deeper, he found that at least one Michigan attorney was allegedly robo-signing documents. After Michigan Messenger reported that Orlans Associates attorney Marshall Isaacs had been placed on a Massachusetts robo-signing list, Hertel referred Isaacs to the office Republican Attorney General Bill Schuette. Schuette has not commented on the investigation, and Orlans Associates has issued a blanket denial.

“As a person on the ground fighting illegal foreclosures I appreciate the new tools. That being said, it does not go far enough. As long as we have a system where a foreclosure process and sheriff sale can happen without any third party review of the legality of said sale, we will have a broken system,” says Curtis Hertel, Jr. the Ingham County Register of Deeds. “The reality of the situation is most people dont get a review of all the documents until after the sheriff sale. At this point their credit has been ruined by what could be a fraudulent process. Passing this law gives me hope the governor and legislature will realize they have to go farther to protect the due process rights of all citizens in the foreclosure process.”

A Republican-led committee in the Senate has blocked legislation to authorize construction of a new bridge between Detroit and Windsor favored by Gov. Rick Snyder.

Business Week reports:

A spokeswoman for Republican Senate Majority Leader Randy Richardville, who sponsored the bridge legislation, said there were no plans to do anything more with the bill defeated Thursday and no near-term plans to introduce alternative legislation.

That would be a legislative defeat for first-year Republican Gov. Rick Snyder, who supports the new bridge. But Snyder wouldn’t quit on the proposal Thursday, calling for a “cooling down period” to talk to lawmakers about the proposal.

The governor and the Michigan Chamber of Commerce say that by connecting highways in the U.S. and Canada the New International Trade Crossing would make trade over the border more efficient and support business expansion.

Canada has already begun work on its side of the bridge and has offered to finance the $550 million needed to cover the costs of building the Michigan side of the span.

The U.S. Dept. of Transportation has said that Michigan can use that $550 million as matching funds to secure federal road repair money for the state.

Some are speculating that Snyder may eventually decide to close the bridge deal with Canada by executive order if the Legislature refuses to OK the project.

Gov. Rick Snyder has established a bipartisan commission to investigate how to improve the legal defense services provided to low-income people accused of crimes.

Michigan law puts each county in charge of operating its own system for providing attorneys for the poor, or indigent, and the state has been criticized and sued for failing to provide oversight and ensure that counties provide an adequate level of representation.

As he issued an executive order establishing the commission on Thursday, the governor said that the commission is needed because the quality of legal representation provided to those who cannot afford their own attorneys varies greatly across the state.

“A core principle of our criminal justice system is to guarantee that an individual charged with a crime be entitled to legal representation, even if they are unable to hire private counsel,” Snyder said. “The Commission will work to ensure that all criminal defendants receive effective assistance of counsel.”

The 14 member Indigent Defense Advisory Commission includes the chairman of the House Oversight, Reform and Ethics Committee, Rep. Tom McMillin (R-Rohester Hills), Rep. Ellen Cogen Lipton (D-Huntington Woods, Sen. Bruce Caswell (R-Hillsdale), Sen. Bert Johnson (D-Detroit), and ten other members representing the judiciary, prosecuting and criminal attorneys, the State Bar of Michigan, local government and the general public.

The group is tasked with finding ways to ensure that qualified and cost-effective legal counsel is provided in a consistent manner across the state and issuing recommendations by July 15, 2012.

Legal and civil rights groups praised the governor’s action.

David Carroll is research director for The National Legal Aid and Defender Association (NLADA), which spent a year investigating Michigan’s indigent defense systems on behalf of the state legislature, and principal author of the group’s 2008 report A Race to the Bottom: Speed and Savings over Due Process – A Constitutional Crisis.

Carroll called the new commission a “critical first step” in addressing longstanding structural problems in the way Michigan provides legal counsel to the poor.

“This is a public safety issue,” he said, “When an innocent person is sent to prison as a result of public defenders not having the time, tools and training to effectively advocate for their clients, the true perpetrator of the crime remains free to victimize others and put public safety in jeopardy.”

Carroll said that Michigan is failing to provide any type of supervision or ongoing training for public defense lawyers and that these attorneys often have ethical conflicts because they get their paychecks from the trial judge that awards them contracts.

Collectively Michigan counties spend $7.35 per capita on indigent defense services — 38 percent less than the national average, according to NLADA’s investigation, and the counties most in need of indigent services are the the ones that can least afford them. Financial pressures have led many counties to choose low bid, flat-fee contract systems where attorneys are torn between their duty to competently defend a client and financial self interest that dictates spending the least amount of time on each case.

The NLADA report found, for example, that public defenders in the city of Detroit average 2,400 cases per year; the American Bar Association’s standard is only 400 cases per year.

“We are pleased that governor has taken this step forward toward establishing a statewide public defense system,” said Michelle Weemhoff, senior policy policy associate for the Michigan Council on Crime and Delinquency. “The reports coming out are consistently saying that Michigan’s public defense systems are failing. This is an opportunity to examine this issue in depth and look at what it is going to take to make sure that constitutional rights are upheld.”

In February a state bar association panel convened to examine ways to improve the judicial system amid falling revenue reported that improving the state indigent defense
system would save money by reducing costly appeals and lowering jail and prison costs for inmates unjustly convicted or sentenced.

“By almost every measure, indigent criminal defense as a whole in Michigan falls far short of accepted standards, undermining the quality of justice, jeopardizing public safety, and creating large and avoidable costs,” the Judicial Task Force said.

Rep. John Conyers (D-Detroit) is asking state and federal officials to find funding to restore Highland Park’s street lights, which are being removed by DTE Energy because the city can’t afford its electric bill.

In a statement Tuesday afternoon Conyers said:

“Today, I contacted Highland Park Mayor Hubert Yopp, and Wayne County Sheriff Benny Napoleon, as well as the offices of President Obama and Governor Snyder to discuss this emergency matter. As a result of these calls, I am joining with Mayor Yopp in his efforts to immediately seek federal and state funding to restore lighting to the city’s neighborhoods.

“With most of Highland Park’s street lights having been removed or slated to be removed by October 31 to resolve a debt owed to DTE Energy, the citizens of Highland Park are facing a severe safety crisis. Everyone knows that most crimes occur in darkened neighborhoods. And it is especially alarming that the street lights’ removal will be completed by Halloween, perhaps one of the most important days of the year to have lighting to prevent crime and mischief.”

Highland Park has a population of about 12,000 and is surrounded by the city of Detroit.

It was once home to Chrysler’s headquarters.

Lawmakers will vote Wednesday on legislation to allow Michigan to proceed with plans to develop the New International Trade Crossing between Detroit and Windsor.

The Detroit News reports:

The Senate Economic Development Committee, which is considering legislation to create a public authority to take bids on the new bridge, will hold hearings Tuesday and Wednesday and vote on the two bridge bills at the end of Wednesday’s session, said Mike Murray, chief of staff to committee chairman Sen. Mike Kowall, R-White Lake.

Gov. Rick Snyder is pushing the project, dubbed the New International Trade Crossing, and wants the Legislature to deal with it by the end of October.

It’s not clear whether there is support in the Legislature to pass the bills. Republicans have generally opposed the public bridge, while Democrats have supported it.

Canada has offered to finance the $550 million needed to pay for the Michigan portion of the bridge, and the project is supported by a broad range of business and labor groups because it is expected to provide jobs and improve trade over the border.

Gov. Snyder has also worked out an arrangement with the U.S. Dept. of Transportation that would allow Michigan to use the $550 million from Canada as matching funds to secure $2 billion in federal road dollars.

Billionaire Ambassador Bridge owner Matty Maroun has blanketed the state with ads in opposition to plans for the new publicly-owned bridge.

All the speculation Gov. Rick Snyder set off at the end of last month by saying he would not seek re-election if his agenda was completed,has ended. During an appearance in Grand Rapids Thursday morning, Snyder declared he will seek re-election in 2014.

The Grand Rapids Press reports:

In a press conference at the Amway Grand Plaza Hotel, Snyder said he remains committed to the “10-year plan” he developed with his family that included two years of campaigning and eight years as governor.

Snyder made his original statements about not seeking re-election at the end of September.