{"id":4333,"date":"2011-03-17T04:58:34","date_gmt":"2011-03-17T11:58:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=4333"},"modified":"2011-03-17T04:58:34","modified_gmt":"2011-03-17T11:58:34","slug":"its-just-the-constitution-thats-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2011\/03\/17\/its-just-the-constitution-thats-all\/","title":{"rendered":"It’s Just the Constitution, That’s All!"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019d a rare day that I disagree with Ed Schultz, but today I do.  He compared the totalitarian moves by Gov. Rick Snyder of Michigan to the USSR.  Personally, I believe that Snyder is goose-stepping to the other end of the spectrum, as he attempts to turn the entire state into a Republican dictatorship.  Snyder’s plan will violate the US Constitution if he signs it into law, but that matters little to Republicans.  To quote their former leader, Potomac Pinocchio, \u201cIt\u2019s just a piece of paper.\u201d<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\"17const\"Although Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker\u2019s (R) anti-union crusade has received the biggest headlines, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) is poised to sign an even more drastic assault<\/font><\/a> on working Americans into law. Yesterday, the Michigan legislature passed a \u201cfinancial martial law<\/font><\/a>\u201d bill that allows Snyder to appoint \u201cemergency financial managers\u201d with the power to terminate collective bargaining agreements:<\/font><\/p>\n

Contracts & Collective Bargaining Agreements.<\/font><\/u><\/span> The bill would authorize the emergency manager to reject, modify, or terminate one or more terms and conditions<\/font><\/p>\n

of an existing contract.<\/font><\/p>\n

After meeting and conferring with the appropriate bargaining representative and, if in the emergency manager\u2019s sole discretion, a prompt and satisfactory resolution were unlikely to be obtained, the emergency manager could reject, modify, or terminate one or more terms and conditions of an existing collective bargaining agreement<\/strong><\/span>.<\/font><\/p>\n

There\u2019s a pretty serious problem with this power grab, however \u2014 invoking it would violate the Constitution. The Constitution forbids state laws \u201cimpairing the Obligation of Contracts<\/font><\/a>.\u201d This provision provides a robust limit on a state\u2019s ability to dissolve contracts between the government and a private party. As the Supreme Court explained in United States Trust Co. v. New Jersey<\/em><\/font><\/span><\/a>, state laws impairing such contracts must be \u201creasonable and necessary to serve an important public purpose.\u201d\u2026 [emphasis original<\/em>]<\/font><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <Think Progress<\/a>><\/p>\n

Most states have provisions under which the state can take over management of a city or town that is in default, but nothing so extreme as this measure which gives Snyder\u2019s henchmen dictatorial powers.<\/font><\/p>\n

Ed Schultz and Lansing Mayor, Virg Bernero, fill in the dirty details of this onerous plan.<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/embed><\/object><\/font><\/p>\n

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news<\/a>, world news<\/a>, and news about the economy<\/a><\/p>\n

Note that Snyder is cutting $1.2 billion from Main Street needs to fund $1.8 billion in tax cuts for the rich, but this goes further than just the normal Republican upward redistribution of wealth.  It\u2019s am assault on working people.  If this stands, he will take every possible opportunity to cancel union contracts.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019d a rare day that I disagree with Ed Schultz, but today I do.  He compared the totalitarian moves by Gov. Rick Snyder of Michigan to the USSR.  Personally, I believe that Snyder is goose-stepping to the other end of the spectrum, as he attempts to turn the entire state into a Republican dictatorship.  Snyder’s […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4333"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4333\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}