Authentically Detroit
Authentically Detroit is the leading podcast in the city for candid conversations, exchanging progressive ideas, and centering resident perspectives on current events.
Hosted by Donna Givens Davidson and Orlando P. Bailey.
Produced by Sarah Johnson and Engineered by Griffin Hutchings.
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Authentically Detroit
Black Detroit Democracy Podcast: Taxing the Rich for Better Schools with Imani Foster
The Authentically Detroit Podcast Network in collaboration with Detroit One Million presents: The Black Detroit Democracy Podcast, hosted by Donna Givens Davidson and Sam Robinson!
Together, Donna and Sam illuminate the complexities of Detroit’s unique political landscape and give residents a resource for navigating civic engagement and election season.
On this episode, Imani Foster of 482Forward joined them to discuss the Invest in Michigan’s Kids campaign.
482Forward is creating a Detroit where every student graduates ready to become a fully engaged participant in the world, equipped with the character and the capacity to negotiate her environment and change it for the better.They believe all children have the right to an excellent education, regardless of their race or socioeconomic status.
For more episodes of the Black Detroit Democracy Podcast, click here.
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Speaker 2:Detroit One Million is a journalism project started by Sam Robinson that centers a generation of Michiganders growing up in a state without a city with one million people. Support the only independent reporter covering the 2025 Detroit mayoral race through the lens of young people.
Speaker 3:Good journalism costs. Visit DetroitOneMillioncom to the Black Detroit Democracy Podcast. Every week, we open this podcast with a reading of the preamble to the Detroit City Charter, read by the one and only Bryce Detroit. The City Charter is our constitution, which defines our rights and the way government should work. I'm Donna Givens-Davidson, president and CEO of the Eastside Community Network.
Speaker 4:And I'm Sam Robinson, founder of Detroit. One Million.
Speaker 3:Thank you for listening in and supporting this expanded effort to build yet another platform of authentic voices for real people in the city of Detroit. We want you to like, rate and subscribe to our podcast on all platforms. The purpose of this podcast is to encourage Detroit citizens to stay vigilant in the fight for justice and equality. With a special call to action for Black Detroit, we seek to build awareness of our history as a gateway to freedom, a beacon for justice and a laboratory of liberation. Today, imani Harris, a 402 Forward, is here to discuss the Invest in Michigan's Kids campaign. Imani, welcome to the Black Detroit Democracy Podcast. And how are you?
Speaker 5:today. Thank you, I'm doing good. I'm doing good. And also it is Imani Foster. Now I got married. I'm sorry about that.
Speaker 3:I am so sorry, I know it is Imani Foster. Yes, you're fine. I was really struggling for your name today. I called you Imani Perry at first. I'm so bad with names and I was like, wait a minute, no, it's Imani Harris. But I do recall that you got married and you have a beautiful family. Thank you so much, so I apologize.
Speaker 5:But anyway, how are you today? I'm doing great, I'm doing great. I was outside today collecting petitions and just building some excitement around this movement, so doing great. And you see, I have on my T-shirt. I saw that. I love the T-shirt, I love the T-shirt.
Speaker 3:We need like a row of them here.
Speaker 5:Someone else asked me about mine.
Speaker 3:Well, we do. We did have one of our community members asked for mine, and I want the black one, though, so, and I know we have new T-shirts coming. But let's talk about real quickly, the Invest in Michigan Kids campaign. Are you familiar with that campaign, sam?
Speaker 4:I am, yeah. Through the good reporting of Lansing also some local news stories I've been able to see that you guys are out collecting. I don't think I've ran into a signature collector yet, but when I do I will be sure to put it on Twitter. I'm a fan of following all the canvassers around and seeing who's collecting for who. Who has multiple ballots that they're juggling. Sometimes these signature collectors are paid for they'll have two opposing signature.
Speaker 4:Yeah and it's this whole underworld of political activity where you have, of course, in 2022, a bunch of Michigan Governor-Turtle candidates got kicked off the ballot, james Craig, former police chief, including him. A lot of people just forge signatures, so don't do that.
Speaker 3:No, I mean listen, You'll end up in Dana Nessel jail.
Speaker 3:This is different and I'm telling you that you're sitting actually next to one and across from another petition gatherer. I have yet to gather my first petition, but we're all volunteers, we're all members of the community who are excited about new opportunities to fund public education in Michigan and we're running up against a lot of headwinds. So first I want to talk about and have you describe what is Invest in Michigan Kids. We all believe in it. We say we all believe in children. Nobody runs their office saying they don't love children. But what is this campaign?
Speaker 5:Yeah, so this campaign is a statewide coalition. First, I want to start by saying so. We have organizations all the way up in Sault Ste Marie and we've got organizations right here in Detroit that are really excited about raising money for Michigan schools by taxing people who make more in Michigan at a 5% surcharge. So when I say they make more, that means they make $500,000 in a year individually, or a joint couple that is annually making a million dollars. They would see a 5% surcharge and that money would go into the schools in Michigan to really do three really awesome things Going directly in the classrooms to lower class sizes, to attract and retain high quality teachers and also to expand access to career and technical education across the whole state.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So when we talk about the surcharge and I think this distinction is really important we're not talking about a 5% tax on all of their income. We're talking about a 5% tax on income over and above those limits. Exactly Any income you earn above $500,000 as an individual taxpayer not as a business taxpayer, but as an individual taxpayer any income you earn over $500,000 would be subject to a surcharge and additional tax of 5%. Exactly Whose purpose would be dedicated constitutionally to certain purposes?
Speaker 5:right, exactly, constitutionally and subject to audits. And I'd like to add if you make $500,000, cool, if you make $500,001, that $1 is now going to be taxed at that 5% surcharge. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And this is important, because some of the propaganda that's out there would suggest that the real surcharge is this is going to be a 9.25% tax on businesses or businesses. First of all, some people are calling this a business tax. It is not Exactly. Okay, we'll talk about that in a minute. But the second thing is it would never amount to 9.25%. That's mathematically impossible because the first $500,000 for an individual or $1 million for a joint filer is restricted to 4.25%, which is the flat rate that all Michiganders pay, the additional rate you cannot make. There's no mathematical possibility that it will ever be 9.25% and the vast majority of filers will fall far below that Exactly.
Speaker 5:I think I heard today that this would impact 1.8% of Michiganders. Right and so, but at the same time it could raise $1.5 billion for our schools every year. So I think it's worth it.
Speaker 3:I mean we are what's today's date? It is August 20th and we have not passed a budget for 2025. That was due July 1st. And the balance and the challenges. Let's talk about that.
Speaker 3:For schools and I used to manage schools you have to put together your school budget because the school year starts July 1st.
Speaker 3:That's the reason why you want to have the budget determined by then, because that's when you figure out how much in per-pupil aid, how much in all of those other costs you get, and your budget is put together based on how many students you have, times the per pupil amount that you're awarded, plus any supplemental funding for other uses. You can't put together a budget that is a meaningful budget if you don't know what the per pupil rate is. And the legislators are all over the place. The House is trying to create a flat rate of student per pupils to remove all of the supplemental aid programs for students with additional needs, which is problematic. The Michigan Senate is trying to preserve that and I think the Michigan Senate and Sam you know something about this, because that's why we didn't record last week, kind of, I was also on vacation, but the Michigan Senate has been at a crossroads with the governor around road funding and I think they all came together on this. Is that correct? Can you talk about that a little bit?
Speaker 4:They're coming together and we're going to see what plays out. A lot of folks are pointing toward the fact that Michiganders, when polled, believe we should fund schools, when polled, believe we should fund schools. I heard from a legislator last week who told me that road funding hasn't even come up when he's been door knocking and talking to voters. You know it depends where you live. Of course we've seen some improvement. You know, depending on where you live, we haven't seen a lot of improvement when it comes to roads. I was just in Cleveland, ohio, over the weekend and the roads in Ohio are really nice. You go past the Pure Michigan sign on the other side and it's like all of a sudden the roads are perfect. So we'll see. Lansing is right now just kind of comical. It's really a Matt Hall versus Winnie Brinks show. Matt doesn't really care about House Democrats at all.
Speaker 3:I was just going to say define for our listeners who Matt Hall is, because not everybody knows.
Speaker 4:Yeah, matt Hall is the Speaker of the House and he is, many people would say, doing his best Trump impression currently is, many people would say, doing his best Trump impression currently attacking things that don't really have anything to do with the things that need to happen.
Speaker 3:We blame Trump, but I think it's so much bigger than Trump and the Michigan Senate, the Michigan Republican Party, has been this way for a while, right? I remember when Whitmer ran on, fix the damn roads right, and that was her campaign slogan. And everybody agrees that we need good roads. Everybody agrees they don't want the bridges falling apart. But the problem is that we have leadership in Lansing that does not believe in taxes at all and believes that.
Speaker 3:You know, I mean, there's this backwards thinking and you know, when we don't tax things, it's not as though you don't need income, right? So when you don't provide taxes, what ends up happening is driver responsibility fees. What ends up happening is all of these expensive fees for various activities that are used to supplement, you know, the incomes or the budgets. And the problem with those fees is they disproportionately fall on the backs of poor people. But it's invisible. We don't call it a tax, we call it a fee and of course, fees are allowable as long as you're talking about a driver being unable to get a driver's license because they have thousands of dollars in fees that they owe. Able to get a driver's license because they have thousands of dollars in fees that they owe, but surcharges are not allowable because somehow we have to protect the business class in our state and people with higher incomes from having to bear their responsibility. So I think that this is a longstanding issue, and Trump has just made it all worse.
Speaker 4:I mean you see on the other side a ballot proposal to rescind completely property taxes. Yeah, that's I think. They correct me if I'm wrong. You might know, because you've been perhaps in those state board of canvassers meetings. I have not in two years but I think that ballot proposal got through didn't have any contention around its language. I think you guys are. You know, give me up to date on what the current status of that petition?
Speaker 5:summary language is yeah, sure. So we have been before the Board of Canvassers probably more than most. Definitely, some people have had easier experiences. June 27th, our 100-word summary was approved by the Board of Canvassers. A few weeks later that approval was rescinded for some technical reasons, which we know are backhand deals that are being made right between Michigan Chamber. The Heritage Foundation was in the room.
Speaker 5:We had really some like heavy hitters of people who are scared to see this happen because it will impact them, and so approval was rescinded. And it was rescinded due to, apparently, the board of canvassers not letting someone speak that was from the opposition, although the meeting had gone on like five or six hours, and so they kind of were like we're cutting off this last person, we're moving forward. They approved it. Approval was rescinded. We go back to the board of canvassers on July 31st and it's full of like SBA, michigan Chamber, detroit Chamber, heritage Foundation. You know everything goes back up. People are now people. You know who voted yes last time now have all these questions and contention and confusion around this being a tax on small businesses, which again it's not.
Speaker 3:Well, it was not confusion. It was deliberate misinformation, and I think it's important to talk about the role of deliberate misinformation on democracy.
Speaker 3:The kinds of things that were said that were never tested were things like the majority of people in Michigan who earn these amounts of monies are small business owners. That is absolutely not true. The majority of people in Michigan earn that amount of money, or earning that money not even from an employment, but investment income. Investment income is the number one producer of that. Number two, you have professionals who are employed and you also have small business owners. Professionals who are employed and you also have small business owners. The average income for a small business is about $212,000, placing those small business owners well below those income limits.
Speaker 3:Now, some small business owners myself included, I've done this have included business income in their taxes. You do it for one reason Because you don't want to be an LLC, because you wanted to get a write-off. You can be an LLC, but when you file on your individual taxes and you put your business income, you can write off all of your losses. So even if you had a million dollars of income, by the time you write off all those losses, it's showing up as less. That's not being accurately presented, but if you look at the data, the data will just dispute that. So to suggest that this is a tax on small business owners. It really is more of a tax on investment income over a certain amount than it is over, and remember there was a capital gains tax at one time that was rescinded because, of course, investment income is supposed to remain sacrosanct, while the income of poor folks who violate some type of driving, you know, whatever you have driver's responsibility and all these other fees, and this is what you know our friend Bernadette Atuahene refers to as predatory government.
Speaker 3:Our friend Bernadette Atuahene refers to as predatory government. Predatory government refuses to tax people who can pay at a reasonable level and then pushes in its fees. Another example of that is vehicle seizures, property seizures. When you have police departments that are seizing vehicles parked near a crack house, they're not just doing that because they care about crack, they're doing that because those seizures generate income from them. And you don't even need I think Michigan may have changed the law, but at one point you did not need probable cause to take somebody's vehicle, to take somebody's property. All you had to do was state that there was a suspicion that they were engaged in a crime and they lost their property. And that's a mechanism for financing government when you cut taxes to the bone. So the significance of this is to generate a reliable source of income for schools so that we don't have to depend on these predatory purposes, right.
Speaker 5:Exactly, and I think even the president of the Board of Canvassers. She said well, I just want to be clear. When y'all were here in June, this room was not nearly as full. When y'all were here in June, no one was talking about small businesses, but the Michigan Chamber sent out specific communication to all of their members asking them to talk about how this would harm small businesses. Right, they sent out emails asking folks to show up to Lansing at this Board of Canvassers meeting. And so, perfect word, deliberate, donna, and we said it at the same time. So it ended up in a deadlock.
Speaker 5:We, our members, caught actually someone on the Board of Canvassers having a conversation with a lawyer from the Heritage Foundation along with someone from Michigan Board of Canvassers. I'm going to deadlock this. That's what's going to happen. So, moving forward, we are collecting signatures based on the approval that we got way back on June 27th. It was never a question about if the words were okay for us to use. The 100-word summary was approved. It was only rescinded because an error on their part to not let someone speak, and so we're confident that when we get all of the signatures by February and we go before the Board of Cambusers, we'll be able to move forward with the language approved on June 27th.
Speaker 3:And you know, I think that the chamber is confident of that too yeah, Because they sent out an email saying hey look, we lost. We didn't get our way. They were trying to have it reversed. Instead, the debt like ended up allowing it to move forward. But we have got to push back against a lot of the misinformation on there, and I've mentioned two pieces of misinformation One, that it's a 9.25% tax on business. Number two, that it's a business tax. But the third piece, which was also debated, was actually probably the funniest thing, and that was the use of the word including. One word, One word, Two hours, one word Two hours. Can you explain how the word including got really confusing for Republicans up there?
Speaker 5:Yeah, so basically, there is language and I actually have the petition right in front of me that I think I can pull out, where we say that the money can be used for these things, and it was exclusively or including. That's the word they were going back and forth on. Should it say exclusively? Should it say including? Now, our original summary that was approved said exclusively. Their worry, their fear, is that, well, if you say this, they could use it for a football field, because if you say including, that just means that they can like if they want to, but it's not subject to. Can you read the language, though Of course, I'll read the entire ballot measure, actually.
Speaker 5:Thank you, yeah, that'll be helpful. Yeah, so it's a constitutional amendment to add, beginning in 2027, an additional 5% tax on annual taxable income over $1 million for joint filers and over $500,000 for single filers. For joint filers and over $500,000 for single filers. This tax is in addition to that's why it's not a graduated income tax addition to existing state income taxes and is to be deposited into the state school aid fund and required to be used exclusively on local school district classrooms, career and technical education, reducing class sizes and recruiting and retaining teachers, and subject funds to annual audits. Thank you Of course.
Speaker 3:So this is and the reason.
Speaker 3:One of the reasons this also one of the areas of debate initially was because when it said public schools, it did not also specify that charter schools were indeed public schools, but legally, charter schools are public school. Academies were indeed public schools, but legally, charter schools are public school academies. That's the legal name for charter schools in Michigan law and they are governed by all of the state law that traditional public schools are. So the reality is that you didn't have to make that distinction. They wanted that distinction to be made, and I think there's just this effort to slow down the momentum, to confuse voters and to make voters feel suspicious.
Speaker 3:One of the things I've heard people say is and I've heard this from people who are not part of that chamber group that this like lottery money is promised to increase school funds but like the lottery, you didn't end up having school aid funds increase necessarily because of the lottery funds, that they were used for other purposes. Can you clear up some misconceptions around the lottery and how it's been used? I know that we have put together and I should disclose that, although I'm not a direct member of this coalition, I'm a board member of 482 Forward and part of the committee that's actually trying to figure out how to sell this to the public.
Speaker 5:Absolutely so.
Speaker 5:First, I'm going to talk a little bit about the lottery and what happened with the lottery money, because a lot of people have that question.
Speaker 5:So the lottery money definitely contributes to public schools, but it actually makes up only about 6% of the school aid fund, and so when you actually calculate how much it costs to educate students, while the lottery money is great, it doesn't nearly get us where we need to be to actually support all of our students.
Speaker 5:For every dollar that's spent on the lottery and this is from 2023 data 61 cents went to prizes, 27 cents went to the school aid fund, 9 cents went to retailer and vendor commissions and three cents funded lottery operations. So when you really think about how much money we're getting from the lottery versus how much it costs to fund our schools, right now we have a four point five billion dollar deficit in our school funding across the state. It's just not enough money, and so it's very true that the legislature could choose to violate the constitution and say well, we want to spend this money in a different way. If they do, this money is subject to audits. It will be handled. If they do, they are violating the constitution, which means that we can take legal action If they do, which I'm not even saying if, but you know if we're talking.
Speaker 3:I don't believe they will. I think it's a scare tactic. I want to say some things about school funding. This is hitting me where I live. Like I said, I manage schools and so I have experience putting together school budgets and all of this.
Speaker 3:And there's this thing called the Michigan State Public Employee Retirement, mipsers, and the problem, a big issue for public schools, is MIPSERS. Right, we are spending a lot of money on schools that is not going into classrooms right now because it's being used to balance the retirement account for public school employees. Why, you know why? Okay, all right. So the reason that we're doing that is because when education in Michigan became privatized in so many ways, although charter schools are public school academies, their employees are not subject to the same laws as traditional public schools, right? And so when we privatize cafeteria services, when we privatize transportation and we privatize school operations as charter schools, the employees for all of those private entities are not public employees and therefore they are not subject to MIPSER pension requirements, right? So a greater percentage of our teachers, a growing percentage of our school employees, our public school employees, is privately employed, using 401ks. That means that retirees are still drawing on a system that fewer people are contributing to drawing on a system that fewer people are contributing to.
Speaker 3:Mipsers would go bankrupt if the state did not supplement MIPSers. So one of the issues around so-called school choice and school privatization is that it's messed up that system. We're spending a lot of money on kids. It never reaches kids and we haven't figured out how to replace it. In Detroit, we're spending a lot of money on kids that never reaches kids and we haven't figured out how to replace it. In Detroit, we're spending money retiring debt that was incurred by state takeovers of our public education system. Our millage dollars are not going to support our kids right now because our millage dollars are going to Detroit public schools, which still exists legally, and what it does right now is it collects taxes to pay off all of that debt incurred by state action predatory state action at that that extracted all this money for private purposes, for all of these emergency managers and no-bid contractors that came out, the just excessive spending on a new school center building that Fartman was made all of that money from or EAA schools or the EAA schools.
Speaker 3:All of this wealth extraction happened from our schools and destabilized, bankrupted our education, not because of the actions of Detroiters or the people that we selected, but by people the state selected.
Speaker 3:So the Skillman Foundation pulled together, circa 2012 to 2013, 2014, the Coalition for Detroit Public School Children, where there was a bipartisan investigation of the impact of all of that.
Speaker 3:Wow, the result of that was legislation that separated the operations of schools from Detroit public schools, removed the operations of schools from that debt, and so we're getting paid out of a school aid fund that you know is coming from the state, is coming from other sources, not our millage dollars until we retire Detroit public school debt. Wow, we have a lot of malfeasance and misfeasance on part of legislators and governors and other people who have, just you know, experimented with education in our community and done things to destabilize, but ultimately, that means less money in the classroom. So what you'll hear from some people is we're spending more money on education than ever, but a lot of it's going to MIPSers. Invest in Michigan's Kids, is directing funding directly to classrooms and that's so important, absolutely Because what it's saying is this is new money to go into classrooms. That does not mean that the people who run our state are not going to decide to shortchange schools in some other way, but it's providing a stable source, in addition to the lottery and millages, to support public education.
Speaker 5:Yeah, and I want to add all of the organizations that are a part of Invest in my Kids are also a part of advocating for schools on a yearly basis, and so every year, we have to go to the state, who decides how they want to allocate funds, and fight and demand that they give schools that need more more, that they give cities that need more and more. I think that this will be no different. We will still have to go to the state every year and say, now that we have raised this money, this is how we need it to be spent. It's no different than we always have to fight for a school budget, except that we're trying to put more money into the pot that we can be fighting for.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and you know, if you look at Michigan in comparison to high achieving school states, we to high-achieving school states we're spending less money per student than even some states that we consider to be slow-backwater southern states right, we are 49th out of 50 in improving school funding in Michigan 49th out of 50 states.
Speaker 3:And we are also something like 42 out of 50 in educational quality and being of a certain age. There was a time when Michigan led the nation in public school quality Before the first school takeover in Detroit. Detroit students were average in academic outcomes, not at the bottom of the state average in academic outcomes. Since all of these supposed reforms, academic performance has actually fallen, not increased, and I think that that's an important data point that gets missed in a lot of these conversations that people who are trying to fix or saying they're trying to fix things are making them worse. We don't have time to talk about the Education Achievement Authority other than to say that it was educational malpractice and all of this educational malpractice. There are people who want to find teachers. There are people who want to find principals. I think one of the gubernatorial candidates has said he wants principals. This is you know.
Speaker 3:Mike Duggan wants to hold principals accountable.
Speaker 3:I saw that, which is great, because we already don't have enough principals, right, there's not enough people who are able to lead schools in our state and there's so much turnover, and so we have a governor who wants to add to that chaos, which is a candidate who wants to add to that chaos, but whenever they make those mistakes, there's no consequence to the people in power who make mistakes that impact kids, and in my family there's two EAA so-called graduates who don't have transcripts, who don't have many things that you just take for granted coming out of high school, and the people who provided them with the education without transcripts.
Speaker 3:There's no consequence. They got paid a whole lot of money, they moved on, they said my bad and now they're into something new. I think that there is a certain level of importance for us to understand that children in communities like ours that have been experimented on, and communities like ours that have been experimented on and in other majority black school districts around the state which have been subject to emergency management, other kind of takeovers children in those districts actually deserve some type of compensation. Those communities deserve some type of compensation, over and above.
Speaker 5:And they don't get a second chance. You know what I mean? They don't get a second chance. We see them every day and I think that's also why this campaign speaks so easily. In Detroit, I think in other cities in Michigan, people are like it doesn't work. When we say tax the rich, people can't get down with that. In Detroit, people can't get down with that because they're like, yeah, those are the people that have harmed my community. I talk to people all the time and when I tell them that at the time they were in school, the school district was under emergency management, they don't even know what that means. They don't know that while they were going to school, we went from one emergency manager to another emergency manager. They don't know that the reason that they don't have transcripts is because they were experimented on so many kids in a system.
Speaker 5:I remember I was in high school from 2014 to 2018. We got our elected school board in 2018. And I remember being in the room and the joy and the victory to transform the schools. I'm like, oh, there's a major difference from this state getting a play in our faces versus actually this being a locally run district and a locally run city for real, for real, and I think when people see that that's what we have now, we have this opportunity to kind of snatch back. I wouldn't say that this ballot measure is reparations, but I would say that a lot of people in Detroit are like finally something I can do.
Speaker 3:You know, reparations is repairing harm, and so it is a repairing of some harm done by systems that benefited some people. Because also, the reason that we're starved for resources is all of the tax cuts to the rich, all of the tax cuts to the business that took place under Rick Snyder and have taken place even under John Engler, the succession of tax cuts which have starved our systems, institutions, of resources, whether it's the roads and institution, or whether it is roads and bridges, or child care, monitoring or public health.
Speaker 3:All of our institutions get starved of resources when we have government funding cuts, and we're seeing it at a national level right now, but it's been going on through most of my adulthood. Really, it started in the 1980s under Ronald Reagan and it's been continuing since this diminution of government and the governmental role, and now we're running into a concern where we cannot actually fund schools and roads and we're trying to figure out which one matters Right.
Speaker 4:Right, yeah, I mean, it's interesting. I would love to hear what you've been hearing out in the street talking to the public collecting signatures.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I mean honestly and truly. A lot of times I don't even get to make it through my spiel before they're like, yeah, give me the clipboard. You know I'm like, hey, do you have time to talk about schools? This is where the money would come from. Oh, yeah, hand me that clipboard. You know, sometimes we hear excuse my French, hell, yeah, tax the rich. People are like down with. Sometimes they see my shirt which says fund schools to tax the rich, protect democracy, and they want to sign just based off my shirt.
Speaker 5:I think a lot of the questions that we get really are under this narrative that we have been harmed by a system so much that people are like how do we know that this money will come to Detroit? Right, a lot of people want to make sure that we will see this money and I think that's accurate because you know the state has done us dirty before. But in Detroit and even I've been to Nile Ferndale and I've been to Southfield collecting signatures and overwhelmingly I've gotten a lot of support. Definitely, we were at the Ribs and Soul Fest. That was our first day collecting signatures and it was so much fun being out there, because there are people you know from Flint. There were people from all these places that also can align with Detroit in a lot of ways, because their school districts and a lot of their resources have also been starved and it's kind of like that finally moment. Like I said, you know being at the Ribs and Faults Soul Fest.
Speaker 3:Collecting signatures from all those different jurisdictions. That creates a problem, right? Because I learned I had to go through training, like everybody else, to be a petition gatherer, where some of these problems come in. How did you manage collecting signatures and people from different?
Speaker 5:counties, yeah, you know. So we always have folks go out with like five to ten sheets because you want to make sure you have a sheet for every county. It's really a lot. We had about ten volunteers out at a time, so we had a table. People could walk up and sign at the table, but we also had the volunteers just out in the crowd talking to people while they're in line, you know, while they're sitting around, while they're eating, and it's really it starts with a conversation.
Speaker 5:You want to make sure that you know what county they're in and that they are registered to vote in that county. Because we know Detroiters, we move here, we move there. I don't know where I'm registered to vote. That's kind of a problem that we've been running into. Also, people who just aren't registered to vote, which was really means for some good conversation, because I'm like well, wouldn't you want to vote on this next year? You have this opportunity, so definitely a good opportunity to talk to people about that. Also, you know people be a little lit at Ribs and Soul Fest and so you want, like let me write, let me watch what you're writing to make sure that you're not signing where you print, printing where you sign putting your birthday where today's date is, those kinds of things.
Speaker 3:How many signatures did you all get? Do you have an?
Speaker 5:estimate. You know what? At Ribs and Soul Fest we got about 500 signatures. Just in that weekend I think we were out there all three days. We got about 500 signatures. That's awesome. How many signatures do we need? We need 700,000 signatures across the state. That number does include like a margin of error, because we really need 460,000, but sometimes people sign twice, sometimes they're not registered to vote, sometimes we can't use their signature, so that 700,000 number also accounts for just any mistakes that people make. And when do we need to complete this? So we have 180 days, which means we have until about February, because we started in August, and then we'll go before the Board of Canvassers and hopefully we get a bunch of votes. Yes, by the time it's November next year.
Speaker 3:Well, you know, when you have 700 plus thousand signatures, the will of voters. And if the Board of Canvassers does not rule in our favor, what's the appeals process? If the Board of Canvassers does not rule in our favor, what's the appeals process?
Speaker 5:If the Board of Canvassers does not rule in our favor, we go to the Michigan Supreme Court. We're very confident in the Board of Canvassers ruling in our favor, but if not, the Supreme Court definitely will. This is something that the abortion ballot measure saw when they were first working. They had to go forward with an approval they already got and then go to the Supreme Court. But the Supreme Court literally looked at the recording. Yes, y'all did get approval of the exact hundred words. It was a technicality, since the summary was originally approved, and that is what you canvassed with. You guys are good.
Speaker 3:Okay, so we went back to the original language. Yes, because we couldn't get them to adopt modified language, which was modified to try to appease these people who were going against us, and so now we're going forward with language that they objected to, not because we refused to sign. I'm excited about this process and I think it speaks to something, and we're going to take a minute and we're going to pivot right from this conversation to a broader conversation about democracy, of course, because a ballot initiative is the purest form of democracy in our nation right now. In a ballot initiative, people get a say in what government does, and there's so few instances where people do the interesting thing On some of these matters. If you do polling, you can find out that people agree on a bipartisan level. That's why an abortion measure can move forward with such strong support at the state level.
Speaker 3:Or, you know, the Voters, not Politicians. Initiative, the voting what was that? I should know this because I'm on the board of that organization also. But that initiative the Rank my Vote, rank my yeah, that went forward. The petition that expanded voters' rights, the days in which people can vote and easy registration those things all got I think that was Prop 2.
Speaker 4:Prop 2, yeah.
Speaker 3:Thank you, I remember the content but not the names of some things. I don't remember the name of it either, and easy registration those things all got-. I think that was Prop 2.
Speaker 4:Prop 2,? Yeah, thank you. Yeah, remember the content, but not the names of some things. I don't remember the name of it either. Right, the name, the actual name of it. I know it was Proposal 2 on the ballot but, they did have a name, sorry when you look at people.
Speaker 3:when you look at Michigan citizens, I think that there is a belief in that doesn't always roll up into partisan politics when we vote for people, so I'm excited about using more direct democracy.
Speaker 5:I totally agree. I think one thing that we've been out there because sometimes you know, people have a little bit of sympathy for rich people here and there, and how I challenge people is well, you signing this, isn't you voting yes? This is you saying that the people of Michigan should get the opportunity to vote on this, and if you want to vote no in November, or if you want to learn more about it, but I think people really appreciate that this is an opportunity to say yeah, I do want to see this on the ballot, I do want the opportunity to make this informed decision about if we should do this or not, and so I totally agree. I think it's also just I'm hoping something that will excite people to get them to the ballots next year, because everybody ain't excited about a gubernatorial election. Some people are, but everybody isn't. Some people, though, will be really excited about something that could raise money for their schools.
Speaker 5:It was promote the vote was the name of the project.
Speaker 4:There are so many factors of ballot initiatives, proposals, when you are a member of the public signing them, be sure to know that. Not invest in my kids, but ballot canvassers are able to legally lie to you and I've watched it in real life. Oh yeah, you remember. Let my Kids Learn.
Speaker 5:I think so.
Speaker 4:It was a voucher scheme that was supported by DeVos.
Speaker 5:Yes.
Speaker 4:Do you remember Secure my Vote? Yes, it was a voter protection effort backed by Republican voter fraud believers, and I would watch some of those canvassers go into barbershops and say Secure my Vote is going to make it easier for black people to vote, which you know its opponents would say it would be the exact opposite. I would watch, as you know, the let my kids learn. Folks would say this is going to, you know, give resources to underprivileged kids, whereas the opponents of that measure would say the exact opposite.
Speaker 3:You're raising a really, really good point, because when I look at threats to democracy, one of them is distortion of truth. It's the absolute number of lies that are out there about things, and the way that people who are trying to take away liberty are able to frame their oppression is problematic. We have a responsibility to educate voters and anytime you sign a petition, you have a responsibility to read and listen to and try to understand it. If I don't understand a petition, I won't sign it. I'm not going to read, and actually in the training I went through, we're supposed to make sure that we are giving people that information, not just letting them see our t-shirts, but also making sure people understand that they're giving informed consent to what they're being asked to sign. But you're right, there are always going to be cynical people who are using this mechanism to take away people's rights.
Speaker 5:Yeah, and I think, too, that's why we're so excited and hopeful about having volunteers, because I think a lot of that, too, is like when you're getting paid to do something, you're like I'm just trying to get as many signatures I'm supposed to get today that I'm getting paid for. Um, but with us having this, be you know, we have parents outside, we got teachers outside, we got Donna outside collecting signatures. It's this idea that the people that are doing this really believe in it, and so they want to understand it, and they want you to understand every aspect of it. If I walk through this packet of things that we give everyone, you know, before they pick up their petitions we've got talking points, we've got FAQs, we've got QR codes, we've got videos they could watch. We really want people to know, fully understand, where is this money coming from? Where is it going to?
Speaker 3:We don't want to hide the wheel. One more thing, though we have the right to go to Board of Canvassers meetings and challenge the language on petitions. We don't always do that. If somebody's putting deceptive language least the language is pure, simple and says what it intends to say is super important. So I'm really glad you brought that up, Sam, because you see a dark side of things. I usually just walk away.
Speaker 4:I mean, it is something else. Jocelyn Benson, the secretary of state of Michigan, used to quote tweet me back when before she was running for governor, and the tweets that she would engage with were oftentimes the tweets calling out nefarious behavior and legislation that she would vocally support, which I do not believe was ever passed by Republican-controlled chambers. That would have been a Republican-controlled house at the time. But there was legislation. I think Mallory McMurrow introduced legislation to prevent lying to the public.
Speaker 3:That's another ballot initiative, though right Truth in petitioning or something like that.
Speaker 4:We could do that. You can do whatever you want. Also, the legislature's right to adopt and amend, and completely gut.
Speaker 3:Well, they can't amend a constitutional amendment.
Speaker 3:They cannot unless we have a con-con, unless we have a constitutional convention, exactly, the difference between a law and a constitutional amendment is that a law can be changed. We saw that happen with emergency management right, and what they did was after the Public Act 4, I believe, was passed where Michigan residents well, I'm going to get these numbers mixed up again but the state of Michigan, under Rick Snyder in his first term, passed legislation to make emergency, strengthen the emergency manager law, to give emergency managers more power, and voters went to the polls and rescinded that legislation. And then the legislature passed that legislation again, but they added a revenue portion to the item and voters cannot rescind legislation with revenue attached to it. And so it's important that we understand that, that when it's legislation, it's easy for the legislature to subvert the will of voters. And then they passed Public Act 436, which is the existing emergency manager law. I think, and that's the one that strengthened the hand of emergency manager, Voters have not gone to the polls and said let's come up with a constitutional amendment that stops that from happening.
Speaker 3:But we could. I think we got discouraged from that and gave up after that fight. But when you look at the way that government can subvert the will of voters, that elected officials can subvert the will of voters. The promise of democracy is that elected officials are acting on the will of voters, but we have public officials who intentionally subvert the will of voters on a number of bases. Whether it's gerrymandering, which is happening right now all over the nation, I think California is going to fight back with more gerrymandering.
Speaker 4:That was just Gavin Newsom trying to appear on my Twitter screen there talking about the effort against Greg Abbott in Texas.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean with this gerrymandering, and I'm reading this book, a lot of books on this issue, so that I can be more aware of the intentional denial of democracy and how it's done.
Speaker 3:It's not this emotional thing that happens when people are sitting in dark rooms plotting the weakening of our voices. And so when you talk about when you graduate from high school and you got a return of an elected board and your classmates many of them did not understand why it was so important you didn't understand why it was so important to have an elected board. What that tells me is that your classmates did not understand the significance of democracy, that we raised a whole generation of people believing democracy was not that important because it can be taken away. It can be given back. We had it taken away in Detroit. There were celebrations in our newspapers about how Detroit was fixed, and then it's given back, but you never forget that was taken away. The threat never goes away. In fact, when the Charter Commission Revision Commission came to pass this last charter revision, what year was that? 2022?
Speaker 5:I think something like that, something like that.
Speaker 3:The pandemic has thrown off my timing too right.
Speaker 5:I know the timing.
Speaker 3:I was sometime around that but the Charter Revision Commission came together and made recommendations I don't know if you remember this, the feedback that people got and the reason that people a lot of people didn't support it was because of the fact that they were told that we might get emergency management back if people voted for this, because it violates state law and you might have emergency management come back. There was a time when I was young where people were not afraid to defy the state. Now there's this fear that if we defy the state, the state will simply take away the power of voters once again and it makes voting seem less sacrosanct than it used to.
Speaker 5:Yeah, and I think about it all the time. Like people always say, oh, we're the parents, they're not at the school board meetings. But this, this generation of parents, their parents couldn't go to school board meetings like that was not a staple in the community going to school, couldn't go to school board meetings Like that was not a staple in the community going to school board. There was no school board. And so it's also a rebuilding on the inside that I think and I'm hoping this ballot measure can do.
Speaker 5:Like it's about the money, but it's also about the community that we're trying to build and this idea and this narrative that it is on all of us to fix this education system. We're not putting it on the governor, we're not putting it on the state legislature, we're not putting it on the mayor, we're putting it on the community. We are getting outside and we're saying this is what it's going to take to fix our schools and it's everyone's duty to play a role in getting us there. Whether it's getting outside collecting petitions, whether it's signing a petition, whether it's making sure that your kid is getting to school every day, whether it's being the transportation to and from school on the block, transportation to and from school on the block. We're trying to get back to that idea of it takes a village and we all should see every child as our own, because this city, the city, needs that, the city needs people, every person, to believe that it is our duty to invest in the children.
Speaker 3:The city needs that, the entire state needs that. People all across the state are dealing with educational shortfalls and challenges. I want to pivot for a minute, though, because my colleague here, sam Robinson, was one of the first people, the first one I saw, to report a new endorsement this morning and he said listen, I'm the first, so go ahead and claim it, sam.
Speaker 4:Mike Duggan endorsed Mary Sheffield this morning on Burlingame Street and it was an interesting coronation appointment. I guess the critics of Mary Sheffield thus far have been sort of patiently waiting for this to happen. I was sort of unsure whether it would. Obviously Duggan is in a unique position running as an independent. The first question I had to Mary I asked her the first question in the scrum was does this mean that you're going to be returning the favor and endorsing Duggan for governor? She said she didn't say no. She said you know it's a year away.
Speaker 4:And once it's appropriate to do so, I will consider that race, you know, quite important to the city of Detroit. Who is the governor of Michigan? If she were to do that, she would be blacklisted from the Michigan Democratic Party. Curtis Rattel. Last night, after Duggan announced that more than 200 local leaders from across the state, republicans and Democrats, would be endorsing him, curtis Rattel told the Detroit News I look forward to those lawmakers' independent campaigns.
Speaker 3:You know, listen, I'm not defending Mike Duggan because I have my own issues with his leadership, because I have my own issues with his leadership. I'm on issues with him running as an independent.
Speaker 4:But can we have a conversation about the Michigan?
Speaker 3:Democratic Party and the failure of the Michigan Democratic Party to address and protect the needs of people who consider themselves Democrats. We need change in so many ways, and if Mike Duncan was running as an independent because he wanted to be part of that change, that would be one thing, but it seems like he wants to be an independent so that he can be this. He can court conservatives. Yeah, he can court conservatives and be a centrist.
Speaker 5:And keep Detroit too Exactly.
Speaker 3:Centrism is the enemy of justice to me in a nation like this. So you know. But, curtis Hertel, come on now. We need more balance.
Speaker 4:They're focused on Duggan and I just envision.
Speaker 3:But they're focused on Duggan. But Jocelyn Benson just got outed as somebody with a history of racism in office and I've heard rumors about that from people who I know and love for years To have this come out in a news report. You know there's going to be more. If Mike Duggan's biggest competition is a woman who people believe to be racist, black people will not vote for her. Okay is so. You have john james, who is leading the pack on the republican side, jocelyn benson and mike duggan. I don't know that mike duggan has a pathway to victory, but I know that jocelyn benson has a pathway to failure and I do know that the Democratic field needs to be opened up and more. It feels as though there's always this favorite candidate that comes out before we even get to the point of giving voters opportunities for input, and she's favored by so many people. And it scares me because, sam, you predicted not long ago that either John James or Mike Duggan was going to be governor.
Speaker 4:Well, there's just not going to be a Democratic governor next year. I don't think it's possible, because you'd be defying the 40-year history of the fact that there has never been a 16 or 12-year, even consecutive party streak in the governor's office.
Speaker 3:History gets changed.
Speaker 4:It does so it's likely it could change this year, with Mary in the mayor's office.
Speaker 3:But the thing is that history could change. It could.
Speaker 4:And Jocelyn could be the one to do it. I don't question her ability.
Speaker 3:I do Because I question her ability to address longstanding feelings in many communities that she's racist. You have a mayor who has led the largest black city and he's gotten all of these endorsements and you're going up against him and John James that he can peel away enough votes to shrink her campaign unless she comes out and deals with it. Other than you know. We paid off but there's no admission of guilt. We got to do more than that because there's a loss of faith.
Speaker 4:There hasn't been a lot from Jocelyn Benson or John James' campaign. Really this much. There's not much for either side to talk about. I mean, unless you're going to be battling Doug in the year early, right, obviously he gets to miss the primary. Garland Gilchrist and Chris Swanson are just seemingly so far behind of Jocelyn Benson, and on the other side it's really going to be a battle between what I see is Cox and John James, who is unpopular to the president, who wants John James to remain in Congress. Trump will during press conferences say I'm not sure if I like that you're running for governor. We're going to see more Republican candidates, obviously Eric Nesbitt, tom Leonard as well.
Speaker 3:We are, but right now he's far ahead in the polls, and so is.
Speaker 4:Benson, he is.
Speaker 3:And I think that the reality is. The reality of 2024 is, if you're going to attract more young votes, if you're going to attract more black votes, if you're going to attract more voters who don't trust in democracy, you're going to have to run on issues that resonate with people, Absolutely in this next gubernatorial election, unless the Michigan Democratic Party decides to grow. You know, because you look at the popularity of Mondami, you look at the popularity of certain Democratic socialists and it's a whole lot different. We do have to wrap up, but I just do want to talk about that endorsement. What does that mean to you, Imani?
Speaker 5:The endorsement for Mary Sheffield from Mike Duggan. What does that mean to me? I honestly was not too surprised about that. I think especially we were talking about like when you get 52% of the vote kind of just makes sense. It's like it makes sense especially. I think we've always heard that they have been like kind of two peas in a pod.
Speaker 5:I think I'm really excited to hear Mary Sheffield talk more about schools. I think I'm really excited to hear Mary Sheffield talk more about schools. I think I'm really excited to see if she will endorse investing in my kids. I think I'm really thinking about you know, one of our thoughts at 482 Forward is how do we make this mayoral election about schools? Because what we know is that schools impact neighborhoods and neighborhoods impact schools. When a school closes, a neighborhood changes and when a school opens up a really good one, the neighborhood is great. Like, look at Midtown, look at where Palmer Park is, look at where Cass is and then look at where Osborne is, look at where Pershing is Great question Will she support investing in schools?
Speaker 3:I don't think it's safe or even fair to say there are two peas in the pod.
Speaker 3:If there were two peas in the pod, he would have endorsed her out the gate. The reality is that Mary Sheffield is the city council president, but if you look at city council as a whole, city council as a whole has supported a lot of what Mike Duggan has supported. Mary Sheffield has been very publicly vocally in opposition to some of what he has supported and I've been at those tables For example, the property tax appeals process where she led the process against the advice of his corporation counsel, and there's other examples that we don't have time to get into now.
Speaker 4:They both acknowledged that. Mary said I'm going to do different things than Duggan. Duggan acknowledged that we have a very different style. She's going to make decisions differently than I will.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean beyond style, substance, and I will say this having a black woman lead the city of Detroit. As a black woman who grew up in the city of Detroit and has looked for that kind of leadership, you cannot convince me that she will be as distant from the issues in the hood, the issues that are impacting people, Because when you have family members here, when you grew up here, your relationship to the city is different, and so I have confidence that if she becomes mayor, she will be better than Duggan. I have confidence that if she becomes mayor, we're still going to have to be in the streets doing what we do to make sure that our interests are protected, Absolutely All right.
Speaker 3:So I do have to sign off Any last words.
Speaker 4:It's a beautiful day.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I mean invest in my kids. Sign a petition if it comes near you.
Speaker 3:And you know, if you don't know where to find out, come to ECN. We will have petitions available for you to sign. We look forward to getting support from everybody who believes that voters should be able to determine what happens in our democracy. Absolutely All right. Talk to you soon no-transcript.
