Not satisfied with enabling corporations to flood America’s political system with money, the Supreme Court has overturned decades-old interpretations of the Clean Water Act to allow many of those same corporations to flood our precious waterways with poison. Not only is this a threat to the water we drink but it has the potential to do great harm to Michigan’s economy by fouling fisheries and beaches and preventing us from leveraging one of the state’s greatest assets – our abundance of fresh water. For me, this is especially galling because as a young Congressional staffer in 1992 I had the privilege of drafting legislation, which became law, to strengthen the Clean Water Act. Later that year my boss at the time, U.S. Representative Nita M. Lowey, was honored as “Legislator of the Year” by the American Planning Association, because of legislation I helped her develop designed to strengthen financial support for the CWA and create thousands of good jobs by investing in the nation’s water infrastructure.

Instead of nullifying laws that protect our waters, health and quality of life, we should be working on cost-effective strategies to prevent pollution and enable more people to enjoy our beaches and waterways. If we do this, metro Detroit can leverage its inland lakes, Detroit River and Lake St. Claire as destinations and job generators the way Chicago and Toronto maximize their waterfronts.

Article on Supreme Court decision

Learn more from Clean Water Action

At the February meeting of the Royal Oak Area Democratic Club, a bright but freezing Saturday morning, members learned about the important work of the Welcome Inn Day Center for the Homeless, which provides warmth, food, medical attention, job search resources and clothes to people in need from the community meeting room of the Unity Church of Royal Oak. Just weeks earlier new data from the U.S. Census Bureau confirmed what people at the Welcome Inn already knew – the number of poor people and struggling families in the suburbs grew dramatically in the last decade. Over 119,000 people fell below the poverty line in metro Detroit’s suburban communities. This is also occurring in the rest of the U.S. but at a much slower rate. For the first time more people are living below the poverty line in Detroit’s suburbs than in the center city.

This does not mean that the suburbs are poorer than the city; Detroit’s poverty rate far exceeds that of its surrounding communities. What it means is that residents of southeast Michigan are suffering like nowhere else in America, and Washington should take notice. But the federal government won’t take action unless we speak with one voice. In 2002 I worked with a group of mayors and city managers to create the Michigan Suburbs Alliance for that very purpose:  to bring communities together to tell Lansing and Washington that the time has come to shift priorities away from subsidizing sprawling development in places where cows recently outnumbered people. Instead of cutting grants that support efforts such as the Welcome Inn, we should be scrutinizing and eliminating tax give-aways that fail to produce jobs. We should insist that state-supported research institutions looking to sell their patented technology give priority to investors who promise to create jobs in Michigan, instead of selling to the highest bidder anywhere in the world. We need fresh ideas and new priorities and we need them now.

Article about Welcome Inn Day Center for the Homeless

Report from Brookings Institution on Poverty in the Suburbs

In theory, no state should have had a stronger case than Michigan’s for securing a large portion of the Obama Administration’s recently unveiled grants for high-speed rail. In reality, the state with the nation’s highest unemployment rate whose high speed line would link directly to the President’s home town received $40 million out of a total of $8 billion allocated for the program – that’s one-half of one percent for those keeping score at home. What happened? I have a hunch that despite what would seemed to be compelling political reasons for making a large high-profile investment in a state that some are putting into the swing column in the  next presidential election, the Administration’s planners saw more risk than reward in betting on Michigan’s transit future. Given Lansing’s failure thus far to create a regional authority in Detroit to even administer federal transit grants, it’s hard to imagine that the USDOT was itching to spend big in the Great Lakes State.

In a blog last April I cited a Citizens Research Council study which found that in 2008 Michigan ranked 45^th in per-capital federal funding. It was clear then that President Obama’s stated intention to give priority to metropolitan areas that demonstrate a commitment to collaborate across city lines would mean that Michigan, and metro Detroit, could potentially leave a lot of desperately needed federal money on the table unless we got our act together. We didn’t, and now hundreds of millions in transportation funds will help speed people from Tampa to Disney World instead of Detroit to Chicago. We can and must do better and that’s why I want to establish a Southeast Michigan Caucus in the Michigan Legislature that will bring together state lawmakers from our region to take action on an aggressive agenda to create jobs in metro Detroit and finally position us to secure the federal support our residents deserve and our economy desperately needs.

Detroit Free Press Article on $40 Million for Michigan

The Royal City Commission made a wise choice this week when it approved the transfer of a liquor license that will allow the opening of a new Greek restaurant downtown. Mayor Ellison and his colleagues on the commission correctly pointed out that Royal Oak is in the enviable position of drawing visitors from a large area across SE Michigan, which means that the state’s quota of 40, which is based only on the City’s population, is too low and needlessly prevents new investment and jobs from coming into downtown Royal Oak. My friend and campaign supporter, Professor Jeff Horner of Wayne State, in this week’s RO Review supported the state’s quota system and pointed out that downtown’s need to attract high revenue office space.  

What’s missing in this discussion is the fact that Royal Oak along with other cool downtowns around the country is leading a growing 2^nd story office space trend, where high tech firms and other entrepreneurs are choosing the upstairs of urbane spots like Royal Oak because of their vibrant mix of retail and dining.  Let’s reject the false dichotomy between entertainment and office and recognize that growing Royal Oak means fostering both with reason and care.

Royal Oak Review Artcle

Article in Metromode on RO's Emerging 2nd Story

Facts about the Issue

A friend asked me the other day about the difference between the economic calamity that grips our state and nation today and what we experienced during Great Depression. The answer to me is clear: the New Deal and the Great Society.  In 1932 there was no Social Security, no Medicare or Medicaid and no Unemployment Insurance to shield Americans, especially the most vulnerable among us, from the ravages of a massive financial meltdown. Without those protections, 2009 might have witnessed a catastrophic collapse in spending and employment similar to the one my grandmother used to tell me about.

These policies are the legacy of progressive movements in our country, beginning with the Progressive Era in the early 1900s in which President Teddy Roosevelt broke up corporate trusts and began curtailing the ability of companies to unduly influence political campaigns. You’d think at a time when we are living with the terrible consequences of erasing New Deal era regulations that kept our banking system stable, the last thing we’d do is give corporate America a green light to pour millions of dollars directly into political races, thus diminishing the chances that Congress will have the fortitude to restore sanity to our banking system.  Someone forgot to tell the Supreme Court, which this past week issued a shocking 5-4 decision that voids decades of federal law and policy designed to limit the influence of corporate money on our politics.

We must not stand for this. The time has come to reignite a progressive movement for the 21^st century based on the timeless values of freedom, equal opportunity and fairness that created the policies too many of us take for granted today – and that the Far Right wants to dismantle.  But beyond fighting to protect prior victories, we must redefine a progressive ethic for this century which values the rights of workers, creates a level playing field and fair competition in the market and ensures equal opportunity for all to succeed. 

What does this mean for Michigan? I believe we can build a vibrant, growth-oriented metro Detroit and Michigan based on such values. Michigan was once a Mecca for people who sought nothing more than a fair chance to be rewarded for their hard work. Because we face challenges like no other state, we can define progressive growth for the rest of America through government reform, fair taxation and a willingness to collaborate across geographic and racial boundaries that have held us back in the past.

This will not be easy.  How do we enable more people, young and old, to start their own enterprises or have the flexibility to join with others to do so? How do we find the resources to invest in building new regional assets, like transit systems and better schools, when we face giant budget deficits? We put everything on the table and that means that some things will have to go, some things will cost more and some people will be unhappy.  Leaders of our state have failed to do this and the voters who face such choices in their own lives are understandably angry. 

In the weeks and months ahead I hope you will engage with me in a dialogue about concrete steps we can take to put progressive values to work creating jobs now, keeping Michiganders in their homes, ensuring world class educational opportunities for all and rebuilding the Michigan economy.  It’s time to get started.