Flint's water issues

[Virginiá]

Yes the situation is extremely ed up

Oh come on CrabCake, it's obvious the Governor was just trying out his latest skin cancer prevention initiative. Feed lead to the people via the water supply, deposit lead into skin cells, lead blocks UV radiation, bingo.

He is just misunderstood!

[Virginiá]

How did all of this happen, without folks flipping out at the time? Who was supervising this manager? Was there any oversight? Having a situation where there is no effective oversight, and brake mechanisms, is a formula for things going very wrong.

I'm curious, do you think this whole fiasco could result in Republicans suffering in 2016-beyond? Michigan seems pretty Democratic statewide/national in most instances but yet it has had a GOP-dominated legislature for most of the past 2 decades. Makes me wonder if their hold on power is more fragile than a safe-red state and could be threatened by major events like this.

[Virginiá]

This needs to be getting more national attention. If terrorists had killed and injured this many people the news would be all over it and we would be debating new laws to prevent more attacks, but since its water no one nationally seems to care or know its going on.

If the only difference here was replacing Snyder/emergency manager with 'terrorists', then not only would Congress have passed a pre-written bill to take away more rights, but the only priority on the hill at this moment would be where to send troops / aircraft carriers / missiles, and how many.

I'm not even exaggerating.

[Virginiá]

So much for Snyder having a chance at getting re-elected.

He is term-limited, and thanks to Snyder & friends incompetence & willful disregard for public safety in favor of pinching pennies, Democrats will likely have a good chance of picking up his office in 2018, which would eliminate Republicans' ability to rig the maps in 2021.

So in reality, his terrible actions here have likely put the GOP stranglehold on Michigan's government in serious jeopardy.

[Virginiá]

I don't know - even without mass lead poisoning, voters have very poor memories. If Snyder is smart he could bury this under endless committees and then blame some fallguy; and by next election that time the governor poisoned everyone will be a distant foggy memory.

That is true - I think it depends on how the situation develops between now and the end of 2016. At the very least, Democrats have a good narrative to set for 2018: "Failed Republican policies literally poison Michigan". In this case, from what I know, I think for once this actually is quite literally a failure of Republican policy. They pushed through a bill requiring oversight in the form of emergency managers, which was repealed via a veto referendum, and then they passed a new one resulting in basically the same situation except they added funds appropriation to it to make it veto-proof.

State Republicans repeatedly went against the wishes of the citizens, and the result was poisoning an entire city's water supply with lead. I guess it would be foolhardy to think Democrats will coast into office in 2018, but I think they are now better positioned than before to break the hold Republicans have had on Michigan for over 2 decades.

[Virginiá]

It could give them the lower chamber of the state legislature this year if the Dem wins nationally and they play their cards right.  People need to be put on trial for this prior to 2018.  Who initiates it and who fights it will determine how the end game plays out.  It does give national Democrats a rare opportunity to reach moderates on the environment when they have been stuck backing stuff that feels out of the mainstream/low priority to many over the past 4 years.  Lead poisoning is a real and scientifically indisputable harm and if national Republicans dismiss it or fight this too hard it will look very bad for them. 

That is true. I forgot to consider their legislative elections in 2016. However, now that you bring that up, wouldn't them winning the chamber in 2016 sort of be useless for 2021's redistricting? The maps for Michigan's state house are rigged for the GOP and I can't help but feel like in 2018 they would swept back out. Not sure if potential gubernatorial coattails would be sufficient in this case.

[Virginiá]

Did the Republicans in Lansing get them into pension trouble or locally elected officials?

Oh sheesh you're right I completely misinterpreted that somehow. Sorry! I'm just going to delete that.

[Virginiá]

It posits that if the Governor manages to pick some sort of individual superman he will magically restore what is an unworkable solution. No need for democratic accountability! Because he is the magicman! Nothing can go wrong!

Well, word is Snyder got a hold of a coveted money tree seed and dispatched his finest operative to Flint as an Emergency Manager, to oversee the growth of said money tree. Unfortunately, the lead water killed it.

So I guess we'll never know...

[Virginiá]

Just thought I'd add this:

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/03/house-democrats-flint-michigan-gop-election-220132

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I'm hesitant to think this will be enough to take back the Michigan State House, but combined with the Trump issue, I think this might be a powerful message this year. However, this whole disaster will probably hurt Republicans in at least 1 - 2 MI CDs, considering their winning margins aren't very significant due to the rigged maps.

!!!

[Virginiá]

but, AGAIN, it wasn't austerity that caused this problem.  If the Michigan Dems are planning on running on a lie, well, I suppose that's what they always do.

Ok, what is your source for this? Because as stated in this article (among others):

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/01/05/health/flint-michigan-water-investigation/

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Maybe you're talking about what was supposed to come after the temporary switch - When they went back to getting GL water? Because if so, it's irrelevant - They started using the Flint River water to save money, and the reason for wanting to save money during that time period is also irrelevant, even if temporary, because it was cheapness that brought about this terrible situation.

[Virginiá]

Right sorry - I had actually rewritten my post entirely to clarify as I thought I wasn't being specific enough, I didn't think you would respond as fast as you did. So my post was updated before you posted to address what you stated.

The end goal was to have a direct link whose pipeline would create temporary jobs, but until that was completed, the EM switched to Flint River to save money. I get the job perspective, but it doesn't change the fact that the water sources were temporarily changed to save money. Further, they knew there were problems pretty quickly and did nothing. So it doesn't matter what the long-term goals were. You could argue this wasn't part of a broad austerity agenda, but the reasons for the crisis were because they were cheap (and either general incompetence or gross negligence in favor of saving money, or some other messed up reason).