Not sure how to vote in MI Supreme Court race?

[WaCoTS]

lol, this may help you decide...

"Morouns give Michigan Supreme Court justices maximum donations to campaigns"
http://www.freep.com/article/2012090...tion-campaigns

Ambassador Bridge owner Manuel [[Matty) Moroun, his wife Nora, his son Matthew, and Matthew's wife, Lindsay, gave a combined $27,200 in June to the campaigns of Republican-nominated Justices Stephen Markman and Brian Zahra. The $3,400 each of the four Morouns gave to each of the two justices is the maximum allowed under state law.


Two employees of Moroun's Centra Inc. gave another $1,950 to both Markman and Zahra in June, bringing the total donated to the campaigns of both justices by Moroun, his family and his employees to $31,100.

just in case anyone forgot

[WaCoTS]

also, a handy, supposedly independent guide to the ballot props:
http://www.miballot2012.com/17295

...and the 5 proposed amendments to the Wayne County Charter:
http://www.waynecounty.com/commission/Amendments.htm

[Gorath]

I was thinking the same thing too as I get ready to head to the polls in about 2 hours. My google search gave me this story on MLive which basically says the same thing.

http://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/in...r_matty_2.html

Zahra and Markman are on the take.

[JBMcB]

http://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/in...r_matty_2.html
Zahra and Markman are on the take.

Hmm, this is interesting.

From MLive:
"Zahra and Markman took part in a 4-3 decision Wednesday placing Moroun's proposal to require a statewide vote on any new U.S.-Canada bridge on the ballot. "

Implying it was split along party lines. However, from the Freep article:

"On Wednesday, in an opinion written by Zahra and backed by Markman, the Supreme Court ruled that Moroun's proposal to require a statewide vote on a public bridge to Canada, along with two other challenged constitutional amendments, would appear on the Nov. 6 ballot, while a proposal to allow eight more casinos in Michigan would not.The decision was unanimous except for the rejection of the casino proposal, which was a 4-3 decision with the Republican-nominated justices in the majority."

So the Democrats AND Republicans voted for the ballot proposal for the bridge, but split along party lines on the casino issue.

An interesting bit of editing by MLive.

So are the sitting Democrats on the supreme court on the take as well, since they voted for Maroun's ballot measure?

[WaCoTS]

thats another good question.

according to my sample ballot i looked at via Michigan.gov, we will be voting for up to FIFTY political offices, not to mention the 6 state props, and 5 Wayne County amendments....

i shouldve started research on this crap a year ago. no wonder no one votes lol...in order to do your due research you'd pretty much have to take a day or two off work

[5speedz34]

FWIW: Kelley, McCormack, and Johnson are the candidates who the Democratic Party endorses. We need to get the Republican majority that Engler packed in the 90's off the bench!

My Dad is an appellate attorney so I'm pretty well versed in the State Supreme Court and all it's BS, he's actually in Roseville campaigning for them today.

[Gorath]

I believe the Freep story is correct on the votes. Mlive appears to have used the Freep story as a source [[they cite it in their story) and did a poor job at doing so.

What I don't understand in the Freep story is that it says that the donations to Zahra and Markman campaigns were made made just before certification of the ballot proposal. Was that before or after the Supreme Court vote. I had assumed that the donations occurred before the the Supreme Court vote because Jocelyn Benson said that the judges should have recused themselves from the case. Shouldn't red flags go up if donations are being made before a case is heard.

In my opinion we shouldn't even be voting for judges.

[poobert]

In my opinion we shouldn't even be voting for judges.

No kidding. Incumbents are also given a wild advantage in that their name also lists them as a Justice.

The Bar Association does a non-partisan rating of "Outstanding" "qualified" "not qualified" etc. I automatically rule out the "not qualified" and then use other sources to narrow my decision.

Maroun generally tosses a shitload of money to the Republicans, who quietly accept. The Republican Party as we know it will be dead after this election - thank God - so they'll have to do some rearranging themselves anyway.

[313WX]

To be perfectly honest, I really don't care about the non-partisan sections.

For Supreme Court, I voted for the non-incumbents and those who aired the least amount of annoying campaign ads. They're all going to be brought off and insert their own bias in their rulings anyway.