Front Page

Taking back the power

State-wide tour stops in Houghton

HOUGHTON -- Keweenaw Indivisible hosted 103rd District Representative Betsy Coffia (D-Traverse City) on the Houghton stop on her "Take Mi Power Back" tour. The stop took place at Keweenaw Universalist Unitarian Fellowship in Houghton Monday evening. The state representative said she urges voters to advocate for a political system which will work for them, rather than big money lobbying interests in Lansing.

Coffia said her main message aims to incentivize local residents to advocate for her agenda. "My message is that we need and deserve a government who works for us, not for corporate lobbyists," she said. "Right now, Lansing is unfortunately run by the corporate lobby corps."

Part of her agenda includes a package of bills Coffia said will improve the way government is run in Lansing. "The good news is I got bills for all of this," she said. "They're real things that we can do to fix and think of it as clearing the deck."

Coffia's proposed solution includes expanding FOIA access to the Michigan Legislature and Governor, ending the Citizen's United protections for corporations and her BRITE Act, which would require lobbyist disclosure agreements.

Coffia said she is modeling her anti-Citizens United bill, a 2010 Supreme Court case which allows corporations to donate unlimited amounts of money under free-speech protections, after bills from Montana and Hawaii. "We think we finally found something that will allow us to get at this unbelievably devastating damage that Citizens United has done for politics and our representation," she said.

The Coffia fielded questions from residents which included topics of political collaboration, asking about how deep lobbying runs in Lansing and how Houghton residents can help.

Keweenaw Indivisible founder Rich Canavez asked Coffia what the reception has been from Republicans for her bill package.

"I'm curious," Canavez said. "How are you articulating this need -- what we’re trying to accomplish here -- to the people who are on the other side of the aisle from the vast majority of people from, say an Indivisible group, for example?"

"I have run seven times. This is my eight time," Coffia responded. "If you ask people in my district, I've probably knocked (on) more doors than anybody you'll ever meet... it's really important for me to go and have conversations and knock (on) Republican doors."

After speaking for about an hour she said in order to get these bills passed, she needs grassroots support from regular, working-class community members all across the state.

"You can sign onto our letter. We have an open letter we're going to send out through Keweenaw Indivisible for people to sign on," she said. "It's a letter to our next governor, senate majority leader and house speaker, telling them that we think that the Take Mi Power Back agenda needs to be passed in the first 100 days."

For more information, visit Keweenaw Indivisible’s Facebook page or betsycoffia.com.