Yesterday, the president of the Michigan Chapter of the Rainbow Coalition David Bullock said they were prepared to use "all measures afforded to us as citizens to protect democracy," according to the Detroit Free Press.
Bullock was with the Rev. Jesse Jackson, elected officials, and others denouncing Michigan's emergency manager law as unconstitutional and likening EMs to dictators.
From the Free Press:
The Rev. Jesse Jackson joined a coalition of pastors, civil rights leaders and elected officials Thursday in Detroit to pledge strong opposition -- including civil disobedience, if necessary -- against the state's new emergency manager law. Jackson and others likened emergency managers to dictators who wipe out the democratic process with unilateral authority to gut union contracts, sell cherished assets and slash essential services. "We are prepared to go from education, mobilization, litigation, legislation, demonstration and civil disobedience," Jackson said during a news conference at Bethany Baptist Church on the city's west side. "We want a positive commitment to restoring democracy and economic justice for all citizens."
Later in the day, Governor Rick Snyder released a Facebook video explaining his views on Detroit's financial situation. In the video, Snyder said the state's role is to be a "supporting resource," and "my goal is to ever avoid having to appoint an emergency manger - that's a failure point."
Snyder said there were two critical issues that need to be addressed. From the video:
"One, there's a short term cash issue. We can't have the city run out of money, and hopefully the city can come up with a program to get through the crisis the mayor has talked about, about potentially running out of cash in April. The second one issue is a very difficult one which is a long term structural solution. Because we can't continue this process. Detroit has been in a financial crisis in some fashion for decades... The fundamental thing we need to do is create an environment where Detoriters can have a good life, and that gets down to some basic services. And we need to make sure those basic services are being provided consistently for the long term because that's not happening today."
