Up North Progressive
Politics and commentary for Northern MichiganWhy is Democratic Party Member and Former US Attorney Barbara L. McQuade Backing an Independent Candidate for Attorney General?
Friday , 13, July 2018 Candidates, Election 2018, Enbridge Line 5, Gerrymandering The Vote 5 Comments
The Detroit Free Press recently published an article about Christopher Graveline, an independent candidate collecting signatures before the July 19 deadline to appear on the ballot for Attorney General. What is interesting about this Bay City resident’s petition campaign is longtime Democrat Barbara L. McQuade is helping circulate petitions for Graveline.
McQuade is a former US Attorney who worked in the Eastern District of Michigan until she was fired by Trump in 2017. She shortly afterward picked up a teaching job at the University of Michigan. On April 25, 2018, she also became Director of Chemical Bank. Good for her! Remember this little fact, it will become important later.
So why is this former President Obama appointee working against the endorsed candidate for the Michigan Democratic Party of which she is a member?
On April 15, 2018, during a raging ice storm, the Michigan Democratic Party endorsed Dana Nessel for Attorney General. She defeated Pat Miles who graciously conceded the race. If you just crawled out of a cave and have no idea who Dana Nessel is, she’s the attorney who took DeBoer v. Snyder to the US Supreme Court and won the right for same-sex couples to get married in the United States. Despite the bad weather the turnout at Cobo Arena to vote for Dana Nessel was massive. It sent a clear message to the Michigan Democratic Party that Dana Nessel was the clear choice of the people to be the next Attorney General in Michigan.
Pat Miles also had some heavy-hitting supporters going into the endorsement vote. The UAW backed Miles, as well as U of M Professor and former US Attorney Barbara L. McQuade. According to the Detroit Free Press article, there are absolutely no hard feelings about Pat Miles’ loss and her decision to back an independent long-shot for Attorney General; she just thinks Graveline’s well-qualified and would do a good job.
Dana Nessel has 25 years experience and has worked as both a defender and prosecutor. Why wouldn’t Barbara L. McQuade consider Nessel to also be well-qualified to hold the office of Attorney General?
Let’s get back to McQuade’s new gig with Chemical Bank. There are some interesting connections that may cast some light on McQuade’s sudden totally non-partisan interest in helping an independent split the Attorney General race into a three-way fight and potentially hurt Dana Nessel’s chances. Chemical Bank currently holds 13,461 shares of stock in Canadian oil company Enbridge. Enbridge donated $125,000 to the Michigan Chamber of Commerce for – according to Enbridge – fund the fight against a proposed ballot initiative to shut down Line 5 that never even made it to the collecting signatures stage. Now some have suggested that right after this donation from Enbridge the Michigan Chamber of Commerce launched a $135,000 lawsuit against Voters Not Politicians, the organization that just got their end gerrymandering petition initiative approved for the November 2018 ballot. The Chamber says hogwash it’s just a coincidence and Enbridge’s donation is for the Michigan election in general, not directed against any candidate or group’s efforts to win their campaigns.
It’s bad enough to know that a company from a foreign country donates that much money to influence our elections for their benefit. It’s even worse to speculate that a Michigan Democrat supported a candidate who lost their bid to be Attorney General of Michigan might feel the need to help out another candidate who has no chance of winning, but it sure would be great for Enbridge if Dana Nessel didn’t win either.
The two state public offices who have the authority to shut down Line 5 are the governor and the attorney general. All of the Democratic Party candidates running for those two offices support shutting down Line 5. Redrawing Michigan’s gerrymandered districts so that more candidates who support shutting down Line 5 get elected would make stopping Voters not Politicians’ ballot initiative a main priority for Enbridge to donate large sums of money.
Suddenly, Line 5 sure does look like a major issue influencing money and campaigns in Michigan this year, doesn’t it?
Christopher Graveline is well aware his chances of collecting enough signatures in time for the July 19, 2018 deadline are not good. He told the Detroit Free Press he’s put $10,000 of his own money into the campaign and hired a company that collects petition signatures to help him. The only problem with that is it costs a lot more than $10,000 to collect the 30,000 signatures he needs if a private firm is helping him out.
So why exactly is Barbara L. McQuade carrying a clipboard for Christopher Graveline? A possible Chemical Bank/Enbridge Line 5 connection of course is just a coincidence.
Or is it?
Dana Nessel is exactly the person we need to be Michigan’s next Attorney General.
thanks to Richard T. Desvernine Jr. for providing information for this article.
🏳️🌈 DJ Lena 🇯🇲🇳🇬🇺🇸 (@DJ_Lena) says: Actually the Shut Down Line 5 initiative DID get to the collecting signatures stage. It just never took off. I signed a petition and had petitions to gather signatures.
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Up North Progressive says:
Then the news source I read was wrong! Good to know. Hopefully next time you will be successful.
Alex Sagady says: >>>>>The two state public offices who have the authority to shut down Line 5 are the governor and the attorney general.
This widely circulated claim is actually false.
Enbridge Line 5 is an interstate hazardous liquids pipeline regulated by the U.S. DOT Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (DOT-PHMSA). The State of Michigan does not have any authority to shut down an operational interstate hazardous liquids pipeline. Interstate hazardous liquid pipelines are subject to an express federal pre-emption under federal law at 49 U.S.C. Sec. 60104(c).
Democratic candidate for Michigan AG Dana Nessel’s claim that she will shut down Line 5 is an empty promise that she will not be able to keep.
Any attempt to file litigation in state court to shut down Line 5 from the Governor, the Michigan Attorney General or by citizen plaintiffs acting under the Michigan Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Act and the Michigan Constitution will ultimately fail. The reason any such state litigation against Line 5 for shutdown will fail is because of the federal preemption above and the federal supremacy clause of the United States Constitution.
If such state court Line 5 shutdown litigation was filed by any party, Enbridge would file a petition to remove the entire matter to Federal District Court for the Western District of Michigan where any such litigation would be relatively quickly dismissed for lack of jurisdiction under the terms of the federal preemption.
State easement agreements with pipeline companies covering operations, design, inspection, maintenance and pipeline safety — like the one Michigan has with Enbridge covering the Mackinac Straits crossings — are not enforceable as a practical and legal matter. See the case of City of Seattle vs. Olympic Pipeline Company:
https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-9th-circuit/1058087.html
In this case, both Federal District Court and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals found that such easement agreements could not be enforced as to matters of operations and pipeline safety addressing interstate hazardous liquid pipelines.
The entire premise of the anti-Line 5 campaign, of the Democratic Party and of numerous Democratic Party candidates that the State of Michigan has the legal authority and power to shut down Line 5 is without any legitimate legal foundation.
Moreover, all of the claims that the Mackinac Straits segments of Line 5 are at imminent risk of failure are also without any engineering and risk assessment basis…..as found by Oak Ridge National Laboratory in a review requested by DOT-PHMSA:
https://www.phmsa.dot.gov/sites/phmsa.dot.gov/files/docs/Enbridge_Makinac_Straits_ILI_Review.pdf
This entire situation illustrates a quandary for Democrats since the call for Line 5 shutdown is also a call to damage the jobs and interests of hundreds of labor Democrats and their families, including union members from laborers, pipefitters, operating engineers, electricians and others who take care of Enbridge’s pipelines and whose future employment depends on modifications and replacements along the pipeline….just like the Line 3 matter presently underway in Minnesota.
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After the Line 6 disaster 7 years ago in the Kalamazoo River, it’s understandable that a pipeline older than Line 6 can potentially fail and with even more disastrous results. People in Michigan are rightfully concerned about the hazard Line 5 poses to the Great Lakes. According to you, the state advisory board commissioned to make recommendations to the Governor about Line 5 and other oil pipelines can’t make any recommendation to shut down Line 5? There are numerous news articles stating the Governor does have this authority. Why would this board recommend to the governor to shut down Line 5 if the Governor can’t legally do that?
David Light says: This more than proves the need to “drain the swamp,” as has often been said. I have total faith and confidence in Dana Nessel’s ability to fill the demands of the office of AG. She’s a breath of fresh air for a Party that has lost their way and forgotten their purpose, which is to look out for those who haven’t the resources and power to stand up to the moneyed interests that so permeate our political system, or are otherwise disenfranchised by their life choices. Ms. McQuade on the other hand, carries with her more baggage than this article portrays, and the fact that she won’t stand by Dana is all the more reason why the rest of us should.