Governors Walker and Kasich Starve School Budgets, Redefine Education as Workforce Prep

Add Michigan and you have a trifecta. Rust belt, blue collar, union states. The DNC should be ashamed. “I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat.” – Will Rogers

janresseger

In his fine book, The One Percent Solution, Gordon Lafer describes the red-state wave that occurred in the November 2010 election: “In January 2011, legislatures across the country took office under a unique set of circumstances.  In many states new majorities rode to power on the energy of the Tea Party ‘wave’ election and the corporate-backed Red Map campaign.  Critically, this new territory included a string of states running across the upper Midwest from Pennsylvania to Wisconsin, that had traditionally constituted labor strongholds.  In addition, this was the first class of legislators elected under post-Citizens United campaign finance rules, and the sudden influence of unlimited money in politics was felt across the country.” (The One Percent Solution, p. 44)

Scott Walker became the Governor of Wisconsin in January of 2011, just as John Kasich became Governor of Ohio, and both states became Republican trifecta states, with both…

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Electoral Politics is all about money – all the time in West MI

Grand Rapids Institute for Information Democracy

It is common knowledge that at the state and federal level, candidates need a substantial amount of money of they are going to get elected within the current political system.

In fact, both candidates and incumbents never really stop raising money, for either their own campaign or for other politicians within their party. This definitely the case for Democrats and Republicans.

On top of that, most candidates and incumbents are primarily interested in big donors. You can usually tell by how much their fundraising events cost and where they are located.

The Michigan Campaign Finance Network recently released a new report showing that in 2017, there were 601 fundraisers for state office holders in Michigan. In 2016, there were 439 fundraisers and in 2015, there were 315. Clearly, there has been an increase in the amount of fundraisers being hosted by incumbents or those  who are term-limited and seeking…

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