On Saturday, 21 April, the day after protesting George Bush's visit to my hometown, and the morning after coaching some youth soccer, greee and I packed into his car and drove the three hours from Grand Rapids (the west coast of Michigan) to Detroit for the Michigan Democratic Party's Jefferson-Jackson Dinner.  

There I videoed the entire thing so that you can virtually be there -- just click the links to go to YouTube and/or read along.

Politics is a game of inches.  And while the Federal level is stalemated, and the state level is a battlefield, and the FCC is a battlefield, the fight is heading all the way to party platforms.  

Tomorrow, the Michigan state Democratic Party is holding its annual convention, and there's an attempt to get net neutrality enshrined into the party platform.  Michigan is the state in which AT&T recently secured cable franchising rights, setting back the ability of net neutrality advocates to protect the internet.  But the bloggers are striking back, and Jennifer Granholm has promised to push for net neutrality protections next cycle.

Apparently, AT&T is strong-arming CWA into fighting the net neutrality resolution, and the AFL-CIO may follow CWA's lead (or maybe not).  The convention is in Detroit, which strengthens labor's hand because there are more labor people who can attend the convention more easily.  Official business at the convention takes place between 3-5pm tomorrow, so we'll know more then.  A floor fight is definitely possible.  We'll be represented - in the morning, there's a bloggers caucus, and various candidates and officials are going to pay them a visit.  

The rationale for protecting net neutrality is to make Michigan more friendly to high tech startups, since there's an economic crisis in the state.  If you can get to the convention, you should go.

And follow Michiganliberal.com for more.

The telecom lobby just got video franchising in Michigan, which is in keeping with the telcos strategy of avoiding the national fight with the Democratic Congress.  Once the telecom companies get video franchising rights in enough states, they won't need national legislation, and they will spend all their energy in DC killing any legislation we put up.

Video franchising just passed the Michigan state Senate, and Granholm is going to sign the bill.  She promises to seek net neutrality protections next cycle, which is probably not going to happen as the telco lobby is just going to spend all its time and the money it's now going to make in Michigan killing it.  

Politically speaking, chalk this one up to inexperience on our part.  We came in late and didn't explain the situation clearly - even Google made missteps.  There was some momentum, and we did force a debate, but it was too little too late.  

The fight is at the state level.  Watch out for your state now.

Politics is about power, and it's important to realize that or else we will get suckered.  For instance, earlier today I got some pushback on a post I wrote condemning Governor Jennifer Granholm for not forcing net neutrality protections in a Michigan cable franchising bill.  I don't want to get too much into the weeds of telecom legislation, because this isn't about policy, it's about power deceiving progressives.  InterrupT has an interesting post at Michigan Liberal where he argues that a franchising bill that looks like it's about to pass, HB 6456, isn't really related to net neutrality.  Sadly, he couldn't be more wrong, and it's the type of wrongness that is going to lose us our free and open internet. Here's an email from a knowledgable friend of mine on how these guys work and why it's not as simple as thinking that we can just put through net neutrality protections.

Net neutrality politics have gotten a shade complex.  Here's a stab at sorting out why it's important to pass net neutrality in a state, why it must be done in the same package as "franchise reform," and why it's critical even though it would only apply to Internet connections in that state.

Let's start with power.  Ultimately, all politics is a competition for the power to change things.  Net neutrality pits the power of the cable and phone companies against...well...pretty much everybody else.  They are more organized, well-financed and professional in the game of politics than "everybody else", which explains why they are so successful.  How does telco power operate?  I'll give you an analogy from the war on drugs (bear with me).  Think of the telcos as Columbian drug lords.  No matter how many times government pesticide planes fly over and eradicate fields of poppies, the drug lords just plant elsewhere.  Its just too lucrative.  If you stop the flow of power in one direction, it just finds a way around you.

This year in Washington, the telcos tried to get the GOP majority to pass a bill custom designed to make them piles and piles of money.  It was an unprecedented attempt at a power grab.  The telcos essentially wanted communications law to be rewritten to accommodate their business models.  They wanted a few things.  They wanted to start offering cable TV to compete with cable companies.  Great, right?  Well, sort of.  The cable companies are required by your local government to offer service to everyone in town, not just the rich neighborhoods.  The telcos want to do cable TV, but not for everyone.  They want to cherry-pick the best customers.  They don't want to deal with the so-called "build-out" requirements your local government will demand (and quite rightly) to eliminate the nasty practice of red-lining poor and rural areas.  Second, the telcos want to eliminate net neutrality once and for all.  They want to plant themselves like a giant toll booth in the middle of the information superhighway.  Cable companies would be fine with that too, since they'd have their own toll booths.  This package of anti-public laws is sold under the moniker of "franchise reform."  What you have hear with "franchise reform" is a rewrite of communications law to support 2 business models for cable TV and broadband:  the telco and cable business models.  That kind of market power is extraordinarily profitable.  It's the kind of semi-monopoly power that requires serious consumer protections that these companies reject at all costs.

Long story short.  They lost in Washington.  Everybody else won.  That's an incredible victory brought to you by 1 million real people across the country who fought for net neutrality with the Save the Internet Coalition..  Google might have helped a little too.

Here's where the drug lord analogy comes in.  What does telco power do when it fails to win in Washington?  It goes to the states.  They believe they can get the same thing at the state level.  They can convince state legislators that build-out and universal competitive cable TV services aren't important.  And they can pretend net neutrality doesn't matter.  If they win in enough states, then they will have effectively outflanked Washington.  That's their strategy.  They'll have what they want, and we'll have nothing.  Worse, when they don't need things from politicians, there is nothing to extract from them in a compromise. So, they'll focus all their time on killing good things we'll try to get politicians to do.

So what do we have to do?  We have to go to whatever states they go to.  And we have to put net neutrality and build-out requirements into their "franchise reform".  If we don't, they'll win.  Simple as that.

So why does net neutrality have to be right in the middle of "franchise reform" bills?  First, it's because "franchise reform" is a rewrite of communications law, and any such rewrite must contain net neutrality, or else we risk never having a big enough vehicle to carry it. You don't get two bites at the apple.  Major rewrites don't happen often, and if major issues are left out, then they stay out. Second, it's because of the way telco power works.  Once they have "franchise reform" in your state, they will have market power in your state.  They will no longer need to ask your state legislature for anything big.  And they will turn all of their lobbying clout against killing all forms of net neutrality that appear in stand-alone bills and brow-beating any legislator that stands up for it.  If we succeed in passing a net neutrality bill against the odds, they will sue the state government that dares to pass it.  And they could well win because state claims to jurisdiction over this issue aren't as good as federal claims.  Which leads me to the next question...

Why does a state have power over net neutraity?  Isn't the Internet national and global?  Yes, of course it is.  So are environment protections.  But when the federal government won't fix a problem, states have to do it.  If enough states do the job, the federal government takes note and moves on an issue.  More importantly, it shows telcos that the states won't just roll over and service them.  This is about who will stand up and say "no" to the telcos first.  The federal government punted in 2006 and did nothing.  Now the states will have the chance to do the people's work.  This is politics.  It's a competition for power.  And we need our state legislators to represent our power so that we can stop the telcos by any means necessary and protect and open internet.

These are some seriously bad players.  I'm hanging out with Chris Bowers tonight, and he's telling me how his West Philly neighborhood, because it's predominantly minority and mostly poor, has really bad internet and cable service.  They aren't trying to expand cable service to the state, they are trying to cherry pick profitable neighborhoods to serve, and to wreck the internet in the process.  They have convinced a whole lot of people to go along with them, because they have spent billions of dollars for decades.

What's frustrating is that InterrupT should not be wrong - good policy options should be debatable assuming good faith from various parties. But that's just not how these players operate, and we can't be charitable towards their intentions when it's very clear that their track record suggests they deserve skepticism. I hope that Granholm does the right thing and doesn't allow this bill through without net neutrality protections.  If she doesn't, and this is the sad part of politics, no matter how much you like and respect her, if you use the internet, she has sold you out.

It's still difficult to pass net neutrality protections, and it looks like it might be getting harder because state level officials aren't able to withstand pressure from corporate lobbies.  The telecoms have a powerful and effective strategy - use their allies in the CBC and New Dems to stop net neutrality protections on the Federal level, while passing video franchising rights in the states so they don't need Federal permission to expand their business.  We stopped them in Pennsylvania, but they have the upper hand in a fight in Michigan where a bill is being debated.

The cable bill received lopsided 80-21 approval in the House on Nov. 14. Senate Majority Leader Ken Sikkema, R-Wyoming, said he wants the chamber to begin debating it Dec. 7. Legislative approval would send the bill to Gov. Jennifer Granholm's desk.

Granholm's re-election campaign received a lift from Google's July announcement to expand in Ann Arbor. At the same time, the cable bill is backed by Democratic constituencies like the Communications Workers of America, which represents thousands of AT&T workers in Michigan. CWA Vice President Larry Handley said Tuesday that Google and other opponents were trying to "hijack a pro-consumer, pro-labor bill."

Liz Boyd, Granholm's spokeswoman, declined to enter the fray Tuesday saying only that the governor wouldn't support a bill that "in any way is going to disadvantage consumers."

Local officials Tuesday continued to press their concerns that the legislation rips up franchise agreements between local governments and cable operators. The House-passed bill instead establishes a franchise system administered at the state level by the Michigan Public Service Commission.

AT&T is seeking statewide franchising as a faster means of marketing a bundled package of services its cable competitors already offer -- cable TV, high-speed Internet broadband and phone service.

There are other severe problems with the bill, of course, including redlining and loss of local control.

Opponents say statewide franchising would allow telecom providers to pick and choose delivery areas, avoiding low-income urban neighborhoods, for example. Proponents argue that a cable provider would have to serve at least 50 percent of the state's households within five years of receiving a franchise.

Mark Monk, operations manager for the Community Access Center in Kalamazoo, said the bill throws into doubt long-standing local services provided through cable infrastructure. He said local governments would lose franchise revenue as well as access to channels that broadcast high school sports and city council meetings.

I'm told that there may have been a deal cut with AT&T and Comcast to push this bill through.  The stakes on this one are huge; if we can't get the telecom and cable companies to negotiate on a Federal level, we can't pass net neutrality provisions and the internet will really be crippled.  And since Granholm has promised not to sign any bill that would disadvantage consumers, she shouldn't sign this bill.

Moveon set up a special link for us.  Please use this link and call Governor Granholm and ask her to veto the "Michigan Video Franchising Bill" (HB 6456) unless it includes net neutrality protections.  If you live in Michigan, please call your state Senator and ask him/her to ensure that any cable bill has net neutrality provisions in it.

This is a slow, steady process.  If we can beat them in the states, we can force them to come back to the Federal level and deal with the Congress we just elected.  Everyone knows the stakes here, this is just raw pressure from the telcos being put on lawmakers.

I've had a great time following and writing about the Gov. Jennifer Granholm reelection campaign from afar this season, and I'll miss it when it's done. But in the meantime, there's work to be done. If you're a Michigander (or Michiganian) in residency (or allegiance), ask yourself: What are you doing to help get out the vote tomorrow? There's less than 36 hours left to go before polls close, and even less time left to help make a difference.

It's now or never and there are many things you can do to make sure we leave no rock unturned, or in this case, no voter left behind. The Michigan Democratic Party needs your help making phone calls and knocking on doors to remind people to vote and to let them know where to vote. You would be surprised how many people forget it's Election Day. If you aren't inclined to call or canvass for Michigan voters, what about offering up a couple of hours to give rides to polls?

Below, more GOTV ideas, an excerpt from a Granholm mailing, and details on where you can go to help re-elect our movie star guv, J. Grho.

If none of these options float your boat, go to this Granholm for Governor page and send a quick email to 10 of your friends, family, neighbors or coworkers reminding them to vote. When you look back on November 8th, you should unequivocally believe with all your heart that you did everything possible to get out the vote.

I've put some more helpful GOTV info further down in this post, but first -- like perhaps many of you, this morning I got a letter from Gov. Granholm in my email inbox. I quite liked the end of it, so here it is:

I am a Governor who works hard every day, for everyday people. My opponent, time and again, has made decisions to help himself and the fortunate few at Michigan's expense.

In the past four years, I've cut more out of state government than any Governor in state history. I've set in motion the most comprehensive and aggressive jobs plan in the nation. And I've protected and invested in education and health care and public safety for all Michigan citizens. We've made incredible progress, but there is a lot more still to be done.

Tomorrow, Michigan votes. I'm depending on you to help me keep our plan, and our vision of Michigan's future, alive. Forward this email to your friends and family and remind them to vote. Get on the phone and make sure that everyone knows what is at stake. You can make the difference in this election.

Sincerely,

Well said. I said I've had fun watching this race go from looking sort of grim to looking like a key retention. But I'm going to find it more interesting these next four years watching as Gov. Granholm continues to put the state back in the right direction.

In the meantime, I put together a table showing information with phone numbers about all the Democratic Party headquarters around the state (of course, cribbed from the state party website). If you can help, these are the numbers you should call:

(Sorry, I don't know why the code is pushing it so far down the page. You'll just have to scroll...)

 

   

 

 

   

   

 

 

   

   

 

 

   

   

 

 

   

   

 

 

   

   

 

 

   

   

 

 

   

   

 

 

   

   

 

 

   

   

 

 

   

   

 

 

   

   

 

 

   

   

 

 

   

   

 

Southwest Detroit 7000 W. Fort St. Detroit, MI 48209 Phone:   (313) 887-6564 x6525	Far West Detroit 19307 W. Warren Ave Detroit, MI 48228
Eastside Detroit 15240 E. 7 Mile Rd. Detroit, MI 48205 Phone:   (313) 371-3104	Northwest Detroit 18963 Livernois Detroit, MI 48221 Phone:   (313) 887-6520
Marquette Office 130 W. Washington, Suite U-1 Marquette, MI 49855 Phone:   (906) 226-3160	Escanaba Office 1320 Ludington St. Escanaba, MI 49829 Phone: 906-786-0501
Muskegon Office 275 W. Sherman Ave. Muskegon, MI 49444 Phone Number: (231) 739-2809	Grand Rapids Office 909 Cherry St. Grand Rapids, MI 49506 Phone: (616) 451-0748 Fax: (616) 451-9607
Traverse City Office Grand Traverse County Democratic Party 955 E. Eighth St. Traverse City, MI Phone:   (231) 946-5555	Flint Office 877 E. Fifth Ave. Flint, MI 48503 Phone Number: (810) 233-0575
Saginaw Office 126 N. Franklin Saginaw 48607 Phone Number: (800) 220-1034	Kalamazoo Office 3254 Westnedge Ave Kalamazoo, MI 49003 Phone: (269) 342-4217 Fax: (269) 342-4757
Battle Creek 91 W. Michigan Ave Battle Creek, MI 49015 Phone Number: (269) 962-0447	Jackson Office 218 S. Mechanic St. Jackson, MI 49201 Phone Number: (517) 783-6980
Lansing Office 1703 E. Michigan Ave. Lansing, MI 48912 Phone: (517) 482-7250	Royal Oak Office 515 S. Lafayette Royal Oak, MI 48067 Phone: (248) 584-0510 Fax: (248) 584-1020
Waterford Office 4520 Dixie Hwy Waterford, MI  48329 Phone: (248) 674-7516	Pontiac Office 41 Glenwood Pontiac, MI 48342 Phone: (248) 636-3978               (248) 636-3979;
Livonia Office 13740 Merriman Livonia, MI 48150 Phone Number: (734) 367-0490	Mt. Clemens Office 230 North Ave Mt. Clemens, MI 48043 Phone: (586) 463-3990 Fax: (586) 463-8330
Warren Office 8322 E. 12 Mile Road Warren, MI 48093 Phone: (586) 558-9560	Ferndale Office 23257 Woodward Ave Ferndale, MI 48220 Phone Number: (248) 691-8530
Southfield Office 18296 10 Mile Road Southfield, MI 48075 Phone: (248) 905-5028	St. Clair Shores Office 23550 Harper Ave St. Clair Shores, MI 48080 Phone Number: (586) 777-3905
Ann Arbor Office 210 South 4th Ann Arbor, MI 48104 Phone: (734) 622-8190 Fax: (734) 622-8195	Taylor Office 20155 Goddard Taylor, MI Phone Number: (734) 287-4574
Ypsilanti Office 1486 Washtenaw Ave. Ypsilanti, MI Phone: (734) 482-6460	Monroe Office 14930 LaPlaisance Ste. 105, Harwood Plaza Monroe, MI 48161 Phone Number: (734) 244-7069

And before I forget, way to go Lions! Maybe the Tigers didn't quite pull it out. But beating Vick's Falcons yesterday afternoon should be an omen good enough.

Go Granholm!

(Cross-posted at Daily Kos)

Election approaches, and just because I've already pled GOTV! doesn't mean I won't stop crying: GOTV! It's two weeks now to E-Day, and as I've promised, I'll keep up with diaries to do my small part to keep an important race on everyone's mind: Gov. Jen Granholm's reelection.

• In an era where a woman's right to choose is under greater attack than any point since Roe v. Wade, it's more than a little disturbing to think that someone who said this could occupy the governor's mansion:

  "You're not going to find a more pro-life governor in Michigan's history than me."

  Even though to DeVos it would be more like the governor's shack.

• If you haven't been reading LiberalLucy's reasons to "Just Say NO to Dick and YES to Jen," here are #14, #15 and #16. From the last, did you know:

  Dick DeVos is the only candidate for Governor in modern Michigan history not to disclose his tax returns to the public. He refuses to provide detailed information on his financial holdings or any potential conflicts of interests. "I will be disclosing to the people of Michigan that which I think is appropriate to understand as they look to make a decision about their next Governor."

  What ever could be in there? Maybe a few shares in Blackwater, his brother-in-law's secretive paramilitary corporation?



• You know all about DeVos and dominionism, right? This is probably the scariest of all, via Rolling Stone:

  Meet the Dominionists -- biblical literalists who believe God has called them to take over the U.S. government. As the far-right wing of the evangelical movement, Dominionists are pressing an agenda that makes Newt Gingrich's Contract With America look like the Communist Manifesto. They want to rewrite schoolbooks to reflect a Christian version of American history, pack the nation's courts with judges who follow Old Testament law, post the Ten Commandments in every courthouse and make it a felony for gay men to have sex and women to have abortions. In Florida, when the courts ordered Terri Schiavo's feeding tube removed, it was the Dominionists who organized round-the-clock protests and issued a fiery call for Gov. Jeb Bush to defy the law and take Schiavo into state custody. Their ultimate goal is to plant the seeds of a "faith-based" government that will endure far longer than Bush's presidency -- all the way until Jesus comes back.

  Cue the music from "Psycho." These people are psychos. DeVos himself has also funded the ultra-secretive, ultra-right wing dominionist-dominated group the Council For National Policy.



• Another big deal in Michigan I haven't much addressed is the MCRI. What DeVos won't say is that he has been a major donor to the so-called Center for Individual Rightrs, which filed the original lawsuits against the University of Michigan seeking to cut off affirmative action:

  And when liberal activists challenged the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative in Court, CIR defended the initiative and successfully fought to keep it on the ballot. That group received $35,000 from DeVos' foundation in 2001.



• And though this diary is about the election, let us not forget the Tigers World Series run - an amazing achievement so far by a team that Dick DeVos has only displayed a glancing awareness of. He knows he should be seen at these populist events, but if anything is clear about Dick DeVos, we know that he's no "regular guy" who watches sports on weekends. With that in mind, props to displacedyankeedemocrat, who identifies the Tigers as (D-MI) while the Cards are (R-MO). It's a natural fit. And DYD adds:

  I'll be rooting for the Tigers. Don't get me wrong, St. Louis is a very nice place, and I love their toasted ravoli. But Detroit has my heart in this one.

A good thing to keep in mind. Remember, if you want to help with canvassing, call your local Democratic HQs And go Granholm!

(Cross-posted in slightly different form at Daily Kos)

If you haven't been following the MI Gov race the past few days, Dick DeVos (R-Amway) is trying to distance himself from a company he owns. Why? Bad, bad, bad stuff.

In the debate this week, he claimed he was just an investor controlling 1% of the company. But as I noted at Daily Kos yesterday, that just isn't credible. The company's own bylaws surrender virtually all control to DeVos. And yet he took steps to insulate himself from the company. Maybe he didn't know about the abuse? Maybe he didn't want to know. And he sure didn't want anybody else to. But it turns out there is a potential campaign finance scandal hidden in plain sight.

DemWave at Michigan Liberal calls attention to the fact that not only is DeVos friendlier with the Alterra crowd than he wants us to think, the former chair of Alterra is the current president of the DeVos family's RDV Corporation -- his name is Jerry Tubergen -- has donated the maximum amount allowed to DeVos's campaign. Which is fine, he can do that.

But curiously, when he hit HIS max, he didn't stop. He got his "homemaker" wife and three "student" daughters to max out as well. And they all listed as their address... RDV Corporation's address. Yet Jerry Tubergen listed his HOME address. Does anybody really believe that these "students" donated their own money? Does it even seem likely they SAW the checks that went out under their own names? As DemWave asks: "How many students do you know with $3,400.00 in their pocket who would willingly choose to spend it on some 50 year-old Republican running for governor?"

The donations are available on the SoS page. Here I've put them all together in one place:

This is HIGHLY suspicious. IANAL and neither is DemWave it seems, but Michigan campaign finance law does address what it sure looks like is happening here:

169.231 Contributions or expenditures controlled by another person; bundled contribution.

Sec. 31.

(1) A contribution that is controlled by, or made at the direction of, another person, including a parent organization, subsidiary, division, committee, department, branch, or local unit of a person, shall be reported by the person making the contribution and shall be regarded for purposes of contribution limits as a contribution attributable to both persons.

(2) A bundled contribution or a contribution that is delivered as part of a bundled contribution shall be regarded for purposes of contribution limits as both a contribution attributable to the bundling committee that delivered the contribution and a contribution attributable to the individual making the contribution.

I am not sure what constitutes proof here. It certainly has the appearance of impropriety, though. This is a question reporters at Michigan newspapers should be asking the DeVos campaign. Will they?

Beats me. I've sent e-mails out to several of them, and if you've got a moment, please do the same.

Detroit News
David J. Butler, Editor & Publisher:dave.butler@detnews.com
Susan Burzynski, Managing Editor: sue.burzynski@detnews.com
Don Nauss, Deputy Managing Editor/ News: don.nauss@detnews.com

Grand Rapids Press:
Mike Lloyd        Editor    mlloyd@grpress.com     (616) 222-5506
Joe Crawford      Editorial Page Editor      jcrawford@grpress.com              (616) 222-5483
John Barnes      Metro Editor      jbarnes@grpress.com    (616) 222-5457
Jeff Cranson      Deputy Metro Editor       jcranson@grpress.com   (616) 222-5476

Detroit Free Press
City/Metro desk: dfpcity@freepress.com 313-222-6600; fax: 313-222-5981
Lansing bureau: cchristoff@freepress.com 313-222-6609

More than a few make email forms available, or go to generic drop boxes. You can find them here:

WOOD-TV

WDIV-TV

WJBK-TV

WLNS-TV

MLive

Meanwhile, there's more from DemWave already. Stay tuned.