Latest news with #MichiganAdvance
Yahoo
17-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Duggan nets gubernatorial endorsement from Detroit Regional Chamber
Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan delivers a keynote address during the second day of the Mackinac Policy Conference at the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island, Mich., on May 28, 2025. (Photo by Andrew Roth/Michigan Advance) Detroit's powerful regional business organization has thrown its weight behind Mike Duggan's independent bid to be the next governor of Michigan. The Detroit Regional Chamber PAC on Thursday announced that it was endorsing Duggan in the 2026 gubernatorial election. The decision was unanimously reached with a quorum of political action committee members present, the chamber said in a news release. Duggan got the endorsement, the chamber said, because of his proven track record of executive-level business experience prior to his time as mayor, primarily as the leader of the Detroit Medical Center. Duggan was also once on the Detroit Regional Chamber's Board of Directors. 'The Chamber and businesses across the state are growing increasingly concerned about the inability of our political parties to find common ground and move Michigan forward,' Sandy Baruah, Chamber president and CEO, said in a statement. 'Throughout his business and government career, Mike Duggan has proven he can bring people together to work toward common goals. Voters across Michigan are tired of the political infighting; they are clamoring for results-driven leadership, which is exactly what Mike has brought to every leadership position he's held.' SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX That success, the chamber noted, extended to his time as mayor, which has helped Detroit experience revitalization and become a national model for renewal. Detroit's population is growing, the chamber said, and that was thanks to Duggan's leadership. 'Mayor Duggan's tenure in Detroit has been a case study in effective, consistent leadership,' David Foltyn, chairman of the Chamber PAC and the Honigman law firm's chairman and CEO, said in a statement. 'He has demonstrated a unique ability to bring stakeholders together to solve generational challenges. The business community has full confidence that he will bring that same steady hand and relentless focus on results to Lansing, creating the stable, pro-growth environment Michigan needs to compete on a global scale.' A news release issued by the chamber also noted that it was the first business organization to endorse Duggan during his 2013 mayoral write-in campaign, and supported him in his subsequent reelection bids. The chamber has a history of endorsing candidates from both major parties, having endorsed Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, in both her 2018 gubernatorial campaign and her 2022 re-election bid, as well former Republican Gov. Rick Snyder in his 2014 reelection campaign. However, the organization declined to make an endorsement in the 2024 U.S. Senate race, saying its board could not reach a consensus on whether to support former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers (R-White Lake) or then-U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Holly). Slotkin ended up winning the election. Duggan as independent will face whomever is nominated by the respective major political parties, who won't be decided until the August 2026 primary. That has given Duggan somewhat of an early opportunity to run a general election-style race early in the cycle. On the Democratic side, Duggan could face Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist II, Genesee County Sheriff Chris Swanson or former Cape Coral, Fla., Mayor Marni Sawicki On the Republican side, the Detroit mayor could face U.S. Rep. John James of Shelby Township, state Senate Minority Leader Aric Nesbitt of Portage, former Attorney General Mike Cox, former House Speaker Tom Leonard of DeWitt, Genesee County truck driver Anthony Hudson and Traverse City native Evan Space. Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
15-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Detroit Schools Have Highest Cuts to Federal Funding in Michigan
This article was originally published in Michigan Advance. Detroit schools are facing some of the deepest cuts to federal funding in the country as The White House withholds $6.2 billion of funds nationwide. The appropriations were already approved by Congress and signed into law by President Donald Trump. But the administration informed states that they would be withholding the funding for five programs that support educator development, student enrichment programs, migrant education, English learners and 21st-century learning centers. Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter While data isn't available for the program supporting migrant education, federal data organized by New America shows that Michigan stands to lose $81.6 million across the other four programs – accounting for more than $65 per student in the state. The deepest cuts are in areas represented in Congress by Democrats, with those school districts facing a loss of $45 million compared to nearly $36.6 million in areas represented by a Republican. That's an average of $7.5 million per school district in Democratic areas compared to $5.2 million per district in Republican areas. Michigan's seven Republican members of Congress represent 713,666 students, while the six Democrats in Michigan's congressional delegation represent 530,785 students. On average, school districts represented by a Democrat would lose about $84 per student, while school districts represented by Republicans would lose about $51 per student. That's a reversal from the national trend, where the average school district represented by a Republican would lose 1.6 times as much funding per pupil than those represented by a Democrat. That's in part because while 91 of the 100 school districts nationwide facing the deepest cuts are in Republican congressional districts, Detroit is one of the ten districts with the most funding at risk. They would lose the third most funding nationwide for student support and enrichment programs and the sixth most funding for education development. In total, the district has more than $16 million on the line. U.S. Rep. Shri Thanedar (D-Detroit) represents the hardest hit congressional district, which stands to lose about $210 per student, followed by U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Detroit) at about $87 per pupil. The school district has the highest poverty rate across the 46 states for which data was available at 46.9%. Detroit Public Schools Superintendent Nikolai Vitti could not be reached for comment. Zahava Stadler is the project director of the Education Funding Equity Initiative in the Education Policy Program at New America. She told Michigan Advance that highly impoverished districts are likely to face significant cuts since poverty rates are a consideration for some federal grants. 'Higher poverty districts are going to be hit again and again and again as the federal government dithers over whether or not to release all of these individual funding streams to which school districts are legally entitled,' Stadler said. The federal government withholding the already-allocated funding has made it even more difficult for schools to plan their budgets after the Republican-led Michigan House of Representatives failed to pass a budget by their deadline of July 1. Even if school districts are able to maintain the programs through other funding sources, Stadler said they wouldn't be able to then reimburse those funds later on if the federal funds came through. 'Money can't just get moved around at will,' Stadler said. 'Federal dollars have rules. And the administration is throwing districts into chaos as they are rapidly approaching a new school year.' Beyond the programs themselves having an impact on students, Stadler said the fight over funding also symbolizes the wrong message for the students who benefit from them. 'The message that these kids are getting is that their country doesn't want to invest in them, their schools aren't able to invest in them,' Stadler said. 'And that is a really difficult and tragic thing to hear as a young person who is just trying to grow and thrive in a community of which they're a member.' Michigan Advance is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Michigan Advance maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jon King for questions: info@
Yahoo
01-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Michigan clerks speak up in support of bill to preserve local authority over voting machine testing
Kent County Clerk Lisa Posthumus Lyons at a meeting of the House Election Integrity Committee. July 1, 2025. | Photo by Kyle Davidson/Michigan Advance Election clerks from across the state spoke up before the House Election Integrity Committee Tuesday, offering their support for a piece of legislation aimed at preserving their say in pre-election testing of voting machines. Committee Chair Rachelle Smit (R-Martin), a former election clerk, told her colleagues that for years, local clerks have successfully conducted logic and accuracy testing of their machines by working with vendors of their choosing. However, Smit raised concerns that a recent contract acquired by the Michigan Secretary of State could require clerks to use only their contracted vendor to generate test decks. 'This represents a fundamental shift from our local control to state mandated centralization, a shift that raises concerns about the integrity, transparency and fiscal responsibility. The bill before us today provides very clear, common sense protections that preserve local autonomy while ensuring proper standards. Specifically it protects local choice,' Smit said. Smit's House Bill 4602 states that the Secretary of State cannot bar or restrict local clerks from using any lawful source for creating testing materials. 'Our local clerks are directly accountable to their communities. This legislation ensures that they retain the tools and autonomy necessary to fulfill that responsibility. When problems arise, clerks need direct control over the processes and relationships with their vendors,' Smit said, later emphasizing that local jurisdictions operate under tight budgets. However, Smit's proposal drew some questions, both from the committee's Democratic members and representatives from the Department of State. State Rep. Matt Koleszar (D-Plymouth) questioned if Smit's proposal would eliminate all oversight on these kinds of vendors, raising concerns that this could benefit bad actors, or vendors who simply are not good at supplying testing materials. However, Smit said the election commission in each county would retain their oversight under her bill. Adam Fracassi, deputy director of elections for the Michigan Bureau of Elections broke down the contract with Ballot IQ, which is intended to create an expanded form used in testing the voting machines used in the state. This expanded deck would include an additional test to ensure results between different races have not been swapped, he said. 'The reason for this is in an effort to provide just a stronger safeguard against errors, a stronger safeguard against the processes, and enhance the integrity of our election,' Fracassi said. As the bureau begins to roll pieces of this new system out, Fracassi said some clerks were interested in having this deck available as an option, and the bureau is looking at ways to make the test deck available to them. 'The idea is that this test deck would be available to clerks without cost, so it's an option for them to be able to utilize it to save them money,' he said. Having this test deck as an option, not as a requirement, would offer clerks another resource in the testing process, Fracassi said. The second part of the contract with Ballot IQ would be to develop an electronic system for clerks to submit ballot proofs to the Bureau of Elections, so the bureau can review them more efficiently. Michigan's election law requires county clerks to submit ballot proofs for approval, which Fracassi emphasized is largely done manually, and must be done in a very short period of time. 'One of the other requirements for the contract is to provide us with additional resources to be able to streamline that a little bit better, to make it faster for us to review ballot proofs, and to make it easier for clerks to transmit the information to us and us to transmit the information back to the county clerks,' Fracassi explained. Erin Schor, the Michigan Department of State's legislative policy director, echoed earlier concerns about Smit's bill stripping oversight over testing vendors, asking for a potential change to clarify that these vendors would still be subject to the Department's rules on the testing process. The department also holds concerns about one of the bill's provisions barring the Secretary of State from centralizing ballot information for the purpose of creating test decks. 'It would be one thing if that just talked about mandating, but I'm concerned that with the language, the way it's written, if we were in a situation where best practice required Michigan to update our rules, and for some reason, there was only one vendor that was prepared to meet the new threshold at that time, we would not be able to update the rules to meet the best practice,' Schor said. Schor also raised concerns about the bill's requirements for the test deck creation process to be reproducible, noting that the rules they had recently put forth on election system testing were not that specific as far as how to set up the math and programming to create these decks. While the Department of State did not offer a position on the bill, multiple election clerks offered their support to Smit's legislation. Kent County Clerk Lisa Posthumus Lyons, a former Republican state representative, told members of the committee that the contract's requirements around streamlining the process of sending and keeping ballot proofs means they want official ballots with timing marks, not valid proofs. This creates significant security concerns, Posthumus Lyons warned, as holding a centralized record of ballots could result in nefarious action, where these ballots are duplicated and sent out. She also emphasized that local clerks know what works best for their jurisdictions. 'I and my colleagues have spent years promoting how transparent testing of our equipment before each and every election ensures the accuracy of our votes. We've also touted our decentralized process as an important element of election security,' Posthumus Lyons said. 'We can and we should seek to improve our process, but we shouldn't do so at the expense of foregoing these foundational, tried and true elements that work so well.' Oakland County Clerk and Register of Deeds Lisa Brown opened her testimony, joking that her agreement with Posthumus Lyons on policy was a historic moment given the pair's past on opposing sides of the House. However, she emphasized that this policy is not a partisan issue, and is solely aimed at preserving the authority of local election commissions to create and oversee their testing process. 'I understand that it's being said that it's an option right now. I've also heard that it's eventually going to be mandated, and that is so problematic,' Brown said, noting her discomfort in sending her ballots to someone she did not contract with. 'I think that's problematic. I think it's overreach, and I think that there is a security issue to it,' she said. Prior to hearing testimony on Smit's policy, the committee also took comments on House Bills 4358, 4359, 4698, 4699, which Rep. Mike Hoadley (R-Au Gres) said would extend the terms of office for various local elected officials until after election results have been certified by the appropriate board of canvassers. Under Proposal 2, approved by voters in the 2022 election, clerks are permitted to tally absentee ballots submitted by servicemembers and overseas voters that are postmarked by election day and received up to six days after election day. However, local officials take office not long after the election, meaning they can take office before these ballots are even counted, Hoadley noted. The bills also received strong support from the clerks in attendance. The committee adjourned without voting on any of the legislation considered at Tuesday's meeting.
Yahoo
23-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Michigan Attorney General supports lawsuits to preserve public media
Attorney General Dana Nessel speaks to reporters at the G. Mennen Williams Building in Lansing, Mich., on May 15, 2025. (Photo by Andrew Roth/Michigan Advance) Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel has signed onto a legal brief alongside 22 other attorneys general to support lawsuits brought by the Public Broadcasting Service and National Public Radio that are attempting to block federal funding cuts to their organizations. President Donald Trump issued an executive order in May to cut federal funding for NPR and PBS, stating in the order that 'neither entity presents a fair, accurate, or unbiased portrayal of current events to taxpaying citizens'. Since then, NPR and PBS filed two separate lawsuits arguing the funding cuts threaten the First Amendment and create public safety hazards for citizens served by their local affiliates who rely on public media for weather, health and safety alerts. Forum highlights cost defunding public media has on emergency alerts, educational programming The brief Nessel and other attorneys general filed last week backs the arguments made by public media and warns of the harm that could come from weakening public media programming and infrastructure. 'Public media is a vital source of independent information for countless Michiganders and Americans, especially in rural communities, where it is often the only option available,' Nessel said in a news release Monday. Law enforcement depends on public media when issuing AMBER Alerts to find abducted children, as well as Silver Alerts for missing elderly individuals or individuals with developmental disabilities, the legal brief outlines. Public broadcasters provide critical coverage of emerging public safety threats like active shooters, especially in news deserts where public media may be the only resource to quickly disseminate information, the brief adds. The public media stations in Michigan, many serving rural communities outside of many news outlets' coverage areas, also provide emergency information that help residents navigate extreme weather of other crises, Nessel's news release said. 'Attempts to defund public journalism are a blatant attack on the press and the First Amendment, and a disservice to the people who rely on it every day,' Nessel said. 'Public radio reaches nearly every corner of our state, and I am proud to stand with my colleagues and with public media in defense of this essential news source.' SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
23-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Michigan Attorney General supports lawsuits to preserve public media
Attorney General Dana Nessel speaks to reporters at the G. Mennen Williams Building in Lansing, Mich., on May 15, 2025. (Photo by Andrew Roth/Michigan Advance) Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel has signed onto a legal brief alongside 22 other attorneys general to support lawsuits brought by the Public Broadcasting Service and National Public Radio that are attempting to block federal funding cuts to their organizations. President Donald Trump issued an executive order in May to cut federal funding for NPR and PBS, stating in the order that 'neither entity presents a fair, accurate, or unbiased portrayal of current events to taxpaying citizens'. Since then, NPR and PBS filed two separate lawsuits arguing the funding cuts threaten the First Amendment and create public safety hazards for citizens served by their local affiliates who rely on public media for weather, health and safety alerts. Forum highlights cost defunding public media has on emergency alerts, educational programming The brief Nessel and other attorneys general filed last week backs the arguments made by public media and warns of the harm that could come from weakening public media programming and infrastructure. 'Public media is a vital source of independent information for countless Michiganders and Americans, especially in rural communities, where it is often the only option available,' Nessel said in a news release Monday. Law enforcement depends on public media when issuing AMBER Alerts to find abducted children, as well as Silver Alerts for missing elderly individuals or individuals with developmental disabilities, the legal brief outlines. Public broadcasters provide critical coverage of emerging public safety threats like active shooters, especially in news deserts where public media may be the only resource to quickly disseminate information, the brief adds. The public media stations in Michigan, many serving rural communities outside of many news outlets' coverage areas, also provide emergency information that help residents navigate extreme weather of other crises, Nessel's news release said. 'Attempts to defund public journalism are a blatant attack on the press and the First Amendment, and a disservice to the people who rely on it every day,' Nessel said. 'Public radio reaches nearly every corner of our state, and I am proud to stand with my colleagues and with public media in defense of this essential news source.' SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
