Late Thursday, Oakland County Democratic Chair, and former Rep., Dave Woodward announced that the party would begin a recall campaign against Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop (R-Rochester) for voting to repeal the state's sales tax on services without acting on a replacement tax.
A spokesperson for Mr. Bishop said of the recall effort: "Bollocks."
In a statement, Mr. Woodward said Mr. Bishop is "steering the state into a brick wall, and people are fed up with his reckless, extremist agenda." Pursuing a policy that calls for more state spending cuts will hurt the state's ability to educate its children and workers as well as keep individuals healthy and safe, he said.
Paperwork to file the recall would be completed over the next several weeks, Mr. Woodward said.
Matt Marsden, Mr. Bishop's spokesperson, said it was outrageous for anyone to respond with a "political gimmick" to efforts by the Senate to get movement on repealing and replacing the services tax. The Senate first sent over to the House a delay on the tax and received nothing back, he said, and then sent the repeal in hopes of getting some action.
"All we're interested in is results," Mr. Marsden said. "The Senate Majority Leader has acknowledged that the governor and the House wants dollar for dollar solution, so be it. Let's see what they propose."
I know this is likely to get flamed by the mainstream media and by pundits who above all cherish stability in government. It's also a fairly popular sentiment that the only appropriate time to recall a legislator is one who's been caught with his hands in the cookie jar (or up the wrong person's skirt), but I can't see much value in stable government that refuses to do anything but things that harm the people it is supposed to represent.
