Snyder officials inoculate state from Flint water suits

[riversedge]

Source: The Detroit News



Snyder officials inoculate state from Flint water suits
Chad Livengood, Detroit News Lansing Bureau 12:45 p.m. EDT September 19, 2016
flintwater0126

(Photo: David Guralnick / Detroit News)

Lansing — Gov. Rick Snyder’s administration quietly inoculated itself from being sued by Flint over the city’s lead-contaminated water crisis by requiring that litigation be approved by an oversight board stacked with gubernatorial appointees.

The Flint Receivership Transition Advisory Board passed a resolution on March 31 eliminating the city administrator’s ability to initiate litigation without first getting approval from the board.

Flint’s Receivership Transition Advisory Board, or RTAB, was put in place to have veto power on budgets after the city’s last emergency manager left town in April 2015. The panel’s members are all appointees of Snyder.

The board’s action came seven days after the city of Flint filed a notice in the state Court of Claims preserving its right to sue the state over the city’s water becoming contaminated with toxic lead.....................

Read more: http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/michigan/flint-water-crisis/2016/09/19/lawsuit/90695032/

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Can this even be legal?????

[sakabatou]

1. I have no idea

[bucolic_frolic]

2. Right to Lifers poisoning politics as well as people

If they only have power over budgets ... who knows

Does the city administrator need permission to sue, or permission
to solicit the funds to sue?

Those seem two separate things to me

[George II]

3. Probably not legal, and DEFINITELY not going to protect anyone from Federal charges.

[democrattotheend]

4. Yes, under the 11th amendment

A state can only be sued if it consents to be sued.

[tclambert]

6. Holy crap. I thought you were joking until I looked it up.

So what's your recourse if the State poisons your children?

[meow2u3]

10. But that only applies to out-of-staters and foreigners

[tclambert]

5. Ask for the suit anyway. Get the board on record denying it.

That should raise an outcry.

[TheDebbieDee]

7. Well, the gun manufacturers have inoculated themselves against lawsuits...

Why wouldn't these negligent, murderous troll republicans running the state of Michigan do the same thing?

So, you can poison a city, lay waste to the minds of an entire generation of residents and avoid any and all lawsuits... RepubliCANTs!

[hack89]

8. You can still sue gun manufacturers

There are six specific instances delineated by law.

[ColemanMaskell]

9. Hopefully Federal lawsuits will be brought

For those of you not from around here, the Republicans controlling government in Michigan seem to be willing to do pretty much anything to save money and cut taxes. Any hope for redress will have to come in Federal courts.

The cities in Michigan have largely black populations, while the suburbs and countryside are largely white. Hence racist sentiments can be conveniently disguised in urban vs rural language. The state government has the power to appoint a "city manager" when any city is in financial trouble, and the "city manager" has a great deal of power that the residents of the city have no legal recourse against.

Another example of Michigan at its finest:
An initiative can be placed on the ballot for popular vote, if enough signatures are gathered on a petition. However, such initiatives are barred from influencing appropriations of money. Hence when the Republican legislature passes bills that they know the people would disapprove, they attach some minor monetary appropriation as part of the bill, preventing the people from overturning the law by a ballot initiative.

and so on.

Not all of Michigan's problems are political, of course. But the political landscape is ugly.