Michigan school district caught interfering in recall efforts.

Posted by Moe Lane - Thursday, July 14th at 9:45AM EDT

The alternate title for this is “Elections have consequences, Michigan edition.”

The short version (H/T: Instapundit) is that the Lawrence Public School district of Michigan got caught abusing their emergency broadcast system to explicitly notify people of an ongoing campaign to recall new Governor Rick Snyder, to the point where they gave directions and times for people who wanted to sign a petition. When this was noticed, Lawrence Public School District Superintendent John Overly fell all over himself admitting the mistake – although apparently this was not enough of a mistake to actually formally bring before the school board. And then there’s this exchange:

Capitol Confidential asked Overley if that meant he had known ahead of time that something concerning the recall was going to be sent out.

“We’re not going to ever let this happen again,” Overley asserted.

That would be a ‘yes,’ then.

(Democratic) members of the Michigan school district system has been notorious for some time for being blatant in its politicking: see here and here and here and here for some examples. If you’re wondering why the Michigan school system gets away with this kind of thing – either by getting let off of the hook, or just by getting a slap on the wrist – it’s because complaints about this sort of thing go to the Secretary of State for Michigan. The previous SoS Terri Lynn Land, while a Republican herself, was… somewhat passive when it came to rocking the boat, it seems. The current SoS (Ruth Johnson) is shaping up to be more hardcore when it comes to investigating election shenanigans. It’s yet to be seen whether she jumps on this with both feet: but I think that the days when the Democratic party gets to use our public school system as its own personal partisan stalking horse should be over. I’m in favor of showing no sense of humor and no ‘flexibility’ on the subject – or, more accurately, showing precisely the same sense of humor and flexibility that a Democrat would on seeing a Republican-dominated group doing something similar.

Well, maybe a little bit more than that: I don’t want to get into this weird mindset that hardcore Democratic partisans where death threats are considered to be a legitimate response to policy changes.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

PS: Again: elections have consequences. There are no unimportant elections: if it wasn’t a valuable position somehow, there wouldn’t be an election for it.

PPS: Michigan readers with an opinion on this case can contact SoS Johnson here.