Want to know how severely Republican cuts to Michigan education funding are damaging your local school district? There’s an app for that. 

Democratic lawmakers in Michigan have been battling GOP attacks on education all year. As GOP Governor Rick Snyder and his Republican accomplices in the state legislature sought to cut taxes for corporations while making dramatic reductions to K-12 funding, statehouse Democrats stood up for teachers and students. This battle for the future of Michigan schools culminated just last Tuesday in the historic recall of the Republican chair of the House Education Committee. 

But Democrats know their work to save Michigan’s schools is far from over. 

Today, the Michigan House Democrats released a smartphone app designed to help citizens learn how Republicans’ draconian education cuts affect specific schools. The Fight School Cuts app is available for iPhone, Android, and Blackberry and allows residents to use GPS or input zip codes to access education funding information for local schools. 

Rep. Roy Schmidt announced the release of the app, which is tied to the House Democrats’ FightSchoolCuts.com website, on Wednesday morning. 

"Our residents are rapidly relying on mobile devices to access the information they need on demand," said state Rep.Roy Schmidt, D-Grand Rapids. "The Fight School Cuts app is another way that we in the House Democratic caucus can directly relay important information to our residents about how much money their schools are losing due to Republican cuts to our schools this year." 

He said the app also allows users to connect directly to the mobile version of the school cuts website which contains stories submitted by state residents on how the governor and Republican cuts to schools are impacting the classrooms at ground level. 

Michigan residents can now be better informed than ever before of the tangible effects of Republicans’ short-sighted and damaging education funding cuts. The truth regarding the GOP lawmakers’ misplaced priorities is at Michiganders’ fingertips, and as last Tuesday’s recall demonstrated, the truth hurts... the GOP. 

Democrats’ Election Night 2011 just keeps getting better.

You’ve already heard about Democrats’ epic wins tonight in Ohio, Maine, and Iowa.

Victory in a Wisconsin Assembly special keeps Democratic momentum in that state going.

Despite aggressive GOP spending, Democrats expanded our majority in the New Jersey Assembly.

Arizona voters responded to Gov. Brewer’s recent redistricting power-grab by recalling tea party leader and GOP state Sen. Russell Pearce.

Michigan voters recalled a notoriously anti-teacher Republican state Representative.

And despite spending millions and millions of dollars on the effort, the GOP failed to take the majority in the Virginia state Senate.

Democrats even kept the Governor’s mansion in Kentucky.

Well, we’re not done yet.

Today we learned we can add a Washington special election to the Democratic win column.

Democratic state Rep. Sharon Wylie won the seat to which she was appointed earlier this year, soundly defeating her well-known GOP opponent.

This big night for Democrats is more than a sign that the GOP wave of 2010 has receded.

Voters are rebuking GOP candidates and policies all over the country. Republicans exploited their opportunities to legislate by forcing extreme policies through their statehouses, and voters aren’t standing for it. Even millions of dollars in GOP spending can’t obscure the truth:

In 2011 and 2012, Republicans just aren’t a sound investment. 

You’ve already heard about Democrats’ epic wins tonight in Ohio, Maine, and Iowa. Well, we’re not done yet. 

In Wisconsin, Democrats have dominated yet another special election there. Democrat Jill Billings has won the 95^th Assembly District with a whopping 72 percent of the vote. 

Arizonans have responded to Gov. Jan Brewer’s recent redistricting power-grab by recalling one of her GOP accomplices in that partisan coup. Republican Sen. Russell Pearce, author of the notorious and virulently anti-immigrant SB 1070, has fallen in a recall election. 

Despite Republican Gov. Chris Christie’s best efforts, Democrats have successfully retained majorities in both legislative chambers in New Jersey. 

In Michigan, anti-teacher GOP Rep. Paul Scott became the first legislator in the state to be recalled. An election to replace him will be scheduled for next year. 

And finally, despite the millions of dollars state and national Republican and outside interest groups poured into taking the majority in the Virginia Senate, the GOP came up short. Republicans might be excited about the prospect of a tied chamber, but the one outstanding seat, SD 17, remains too close to call. Wednesday morning canvasses have yet to be held, and provisional ballots throughout the district have yet to be counted.  Also, some reported incidents during Tuesday night’s tabulation deserve further attention during the canvassing and certification process. We look forward to monitoring this situation throughout to ensure that every vote is fairly and accurately counted. We expect that Senator Edd Houck will ultimately prevail in the final outcome and that Democrats will continue to hold a majority in the Virginia Senate.

Soon, schoolyard bullying targeting gays, minorities, and other vulnerable students could actually become a protected activity in Michigan, thanks to a GOP amendment that may reverse the intent of an anti-bullying bill proposed in February.

Rather than simply opposing common sense efforts to protect kids from bullies (which would have been bad enough), Michigan Republicans actually voted to extend new protections to the bullies, so long as they’re creative enough to invent a “religious belief or moral conviction” to justify terrorizing their classmates.

The original bill is SB 137, but Senate Republicans buried this innocuous-sounding clause within their substitute amendment:

This section does not prohibit a statement of a sincerely held religious belief or moral conviction of a school employee, school volunteer, pupil, or a pupil's parent or guardian.

So according to Michigan Senate Republicans, who voted unanimously for this language, students have a right to terrorize their classmates as long as they got the idea from Fred Phelps. In other words, no one is safe.

All eleven Senate Democrats took to the Senate floor to blast the Republican changes, but no one summarized their collective outrage better than Sen. Glenn Anderson (D-Westland), who read a statement from a parent of the child the original bill was named for:

I am utterly shocked to learn that our so-called leaders have yet again tampered with MI’s anti-bullying bill in the most bizarre ways. Adding language that basically ‘allows bullying’ based on religious beliefs must be the most absurd input I have seen in my almost seven years dealing with this issue. To give people a ‘pass’ because their verbal or physical assault is ‘sanctioned’ by religion is mind boggling and I am at a loss. Are we going back to the days of the Crusades? This passage negates the rest of the bill. If people claim ‘religious grounds’ then there will be no reports, no course corrections and greatly increase the growing tensions in our schools. I have said many times it is the adults who are the problems when we talk about anti-bullying and build a better culture and they have proven me right yet again.

Minority Leader Gretchen Whitmer (D-East Lansing) was equally outraged, noting, "In fact, not only does this not protect kids who are bullied, but it further endangers them by legitimizing excuses for tormenting a student. (...) This is worse than doing nothing. It is a Republican license to bully:"

Senate Democrats’ official statement on the Republicans’ outrageous maneuver on SB 137 is available here.

Sending non-work related emails from a work computer is sometimes a fireable offense, but it could soon become a jailable offense for Michigan teachers, under a bill proposed by Republican state legislators.

Under the bill, HB 4052, teachers and other state employees who send an email related to politics or union organizing could be jailed for up to a year:

Michigan educators could face a year in prison for conducting union or political business over public school e-mail servers under a bill advancing in Lansing.

State House Bill 4052 was reported out of committee last week, and would prohibit a public employee from using public e-mail for political campaigning, union activities, union recruitment, and fundraising.

Violators could be found guilty of a misdemeanor, which would carry a fine of up to $1,000, up to one year in prison or both in the bill's amended version.

This bill, sponsored by GOP Rep. Al Pscholka (who also sponsored the infamous Emergency Financial Manager law), takes the Michigan GOP’s war on teachers to a dangerous new level, criminalizing what would ordinarily be an internal disciplinary matter.

No private-sector employee ever has to worry that a union-related email to a coworker could land them both in jail. Yet HB 4052 would force Michigan teachers, firefighters, and others to live in exactly that kind of fear, all because they had the audacity to want to serve the public.

Hopefully, this odious bill will never see the light of day.

Michigan Republicans rolled out the welcome mat for fake “terrorists” at the state capitol last week, when GOP state Rep. and House Caucus Chair Dave Agema invited anti-immigrant activist Kamal Saleem (a.k.a. Khodor Shami) to provide “expert” testimony on immigration policy and hold a taxpayer-funded rally on the grounds of the capitol.

Saleem (or Shami?) is best known as a self-declared “former terrorist” who admits to smuggling weapons into the United States as part of a plot to kill Americans, and further admits that he committed acts of terrorism in Israel. So why is Saleem free to roam the conservative cocktail circuit instead of, say, in prison for his alleged acts of terrorism, conspiracy to commit terrorism, and weapons smuggling?

Because according to Middle East experts, Saleem’s claims of a terrorist past are most likely lies – all of them.

Democrats like state Reps. Rashida Tlaib and Vicki Barnett, both rising stars in the party, quickly denounced Agema for inviting such an odious character into the people’s House and using taxpayer funds to spread his message:

“It is completely inappropriate that a man who claims to have committed terrorism was invited by a member of the House to testify before an official committee,” said Rep. Rashid[a] Tlaib (D-Detroit). “If Mr. Saleem has committed the acts of violence he claims, he should be prosecuted under US and international law. An explanation is certainly in order.” (…)

“I am deeply offended that someone who claims to have committed acts of terror against Israeli civilians should be invited to testify before us as some kind of expert,” said Rep. Vicki Barnett (D-Farmington Hills). “It is outrageous that such heinous deeds or claims would prompt an invitation to address our committee. Either he has killed civilians and should be prosecuted or he is masquerading as a killer to line his own pockets. Both possibilities dishonor the memory of those who have been victims of terror in the Middle East and at home.”

Reps. Tlaib and Barnett were not alone, however. Agema and his guest also drew the justified fury of immigration policy advocates:

“State Representative Agema has simply gone too far this time. To invite a supposed ‘ex-terrorist’ to address the House of Representatives legitimizes the claims of someone who is either a killer of innocents or a fraud,” said Ryan Bates, executive director of the Alliance for Immigrant Rights and Reform Michigan. “This man makes his living peddling racist propaganda against Muslims and immigrants and should not be presented as an expert on anything. Now we come to find out that Representative Agema has used our tax dollars to help fund a Capitol rally for this extremists’ views? Michiganders deserve an apology and a refund.”
[emphasis added]

Agema, in his four and a half years in the Michigan legislature, has repeatedly sought to associate himself with other extremist and xenophobic elements of his party.

Earlier this year, Agema was caught citing documents from an organization designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Agema is also the primary author of one of the many so-called “anti-Sharia” bills popping up in other GOP-controlled legislatures. And just last week, it was revealed that Agema allegedly asked to speak at a Lansing rally with racist Florida pastor Terry Jones, whose attempted public burning of the Koran provoked worldwide outrage. Agema disputes the matter of who invited whom to Jones' rally, but he still insists that he would have gladly shared the stage with Jones were it not for a scheduling conflict. We believe him.

Tellingly, there have been no calls yet for Agema to resign his post as Majority Caucus Chair. Until he does, every Michigan Republican legislator will face the uncomfortable question of whether Agema’s antics truly reflect the attitude of Michigan Republicans.

The Pennsylvania GOP’s proposal to allocate its electoral votes by congressional district may sound outrageous, even absurd. 

Splitting Pennsylvania’s electoral votes flies in the face of more than 200 years of political history. It’s an obvious and desperate attempt by the state GOP to deliver some of the state’s electoral votes to the Republican nominee for the first time since 1988, even if President Obama wins a majority of the state’s popular vote. 

And it may very well come to pass. 

Despite some shouts of Republican discontent, the GOP leaders of the state House, the state Senate, and Republican Governor Tom Corbett are all publicly endorsing the measure. 

Legislation is forthcoming. GOP Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi has already sent a memo to his fellow senators requesting co-sponsorship of the bill. 

A simple majority vote in each chamber would pass the measure on to the Governor’s desk for signature. A law allocating electoral votes by congressional district could be on the books by Halloween. 

A haunting prospect, indeed. Nick Baumann explains. 

The GOP controls both houses of the state legislature plus the governor's mansion—the so-called "redistricting trifecta"—in Pennsylvania. Congressional district maps are adjusted after every census, and the last one just finished up. That means Pennsylvania Republicans get to draw the boundaries of the state's congressional districts without any input from Democrats. Some of the early maps have leaked to the press, and Democrats expect that the Pennsylvania congressional map for the 2012 elections will have 12 safe GOP seats compared to just 6 safe Democratic seats. 

Under the Republican plan, if the GOP presidential nominee carries the GOP-leaning districts but Obama carries the state, the GOP nominee would get 12 electoral votes out of Pennsylvania, but Obama would only get eight—six for winning the blue districts, and two (representing the state's two senators) for winning the state. 

So even if President Obama wins the popular vote in Pennsylvania, because of 12 gerrymandered GOP congressional districts, he could easily receive fewer than half of the state’s electoral votes. 

For the first time, Republicans are trying to extend the effect of gerrymandering beyond congressional races and into presidential elections. Unsatisfied with gerrymandering the state legislature and their congressional delegation, the Pennsylvania GOP is trying to gerrymander the Electoral College. 

And why couldn’t such a plan be executed in other states with Republican-controlled legislatures and governors’ mansions that tend to give their electoral votes to Democratic presidential candidates? Wisconsin and Michigan come to mind instantly. Wisconsin’s electoral votes haven’t gone to a Republican since 1984, and the last time Michigan electors went GOP was 1988. 

With a razor-thin majority in the state Senate (16D/17R) and the memory of the recalls triggered by previous political overreach fresh in their minds, the Wisconsin GOP seems unlikely to push a proposal as extreme as allocating their electoral votes by congressional district. 

But what’s to stop Michigan? 

Republicans have double-digit majorities in the state House and Senate and control of the governor’s mansion. The new GOP-drawn congressional district map creates as many as nine districts favorable to Republicans. If a Pennsylvania-style electoral vote allocation bill passed in Michigan, President Obama could win a majority of the popular vote, but because of GOP gerrymandering, could only receive seven electoral votes. 

The Michigan situation is purely hypothetical. There’s been no noise from the GOP there to suggest they’re interested in such a proposal—yet. 

But in a close presidential election, the 12-8 electoral vote split in Pennsylvania alone could be enough to sway results. 

And unable to earn it the way candidates of all parties have seen fit for more than two centuries, the Republicans could gerrymander their way into the presidency. 

Attacks on teachers have been a recurring theme in GOP-controlled state legislatures this year. Teachers’ collective bargaining rights were part of what led to the Wisconsin recalls this summer. Indiana House Democrats boycotted Session and denied the Republicans a quorum for almost five weeks in their effort to protect teachers and public education. In Alabama, one state Representative was so disgusted by a GOP-pushed anti-teacher bill that he left the Republican Caucus and joined the Democrats. 

The latest in this long series of attacks comes from Michigan GOP state Sen. Phil Pavlov.

Sen. Pavlov, chair of the Education Committee, wants to privatize public school teaching. 

[Sen. Pavlov] is preparing legislation that would allow public school districts to hire teachers through private, for-profit companies. Privatizing the hiring process would presumably allow school districts to bypass compensation packages sought by teachers unions and let private companies compete for contracts with districts. 

Michigan Democrats have pledged to fight this outrageous proposal. 

Michigan Sen. Gretchen Whitmer, the state Senate minority leader, says she and the Democratic Caucus plan to fight Pavlov's proposal if it is included in new education legislation. She describes teacher privatization as merely a continuation of Michigan Republicans' education agenda. "Gov. [Rick] Snyder and Republicans have made no bones about it: they're trying to dismantle public education in Michigan ," Whitmer says. 

This privatization scheme isn’t even the first attack on public education in Michigan this year.  Republican Gov. Rick Snyder and the GOP-controlled legislature have already passed a state budget that cuts public school funding by nearly $500 million—or $300 per student. 

Sen. Pavlov’s privatization scheme is a brutal blow against an already-struggling education system in Michigan. 

Michigan Education Association spokesman Doug Pratt says Pavlov's plan is a "terrible idea" that would erode the quality of public school teaching because districts will look for the lowest bidder, not the best teachers. "Instead of having teachers who care about their students learning and their personal growth as their top priorities, the corporation's bottom line would be what they care about most." Pratt also claimed this is a way to kneecap teachers' unions in Michigan. "Privatization is a type of union busting," he says. 

Union busting… A theme that’s gone hand in hand with teacher attacks this year. And Sen. Pavlov must be salivating over both every time a school bell rings. 

(h/t Mother Jones)

What a difference a Democratic majority (or even a tie) makes.

Unlike North Carolina (R House, R Senate), Tennessee (RHouse, R Senate), Wisconsin (R House, R Senate), Arizona (R House, R Senate), Michigan (R House, R Senate), and Missouri (R House, R Senate), which have all voted to cut unemployment benefits, the Oregon legislature (Tied House, D Senate) voted to extend them. Last week marked the start of the Oregon Emergency Benefits program, which provides the unemployed with an additional six weeks of benefits.

Huffington Post’s Arthur Delaney has the details: 

People laid off through no fault of their own are eligible for up to 99 weeks of aid in 25 states. But last month, Oregon lawmakers gave the long-term unemployed an additional six weeks of benefits. That means that in Oregon, where the unemployment rate stands tall at 10 percent, so-called "99ers" -- people who've burned through all 99 weeks without finding work -- can now theoretically become "105ers."

…For those who receive maximum aid, the benefits cycle like this: The state initially provides up to 26 weeks and the federal government provides the rest through two programs. The first is Emergency Unemployment Compensation, which provides up to 53 weeks of benefits broken into four "tiers," and the other is the Extended Benefits program, which provides the final 20 weeks. (Recent efforts to provide more weeks of federal benefits have stalled.) The programs can combine to provide fewer than 99 weeks depending on a state's unemployment rate.

Compare this to the cuts Republican-controlled legislatures have been making to unemployment benefits:

At the same time Oregon is taking steps to increase aid, other states are effectively cutting it. Several are allowing the federal Extended Benefits program to expire by choosing not to update the arcane "trigger" used to determine a state's EB eligibility. A high unemployment rate is one condition; the other is that the rate must be 10 percent higher than in either of the two previous years. When it reauthorized the federal unemployment benefit programs in December, Congress invited states to modify their triggers to encompass an additional previous year, since unemployment rates in most states have risen dramatically from what they were three years ago but have held relatively steady over the past two years.

North Carolina, Tennessee, and Wisconsin let the program die on April 16, and the Arizona State Legislature has adjourned for the year without taking up the issue. Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Washington, D.C. are expected to "trigger off" EB come May.

Lawmakers in Michigan and Missouri acted to preserve EB, but at the same time they cut state benefits to 20 weeks, making them the only states that provide fewer than 26 weeks for newly unemployed people. Twenty weeks will be all that remain once the federal programs expire in January, unless Congress decides to reauthorize them, which is an open question.

So while Republican-controlled state legislatures are busy union busting, pushing birther bills, fighting the nonexistent threat of sharia law, or authorizing the use of gold as legal tender, Democratic state legislatures are actually helping people.

Birther madness has been fomenting in state legislatures recently, but it’s far from the only bizarre or regressive legislation coming out of statehouses.

This week’s TIME magazine includes an article discussing the promises made – and since broken-- by Republicans after they took control of state legislative chambers after last fall’s elections. The piece also addresses the peculiar sort of “change” being pushed by the GOP on the state level. 

… “As we enter a time with huge policy and political implications,” Ed Gillespie, chairman of the Republican State Leadership Committee, wrote in a congratulatory note Nov. 3, “new Republican officeholders will be given an opportunity to demonstrate common-sense conservative leadership and implement solutions that promise real results and positive change.”

Since then, however, the party has marshaled its manpower in state capitals to advance a conservative agenda that goes far beyond its stated goal of creating jobs. The battle over public-sector unions in Wisconsin was the first in a nationwide war over local government wages, pay and bargaining rights, with fronts in more than 20 states, including Indiana and Michigan. A number of other states have pushed to limit abortions. Thirty states have considered omnibus bills cracking down on illegal immigration, according to the bipartisan National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL).

 … Some of that action, however, bears little resemblance to the “common-sense…solutions” Gillespie urged. Leery of the powers of the Federal Reserve, a handful of states have mulled measures that declare gold or silver legal currency, and Utah’s governor signed one into law on March 25. Other states, like Wyoming and Tennessee, have fielded legislation barring courts from weighing Islamic sharia or foreign law. In addition to Arizona, 14 states have considered so-called “birther” bills that require presidential candidates to produce various proofs of native origin, though none have been enacted so far. More than 20 have pushed state-sovereignty legislation–efforts to declare themselves sanctuaries from EPA regulations, for example, or to exempt themselves from “ObamaCare.” At least seven have introduced measures that support the teaching of creationism in public schools.

The flurry of social legislation may be partly a function of making up for lost time. Republicans regained control of a number of states that, despite conservative leanings, had been Democratic redoubts; in Alabama, for example, the GOP snatched back a statehouse that had been under Democratic control since the 1870s. “It’s stunning how radical Republicans have been in the states,” says Michael Sargeant, executive director of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee. “These are things conservative groups have been working on for a long time, and now that they have the opportunity they’re pushing this despite the public outcry.”

Read the full article here: http://swampland.time.com/2011/04/20/forget-washington-real-change-is-coursing-through-the-nations-statehouses/#ixzz1Kjm6qSN5.

There’s nothing “common-sense” about promoting creationism in classrooms. There’s no “leadership” in union busting and scapegoating teachers. Birther bills and bills promoting the use of gold and silver as legal currency are nothing more than paranoid reactions to discredited conspiracy theories; such legislation does nothing to create jobs. These and other wild proposals popping up in GOP-controlled statehouses nationwide are not the kind of change we need.