| This isn't about a partisan win, by the way. This is about credible public service and avoiding the taint of turning a simple function of government into a partisan prize. If Johnson wants to retain any credibility, she'll not pursue the matter any further when the written decision, due this week, is issued.
As far as I'm concerned, she's already lost her credibility. Yeah, I know, this is a blog from the other side of the partisan street. But, Ruth Johnson's citizenship question is pretty clearly not about terrors of Canadian voting. It was pretty clearly an attempt to implement legislation before said legislation was passed and signed into law. The rest of what's followed is Ruth Johnson trying to write her own laws. In other words, her own ego is more important than the rule of law. The alternative explanation is that she simply is part of a concerted, unproven conspiracy by Republicans to depress voter turnout this November, and that her citizenship question is for Michigan what voter ID laws have been elsewhere, just a softer version of it. I don't have any direct evidence for any of that, mind you. I do have the circumstanial evidence that a competent administrator attempts to solve real problems based on real evidence. If a competent, non-partisan Ruth Johnson had really wanted to address non-citizen voting, she would have had her data about non-citizen voting ready and available when people started criticizing her. Instead, she waited a month to release it, which suggests that she tried to solve a problem and then come up with the justification for her actions. So, she's either incompetent or corrupt. |
