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(Posted May 7) With Mother’s Day approaching, Bob LaBrant, Michigan’s pre-eminent campaign finance litigator, got to thinking — what nascent fund-raising atrocity posed his greatest threat? Then he read a review of Ellen Malcolm’s new book, and it all came back to him. Here’s what LaBrant remembers from the time he felt he was in […]

(Posted May 7) What will be the practical effect of banning straight ticket voting, enacted late last year by Michigan’s Republican-controlled legislature and signed into law by GOP Gov. Rick Snyder? Will it hurt Democrats, as most seem to believe, or will it be a wash? NORTH CAROLINA POLL A recent poll in North Carolina, […]

(Posted May 4) Having set a new all-time record for Michigan park visitations in 2015, could things actually get better for the state’s iconic Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore? Well, maybe the naming of a new superintendent with impeccable credentials, brand-new from the West Coast. He’s Scott Tucker, who for the past the three years […]

(Posted April 29) Michigan’s three top political leaders scored poorly in a pair of polls released this week. Gov. Rick Snyder and U.S. Senators Gary Peters and Debbie Stabenow all fall short of “meeting the mark,” any way you look at it. Political insiders across Michigan increasingly feel that Snyder’s ultimate legacy will be “irreparably […]

(Posted April 28) Maybe, and apparently it will take a federal judge, or court, to decide the question. The president of the Michigan AFL-CIO, Ron Bieber, has called a new law passed by the Michigan Legislature and signed by Gov. Rick Snyder “unfair, unconstitutional and downright un-American.” Four unions, including Bieber’s, have filed suit in […]

(Posted April 24) Among all aspirants in open (non-incumbent) races for various Michigan judgeships this year, two get the top prize — John Economopoulos of Escanaba, an  attorney in private practice, and Macomb Co. Probate Judge Carl Marlinga. How so? Well, each is running UNOPPOSED for a full six-year term on a Circuit Court with […]

(Posted April 24) Now that the April 19 filing deadline has come and gone, there are a lot of candidates running for a lot of offices in Michigan. In fact, over 8,000 of them, more than in any other state in the country, right down to the level of township trustee and local school and […]

By Bob LaBrant, Senior Counsel at the Sterling Corporation (Posted April 20) April 1, 2020 is the next census day in the United States. We are now less than four years away from the 24th decennial head count in our nation’s history. Data from the 2020 census will be used to redraw Congressional, state senate, […]

(Reposted April 23) Paul Rozycki, retired Mott Community College professor, wrote the following article in the April issue of East Village magazine: “As Flint works its way through the water crisis, the range of problems seems overwhelming. Every time it looks like we’ve solved one problem, another rears its head. “At first it seemed that […]