Detroit Free Press commentary: Emergency manager law undermines principles of democracy. But forced unionization without a vote does not?

It's ironic that those associated with the Democratic Party despise the democratic process unless they are in charge. We already witnessed the absurd spectacle of Democratic Party Senators from Wisconsin, and Assemblymen in Indiana, flee the state and hole up in Illinois for the specific reason of subverting the democratic process that is their namesake. Here in Michigan our own minority State Senators from the Democratic Party threatened the very same thing if they didn't get what they wanted: Irony: MI Senate Democrats threaten to subvert democratic process, blackmail RINOs. So it's quite ironic how their supporters are coming out against the emergency financial manager law here in the state under the auspices that it somehow subverts the democratic process (isn't that what bankruptcy does in the real world anyway?). in The Detroit Free Press: Emergency managers undermine principles of democracy

Around the world, people are demanding democratic accountability from their governments. Many of those crying out the loudest are people with very few resources, whose countries are facing deep and painful economic woes. No one who values democracy would suggest that just because they are poor, these heroes have no right to self-rule.

Yet here at home, some in our state have given up on democracy -- despite being elected officials themselves. And evidently they believe that those with the fewest resources need democracy the least.

Earlier this year, our state government passed Public Act 4, the Local Government and School District Fiscal Accountability Act, which establishes a new form of local government: government by decree, with citizens ruled by an unelected official.

The law gives the governor "sole discretion" to appoint and oversee an emergency manager for any city, village or school district in the state. EMs, once in place, can sell off public property and shred all municipal contracts, including union contracts. They can dismiss all elected officials, charge the local budget with hefty salaries for themselves and anyone they choose to hire, and even dissolve the local government entirely.

So pretty much the same thing a bankruptcy judge would do in a bankruptcy proceeding. The last paragraph above is deceiving especially in this quote: "an emergency manager for any city, village or school district in the state." The Governor can do no such thing. The city, village or school district must be in financial peril. As in bankrupt because of dreadful mismanagement by Democrats and their union cohorts. What's another option? They don't have one. And believe you me this has to do with only one thing - union contracts. Which bring me to this:

It's an ultimate irony that in a state that forces people to fund the Democratic Party by laundered money via union dues forced from them as a condition of employment sans any vote of the membership, that these union supporters would use the notion of the democratic process being subverted in arguing against financial managers righting bankrupt public entities.