Here’s a video that aired on the news today (WDIV, Channel 4 from Detroit) about Michigan House Speaker Andy Dillon’s (D-17th District, Redford Township) “Thugs” as petition blockers against Dillon’s recall movement. This is a video of the movement going on in Redford, north Dearborn Heights and southeast Livonia, led by Rose Bogaert of the Wayne County Taxpayer Association. The whole MichiganRecalls.com movement is being led by Leon Drolet of the Michigan Taxpayers Alliance:
(Is it just me or does Andy Dillon not look so good in that video? He seems a LOT skinnier than I’ve ever seen him – maybe I’m just imagining it – I dunno).
Here’s the link to Andy Dillon’s thugs, which is offering rewards for the identification of the petition blockers.
So, here are my thoughts – if it is true that the state employees were on their vacation days, then 1) they’re idiots for wasting a vacation day on that, and 2) what they did was not illegal.
I’d like to see official documentation of this though.
So far, what the “Thugs” have done hasn’t been illegal, just annoying (at least the stuff caught on tape). If they do cross a line and continue to stalk petitioners, a case could be made against them, but right now, I think they’re still very barely on the side of a fine line of legal petition blocking.
Let’s see if we can’t catch these guys doing something illegal though! And more importantly, let’s see if we can’t recall Andy Dillon!
Done Ranting,
Ranting Republican
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Tags: 17th District, Andy Dillon, Blocker, Dearborn Heights, Democrat, Detroit, Election, House of Representatives, Legislators, Leon Drolet, Livonia, Michigan, Michigan Recalls, Michigan Taxpayers Alliance, MichiganRecalls.com, Petition, Petition Blocker, Politics, Recall, Recall Election, Recall Petition, Redford, Rose Bogaert, Service tax, Speaker of the House, Taxes, Wayne County Taxpayer Association, WDIV
October 31, 2008 at 1:09 PM
As Speaker of the House, Rep. Dillon was almost certainly aware of or involved in the unconstitutional handling of Rep. Stahl’s motion to discharge HJR-NN, a joint resolution to put before the voters a parent’s rights amendment.
Rather than putting the motion before the entire House, as required by the Michigan Constitution, Dillon allowed the Judiciary committee to kill Representative Stahl’s motion to discharge HJR-NN, violating both Michigan’s Constitution and Michigan House Rules.
Michigan’s constitution, covering motions to discharge from committee, reads in part:
“Each house, except as otherwise provided in this constitution, shall choose its own officers and determine the rules of its proceedings, but shall not adopt any rule that will prevent a majority of the members elected thereto and serving therein from discharging a committee from the further consideration of any measure …”
Michigan House Rules 42 and 58 cover this. Yet no vote of the members was ever held.