News

(Posted May 18) President Barack Obama’s approval ratings have been edging upward for months. The national electorate is facing a general election to replace him involving two major party nominees with the highest negative ratings in decades. Wouldn’t it be better for the country if we just kept what we have a while longer? Couldn’t […]

(Posted May 13) Michigan’s premier campaign finance litigator knows that, with the turn of the 21st Century, it was a case of win some, lose more in his battles with the pioneering money-bundler, EMILY’s List. Bob LaBrant, then the Michigan Chamber of Commerce’s senior vice president for political affairs, saw his favored candidate for re-election […]

(Posted May 11, 2016) Some political junkies have posited during the past dozen years that U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow ought to chuck it all in Washington, D.C., and come back to run for governor of Michigan. Stabenow’s response has been pretty much, “Been there, done that,” and she’s happy where she is. In fact, she […]

(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 […]