Following a divided vote in the Oakland County Board of Commissioners General Government Committee on Monday, May 7 to pass a resolution creating the Oakland County Art Institute Authority — a stepping stone toward getting a funding measure for the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) on the Aug. 7 primary election ballot — the county board is expected to consider the proposal tomorrow, Thursday, May 17. Several commissioners, including Shelley Taub (R-Orchard Lake) and John [...]

A group of legal experts, including a sitting Michigan Supreme Court justice and a U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals judge, and other stakeholders have come out with a series of proposed reforms to the ways the state finances, nominates and oversees the election of state Supreme Court justices. Supreme Court Justice Marilyn Kelly, a Democrat, and Republican 6th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge James L. Ryan helmed the Michigan Judicial Selection Task Force, a [...]

Today, Tuesday, May 15 was the filing deadline for candidates seeking office in the upcoming U.S. House of Representatives; state House of Representatives; Oakland County Board of Commissioners; and local government races. Any race in which more candidates than postions available are seeking party nomination will be subject to the Aug. 7 primary election. Candidates selected by voters in that election will qualify for the Nov. 6 general election contests. In the list below, Republican [...]

A trio of state lawmakers want to clarify the Michigan Medical Marijuana Act (MMMA) by making dispensaries legal, an effort that’s drawing reservations from some local officials who have been grappling with the issue since the MMMA received overwhelming public support by the state’s electorate in the 2008 general election. Although there are no provisions for dispensaries — known as “provisioning centers” under House Bill (HB) 5580, proposed by state Rep. Mike Callton (R-Nashville) — [...]

A local candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives is calling for the impeachment of President Barack Obama. But he’s not a Republican. Bill Roberts, a self-described “LaRouche Democrat” from Redford Township, is looking for election to a two-year term in the new 11th Congressional District, which includes Milford Township and Milford Village, Commerce Township, Wolverine Lake, Waterford Township, West Bloomfield Township, White Lake Township, and Highland Township in the lakes area. Roberts links on [...]

The Republican field seeking the party’s nomination for the new 40th state House of Representatives District — which covers the eastern portion of West Bloomfield Township, in addition to Birmingham, Bloomfield Township and Bloomfield Hills — has grown to four. Bloomfield Hills City Commissioner Mike McCready joins a gaggle of candidates seeking the seat: Oakland County Commissioner David Potts (R-Birmingham), Birmingham Public Schools Board of Education Treasurer Robert Lawrence, and attorney David Wolkinson, who served [...]

With the Tuesday, May 1 filing deadline for most judicial seats in Michigan having passed, several challengers have opted to vie for seats on the bench where incumbents are seeking re-election. Deborah Carley, the division chief for the Michigan Attorney General’s Office Children and Youth Services Division, and William Rollstin, a first assistant criminal attorney in the Michigan Attorney General’s Detroit office, are each seeking one of five seats up for grabs on the Oakland [...]

The state Court of Appeals has declined a request to review the new Oakland County Board of Commissioners district map recently approved by Republicans based on “lack of merit” in the arguments put forward by the county board’s Democratic Caucus in a lawsuit filed in April. What the court’s Friday, May 4 decision effectively means is that, at this time, Democrats are looking at running in a set of 21 county board districts that some [...]

After a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request yielded hundreds of pages of internal e-mails that county Democrats say are tell-tale signs that Republicans’ key motivations behind a controversial new redistricting law were politics, Democrats are making another — but this time broader — request for the disclosure of communications between officials related to the lead up to, and passage of, Public Act (PA) 280 of 2011. According to Frank Houston, chairman of the Oakland [...]

Democrats in the state Senate are asking that lawmakers include gender identity and sexual orientation in Michigan civil rights law. But they face strong opposition in the state’s upper chamber, which is controlled by a healthy Republican majority that balks at the notion of creating additional “protected classes” of citizens. State Sen. Rebekah Warren’s (D-Ann Arbor) Senate Bill (SB) 1063, which has been sent to the state Senate Government Operations Committee, is the latest in [...]