Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s administration was caught red handed this month attempting a brazen new shakedown scheme, threatening to close small businesses across the state unless they do the bidding of some of Whitmer’s biggest campaign donors.

This column originally appeared in the Detroit News.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs must be held accountable for a brazen and incredibly unethical attempt to railroad a group of workers and small businesspeople with a shakedown scheme straight out of a prime-time TV crime drama.

A Senate oversight committee last week started the process of accountability when they held a hearing on the shocking, state-sanctioned intimidation racket. They’re probing for answers. Michiganians deserve answers from the governor, too.  And when we learn who is behind the appalling scheme, heads should roll.

Turns out Michigan’s public school teachers are big fans of personal freedom, and they’re pretty good at exercising their constitutional rights, too.

In the nine months since Governor Whitmer unveiled her 45-cents per gallon gas tax hike, the legislature has done a tremendous job holding the line. They recognized the damage this wildly unpopular proposal would do to the pocketbooks of Michigan taxpayers and protected them from this pathetically unserious idea.

This column originally appeared in the Detroit News.

Thanksgiving is nearly here. This most nationalist of traditions predates even our nation’s founding. It remains a core value we share: a time of pause and reflection to thrive in gratitude.

Politics, which always lags behind a free-peoples’ culture, took nearly 200 years before it published a proclamation on our “thanksgiving” practice. Eventually, politicians tend to appropriate everything. Amidst the Civil War, the first Thanksgiving proclamation focused on “the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies.”

We’re working hard to hold Governor Whitmer accountable for her broken promises, and it’s getting lots of attention.