Yesterday, the Michigan Civil Rights Commission (MCRC) held a hearing on allegations by the group By Any Means Necessary (BAMN) regarding alleged misrepresentations in the collection of the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative (MCRI) signatures.

In the closing remarks by a Commissioner, we get a true taste of the McCarthyist nature of this hearing. From my personal transcription of ZR's original audio/podcasting publication of the entire hearing, here's Kelvin W. Scott's (J.D.) closing statement:

I won't read the entire letter, but I want to enter it into tonight's record ...

ultimate goal, radical ... extraordinary, and rare

... allegations that we heard tonight are that they are attempting to amend our Constitution by means of fraud, deceit, and outright lies. Not only that, they [MCRI] taken to agressive public criticism of anyone who attempts to shed light on these allegations in their letter into record. They would be prefer that anyone who would be critical of their tactics be silent or ?? but the majority of the Commission has not been intimidated believes in letting all sides be heard and did invite the Civil Rights Initiative and others to be heard tonight.

The MCRI and others have chosen to boycott these proceedings or [?] we encourage them to come to this Commission in the future if indeed they have something to offer and nothing to hide.

Ah, Joe McCarthy and the witch-hunters of Salem would be proud. The old "if you have nothing to hide, you'll come testify" or let the government "investigate" you at will. The ACLU yelped when it learned that BAMN's organization was mentioned (not "under investigation," not "compelled to testify," and not searched) in an FBI symposium with Michigan law enforcement on domestic terrorism. MCRI "has nothing to offer and nothing to hide."

Second, Mr. Scott never read any of the statement by Jennifer Gratz of MCRI that he assailed (which he said he'd read part of). We have no way of judging the accuracy of his claims that MCRI letter somehow tried to intimidate the Commissioners. Instead, he flagellates a strawman. How does a letter - a mere piece of paper - intimidate? Compared to BAMN's flipping over of tables and shouting so meetings can't proceed? Did MCRI ever say this group or BAMN members didn't have a right to spout where-ever and whenever? Or did MCRI just suggest that it preferred to exercise its right to not waste its time listening to the same repetitious propaganda? Why would MCRI NOT engage in "agressive public criticism" of those who have agressively accused MCRI members of criminal fraud, "racism", and other highly-charged personal insults? What's wrong with "agressive public criticism?"

Here's the bottom line. BAMN has a right to hold or attend meetings and vent. MCRI has a right not to attend. Its choice not to attend, in the time honored tradition of the doctrines of free speech (and non-speech) and association and "innocence until proven otherwise", is not reflective of anything other than its desire to engage in productive activity. The Commission, constitutionally charged only with investigating discrimination complaints (not fraud allegations, which the domain of real courts of law), which admits (in this hearing) that it has no legal power to do anything other than "listen", is at the margin of its authority, and is certainly wasting taxpayer resources since it admits it has no authority. Regardless, BAMN has chosen to not file civil or criminal fraud charges (one of the opponents of MCRI, but not likely a BAMN member, asked the Commission if "fraud" was "criminal", which was a very salient question) in the proper venue (courts) because BAMN knows it doesn't have real evidence of that. So they have chosen several improper venues (the Board of Canvassers, MCRC) to make the allegation in so as to keep the publicity drum rolling. As demonstrated by Party Chair Mark Brewer's direction of the Democratic members of the Board of Canvassers and Governor Granholm's letter to the MCRC calling for hearings, the Democratic Party leadership (as opposed to the rank-and-file, which will vote largely for MCRI) is happy to allow and facilitate this BAMN drum-beating because they believe it will turn out Detroit voters and gives them a wedge to drive union leaders into activity.

In the second of three audio files published by ZR here (found at roughly 17:30 into the audio segment), one of the few "new" tidbits of information on the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative signature collection process was revealed by two Union leaders, John Riehl and Michael Mulholland, who jointly testified. They revealed that they are spying on the unrelated (to union mission) political activities of their members, and then (in ZR's opinion) intimidating them into action.

Let me first begin by noting that both of my parents were union members, and I have the deepest respect for the noble aspects and historical accomplishments of unions. Still, in the same vein of stories where unions have justly protected individuals against corporate misbehavior though, I have heard of many stories of union leadership misbehavior toward members and the (supposedly mutual) interests of the company they work for - as well as witnessing the generalized failure of union leaders to use common-sense in the modern economy. The noble mission of the union is simple: representing and protecting all of its individual members equally. That mission is perverted by the notion of race preferences, which calls for unequal protection and privelege to some, but union leadership has a deep and unshifting alliance (perhaps a "shifting alliance" would be far more tactically advantageous to unions, giving them more leverage in the long-run) with the Democratic Party, which also has a similar alliance with key leadership within the African-American community. As a result, union leaders are out of touch with large segments of their membership, and doing all a disservice.

Regardless, Riehl and Mulholland made news when they announced that only in the last two weeks have they had the opportunity to "cross-reference" their membership list to MCRI's signer list (obtained no doubt from Democratic list-broker Mark Grebner, who compiles lists of signers of all petitions for profit and has admitted he has made available his list to BAMN). Riehl is President of AFSCME Local 207, Mulholland Secretary-Treasurer. Local 207, according to Riehl, has 1100 members.

We started last week when we learned by a database analysis between our membership list and the BAMN research on those who signed MCRI fraudulent petitions that approximately our estimate was about 125 members matched the MCRI petitions. We're very angry about this. We're very angry about this. We're very angry about fraud. We started to do something about it. We started investigating, we started talking to our members. I went around and started to talk to some our members. ... Collected over the last week 27 affidavits.

Riehl then proceeds to reads one affidavit.

"I support affirmative action. ... The only way I would have signed such a petition is if the circulated misresented"

Of course, this says nothing about how the circulator's conduct actually lead to anything, and is supposition, but it also assumes that MCRI has anything to with "affirmative action," as opposed to preferential treatment, which, at best, is only one type of affirmative action. In essence, an opinion as to whether the petition has to do with one thing or another is not something that should be considered evidence of fraud.

Riehl then goes on to accuse MCRI of "identity theft," but the irony is that his misuse of a union database to identify union members with political position the union disagrees with, and then to approach those members to "explain" their position is much closer to that than anything MCRI has done.

What would you do when your union boss comes to you and asks why you signed a petition the union disagrees with? This type of behavior by a union leader is both a deplorable action, and skirts right on the line of what the law allows unions to do politically. Regardless, the testimony of Riehl shows what "means" all of our opposition is willing to go to, but the numbers (12% of his union signed MCRI, slightly above the percentage of general population signing MCRI, and about equal to the percentage of Michigan registered voters signing) show that there is remarkable support for MCRI within the union rank-n-file.

Even with this intimidating approach though, Riehl was only able to pressure 20% of his signing his vague and meaningless affidavit.

Emily Kunze, President of AFSCME Local 2920 engaged in a similar tactic, culling her union list to present roughly a dozen similar affidavits. This is clearly a coordinated strategy, and should be carefully watched.