Subject:  Statement from Geoffrey |
Author:
Chris
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Date Posted: 10/11/05 7:43pm
In reply to:
Douglas Waggoner
's message, "Fieger for attorney general!!!!!!!!!!" on 10/11/05 5:34pm
SOUTHFIELD, Mich., Oct. 11 /PRNewswire/ -- The following is a statement of Geoffrey Fieger:
During my campaign for governor in 1998, I warned that the state of Michigan had been sold out to corporate interests by the republican governor and legislature. I warned that the so-called Michigan Miracle proclaimed by
the republicans was just smoke and mirrors, underwritten by inflated car sales during the longest national economic boom in our nation's history. I warned that unless Michigan diversified, this state would face economic catastrophe.
During the last 15 years of republican control of this state, our largest cities have been abandoned and left to rot, our roads have disintegrated, our lakes, streams and air have been polluted, our public schools have been de-
funded and we have been left with billions of dollars of debt that Governor Granholm cannot extricate us from. This is all during a time when the rest of the nation has prospered.
Now as I predicted, we are in economic collapse. We have the highest rate of unemployment, our property values are shrinking, and our largest employers are declaring bankruptcy and leaving the state. Tens of thousands of jobs are being lost and lives have been destroyed.
Mismanagement and corporate greed are primary contributors to much of Michigan's economic woes. While the republicans have claimed for years to be cutting corporate taxes to spur development, they knew that the corporations
were simply reaping huge profits with no reinvestment or commitment to our state and its citizens. For 15 years Michigan has been for sale and is now being outsourced.
Historically, the republicans look at government as a cash cow, to milk until dry, with no social conscience.
They cut and run -- just like Delphi is doing now. Leaving retirees and health benefits behind.
Historically, the office of the attorney general in Michigan has been above the political fray, with a long and proud history of fighting for consumers and the common citizen. No more. In just 3 short years the republican attorney general has put the office up for sale in a stench of cronyism with the sale and purchase of political favors. Mr. Cox uses his office exclusively to curry political favor for his future run for governor when he is term limited out of a job in 2010.
At a time when Michigan needs an Eliot Spitzer to root out corruption and greed at the highest corporate levels, instead we have a Ken Lay and Enron attorney general.
In three years Mr. Cox has done nothing to protect the well being of Michigan citizens. At the same time he has enriched himself and his cronies. If the press thinks cronyism is rampant in Washington, what is taking place in Lansing is a hogfest.
Although Mr. Cox's only job was as a low paid Assistant Wayne County Prosecutor less than 3 years ago, he is now awash in millions of dollars of corporate money.
The attorney general is the most frequent litigator before the Michigan Supreme Court. Supreme Court Justices are expected to remain above the fray and scrupulously avoid the appearance of impropriety. Not in Michigan. In an
obvious example of cronyism that smacks of influence peddling, in April 2004, during the last year's Supreme Court race, Cox gave republican Justice Stephen
Markman the biggest donation of Markman's campaign -- $34,000. This is unheard of.
Mr. Markman is a judge who has ruled that grandparents have no visitation rights; that women can be harassed in the workplace on account of their sex; that Michigan citizens have no right to sue drug companies; and that the Great Lakes shoreline should be closed to the public. To give the largest gift ever to a judge who has been the biggest opponent of consumer rights in the history
of Michigan is an outrage -- especially when Mr. Cox knows he will be appearing before him.
Upon leaving the Wayne County Prosecutor's office, Mr. Cox offered top jobs in Lansing to his cronies. Coincidentally, the ones who got the jobs were the ones who gave Cox thousands of dollars out of their meager pay. This is cronyism at its worst. Career people at the attorney general's office have been broomed wholesale and replaced by Cox's paying cronies.
In my lifetime perhaps, we have never had an attorney general who is so antagonistic to the rights of consumers and so in the pocket of the insurance industry and corporations who are destroying this state.
As a result of 15 years of malfeasance by a republican legislature and governor, and 3 years of misfeasance by Mr. Cox, I have been urged, 8 years after my only run for public office, to again stand up for the people of this
state and say what needs to be said.
The people of this state deserve an attorney general who can't be bought and who is not for sale to corporate money or cronyism. The people of the state of Michigan deserve an attorney general who will not willingly allow
public office to be used for political purposes.
Therefore, today, I have authorized the formation of a committee to explore the feasibility of obtaining the nomination of my party as Attorney General of the State of Michigan.
SOURCE Fieger, Fieger, Kenney & Johnson, P.C.
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