The current COVID 19 spike and Corona Capitalism
I work in an adult foster care facility. I have been tested for COVID 4 times already, since we have had both staff and residents who have tested positive. I am considered an essential worker, but that means more often than not, that I am a low-wage worker.
COVID is real and it impacts the most vulnerable in our society, those with disabilities, those experiencing poverty and those who are marginalized because of their race, sexual orientation, even religious status.
In the past few weeks, most of us have been focused on the election, which is understandable, considering how the Trump administration has miserably failed us during the pandemic. However, the electoral focus has also meant that we have not been paying as much attention to the astronomical spike in COVID -19 cases.
From November 1st through November 8th, the State of Michigan has experienced the largest number of COVID 19 cases during a one week period since the pandemic began. The same has been the case with Kent County, which has also had the highest one-week average since March.
Kent County Health Director Adam London was recently quoted as saying, “I think we are very much teetering on the edge of having this out of control.” In the same MLive article, Dr. Darryl Elmouchi, president of Spectrum Health West Michigan, said, “I think unfortunately this was very predictable and very real and, while I think we all hoped we wouldn’t see this, we’re clearly seeing it across our region and our state. And at this point, there’s nothing to tell us it’s not going to keep rising rapidly.”
While it is clear that we are in the midst of a health crisis, due to the pandemic, we are also faced with what some call Corona Capitalism. Corona Capitalism is both a recognition of a failed market-based health care system, along with larger structural realities that are because of a massive wealth gap in our society, White Supremacy, unemployment and underemployment, exploitation, predatory lending and government policies which rewards the super rich and punishes everyone else.
But why are we experiencing a spike in COVID 19 cases right now? There are numerous factors contributing to the current spike. Part of it is related to the push to get students back to school, part of it is a significant portion of the population that continues to refuse to wear masks and social distance, and a large part of it is because of what we already stated, which is Corona Capitalism.
Within the structure of Corona Capitalism, there are two major culprits, policy makers and the business community and their associates. In Michigan, it has been clear since March, which politicians have been most zealous in their push to oppose broad public health policies and to “re-open the economy.” In early April, Rep. Lee Chatfield and Senator Mike Shirkey expressed their frustration over Gov. Whitmer’s stay in place order. The frustration from the GOP politicians led to their eventual lawsuits against the Governor in early May.
As we have noted, Senator Mike Shirkey has also been in constant communication with those organizing the anti-lockdown protests earlier this year. In early October, the Michigan Supreme Court ruled that Gov. Whitmer had gone too far with the stay in place orders, thus limiting what public health officials could do to protect people from becoming infected. Senator Shirkey then began to promote his herd immunity theory, which is a sick and disastrous way of thinking about the expendability of people.
On the business side of things, we have the Michigan and Grand Rapids Chambers of Commerce, who have been pushing to allow companies to resume business as usual, with some protocols in place to deal with COVID. This sentiment has been echoed from policy based groups like the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, the Acton Institute and the West Michigan Policy Forum. In fact, the West Michigan Policy Forum posted on Friday this comment:
As we see a surge in coronavirus cases statewide, we encourage all work to keep Michigan Open Safely together to protect our lives and our livelihoods it is even more critical to do all we can to enforce good safety protocols in our working environments to ensure our hospitals do not become overrun.
Now, it should be noted that the West Michigan Policy Forum and many of its more prominent members are major funders to Senator Shirkey and the Michigan GOP. They have been pushing against broad public health protections that Gov. Whitmer put in place and they have pushed policies over the past decade that has made Corona Capitalism all the more inevitable.
The reality is that the Michigan Legislature will still be under GOP control, which provides them with the ongoing ability to push more Corona Capitalist policies, which will be beneficial to the business community, but will be devastating to the rest of us. We can’t afford to wait for the 2022 election to make changes, so we must resist and organize to oppose the impact of Corona Capitalism in our communities. We must be defiant and resolute in our actions, and we must figure out new ways to take care of each other, especially since we cannot rely on the government or Corona Capitalism.
GRPD moves forward on ShotSpotter technology, ignoring public concerns and minimizing community opposition
Last week, the Grand Rapids Police Department held two town hall meetings (Nov. 2nd and Nov. 5th) centered on the issue of whether or not the GRPD would be obtaining gun shot detection technology from the private company known as ShotSpotter.
Previous to these two meetings, a coalition of community based groups had demanded that the GRPD hold off on these meetings, since Nov. 2nd was the day before the elections, with lots of people involved in last minute campaign work. As it turns out, the Nov. 5th meeting was also highly problematic, in that the federal elections had not yet been decided and the focus of much of the nation was on the outcome of that election.
The community-based coalition that made that demand had sent out a Media Release statement on October 31st, which also included several other demands, which the GRPD ignored.
In addition, the group Defund the GRPD, also sent out an action alert, which provided community members an opportunity to send a message of opposition to ShotSpotter to the Mayor, City Commissioners and the City Manager. I sent one of those message and the only response I received was a short message from a staff person in the City Manager’s office, which said, “On behalf of the City Manager, thank you for your concern. Your email has been forwarded to the Police Chief.”
Dictating the format and the outcome
I watched both of the 90 minute GRPD-hosted forums on ShotSpotter technology and here is what I learned. First, representative from ShotSpotter spent more than 30 minutes presenting information on the technology, with their own spin on what the technology does and doesn’t do. Of course, ShotSpotter wants to sell Grand Rapids this technology, since this is how they make their money. Once the presentation portion had ended, Chief Payne made comments before there was opportunity for the public to weigh in. Chief Payne also put his own spin on the topic, with a more relevant message during the November 5th meeting, which we will get to in a moment.
People could call in to make a comment, ask a question or post comments and questions on the City’s Facebook page. When questions were asked, this provided the representatives from ShotSpotter and the GRPDd even more time to talk, which translated in leaving less than half of the town hall meeting time for public comment. In terms of where people stood on this issue, there was overwhelming opposition to ShotSpotter, compared to those who endorsed it.
When Chief Payne spoke at the November 5th meeting, this is what he had to say (which people can listen to for themselves at the 35:30 time on the video on the City’s Facebook page):
We will find funding for ShotSpotter within our budget. It is only contingent upon City Commission approval. We will have to take this before fiscal and the entire City Commission to get approval, because it is new technology that would come to Grand Rapids and it would have to get approval. Thus, that is why we are holding these town hall meetings and trying to engage the community to be as transparent as we can. I mentioned in my opening that this is not a magic wand that is going to reduce all the gun violence we are seeing, but I do see it as a very important part of everything that is possible for us moving forward in reducing the amount of violence that is occurring within the community.
As many of us suspected, the GRPD had pre-determined that they were going to adopt the ShotSpotter technology, despite going through the motions of so-called community engagement.
Chief Payne also stated that the department would be presenting the idea to the city’s fiscal committee on Nov. 10 to identify funding. It would then go before city commissioners, which of course is this Tuesday. Moving this quickly clearly sends the message that, not only does the GRPD not care what the community thinks, they want to push this through as fast as possible in order to preempt any public opposition.
New Michigan House Speaker, Jason Wentworth, has lots of corporate backing, including the DeVos family
It was announced yesterday, that the new Speaker of the Michigan State House will be Rep. Jason Wentworth, from the 97th District.
Wentworth is former military and a former cop, who was first elected to the Michigan Legislature in 2016. Wentworth won that election with an infusion of $9,000 from the DeVos family and has been bringing in lots of corporate cash every since.
Some of the most notable funders of Rep. Wentworth have been:
- Blue Cross/Blue Shield
- Small Biz PAC
- DOW Inc PAC
- Mortgage Bankers Assoc. PAC
- Huntington Assoc. Good Gov Fund
- Home Depot
- Detroit Chamber
- Ford Motor Co
- DTE Energy
- Altria PAC
- CMS Energy PAC
- Police Officers Assoc. PAC
- Chatfield Majority Fund
If you want to search his voting record, which seems to be consistent with GOP leadership, go to this link.
The Michigan House is still GOP controlled, 58 – 52. Despite Biden winning Michigan, it did not translate into a majority of Democrats in the State House.
Sources used for Campaign Finance data on Rep. Wentworth: Michigan Secretary of State and Michigan Campaign Finance Network.
Echoing the Trump administration, the American Patriot Council is calling for “patriots” to go to Detroit to protest the vote count
On Wednesday, it was reported that dozen’s of Trump supporters stormed the Detroit Board of Elections central counting center, chanting “Stop the count!”
The Detroit Free Press reported that “a chaotic scene erupted outside the vote tally room at TCF Center in Detroit as election officials informed dozens of challengers that they could not reenter the room due to it being over-capacity.” Police were called in response to the rowdy crowd, which pounded on windows and doors while shouting “let us in.”
Not surprisingly, the American Patriot Council posted the following message on their website Thursday morning:
At the TCF Center in Detroit, the APC is calling all patriots to join forces with many other groups in peaceful, vibrant protest of the corruption surrounding our nation’s 2020 election. Bring American flags, patriotic signs, and your voice as we pack the streets with cars and people, willing to stand up for the American right to vote.
This call by the American Patriot Council is consistent with their rhetoric and their actions in Michigan, since they were founded this past March. They were behind many of the anti-lockdown rallies held in Lansing and in Grand Rapids, they have been a major player in the push to have Gov. Whitmer and other state officials arrested for trying to maintain sensible public health policies during the COVID 19 pandemic, all of which helped to create a political climate that led to the attempted kidnaping of Gov. Whitmer by armed domestic terrorists.
In addition, one of the leaders of the American Patriot Council, Ryan D. Kelley, has been at the forefront of opposition to getting rid of the Confederate statue in Allendale, Michigan.
The fact that the American Patriot Council is calling for “patriots” to protest the vote count in Detroit, a city with a majority of Black voters, once again demonstrates their commitment to White Supremacy and bully tactics.
Over the past two weeks, we have posted 4 articles taking a look at how the DeVos family has utilized their wealth during the 2020 Election Cycle.
In Part I of this series, we looked at how two of the companies the DeVos family owns, Amway and RDV Corporation, have provided significant funding to candidates in the 2020 Election.
In Part II, we looked at candidates in Kent County who have received funding from then DeVos family.
In Part III, we looked at how the DeVos family members were influencing electoral outcomes through their campaign contributions at the state level.
In Part IV, we looked at how the DeVos family members were pumping millions into the federal elections through their campaign contributions.
The total amount of money coming from the DeVos family in the 2020 election cycle comes to roughly $12.7 million. During the 2018 election cycle, the DeVos family campaign contributions were comparable, which means that have easy contributed over $20 million during the Trump administration.
Now if there is anything that we have learned about this administration in the past 4 years, we have learned that much of what the Trump administration has been about is the perpetuation of White Supremacy. Now, if we use the definition that is used by the group, Challenging White Supremacy, then that definition would be:
White Supremacy is an historically based, institutionally perpetuated system of exploitation and oppression of continents, nations and peoples of color by white peoples and nations of the European continent, for the purpose of maintaining and defending a system of wealth, power and privilege.
This definition of White Supremacy is the very ideologically driven motivation for the DeVos family’s insertion of millions of dollars in every campaign cycle since the Reagan era, and it is the over-riding factor during the past 4 years of the Trump administration.
Over the past 4 years, we have witnessed the expansion and promotion of mass incarceration, the widening of the wealth gap in the US, the further gentrification of our communities, the growing use of police power to suppress any resistance (especially resistance from the Black community) the xenophobic cracked down on the immigrant community, and the growth of domestic terrorism in the guise of “patriotism.” During the COVID 19 crisis we have seen this administration use White Supremacy to bailout out Wall Street, while throwing crumbs to the millions of Black, latinx and even poor white families that are facing unemployment, eviction, sickness and even death. This is what the DeVos family has been funding over the past 4 years.
Besides the direct funding of the Republican Party during the last four years, the DeVos family has also utilized the following entities to perpetuate much of White Supremacist policies that have been adopted at the federal, state and local level:
Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce, the West Michigan Policy Forum, The Right Place Inc., the Acton Institute, the Mackinac Center, the Michigan Freedom Forum, the Great Lakes Education Project, Grand Action 2.0, Talent 2025 and all of the various family foundations they operation, which we have written about. All of these entities also utilize DeVos family funding and the considerable political influence that the DeVos family has to make sure that policies and practices are in place that are driven by White Supremacy – the maintenance and defense of a system of wealth, power and privilege.
This is what the DeVos family has done for the past several decades and most clearly during the Trump era, the promotion of White Supremacy. Therefore, I ask you how can you even consider defending or supporting in any way the work that is being done in Grand Rapids through the numerous non-profits that that DeVos family contribute to? In addition, how can you support the numerous DeVos created entities that also operated in Grand Rapids, such as ArtPrize, AmplifyGR and Start Garden? The DeVos family bludgeons people with White Supremacy, especially Black people, and then offers entrepreneurial programs, as if to say, “your problems are not structural, you just haven’t been given the opportunity to shine.” This is managerial racism at its finest.
In Part I of this series, we looked at how two of the companies the DeVos family owns, Amway and RDV Corporation, have provided significant funding to candidates in the 2020 Election.
In Part II, we looked at candidates in Kent County who have received funding from then DeVos family.
In Part III, we looked at how the DeVos family members were influencing electoral outcomes through their campaign contributions at the state level.
Today, we will look at their campaign contributions at the federal level.
For this research, we use the data from the Center for Responsive Politics, also known as Opensecrets.org. You can search by zip code or by individual names. What follows is a breakdown of what each DeVos family member contributed to federal candidates during the 2019-2020 Election cycle, including the dollar amount and date. We only include the details on Maria DeVos, just so you can see an example of how many different times a DeVos family member made a campaign contribution during the current election cycle. Imagine someone making that many campaign contributions and at those amounts on a regular basis. These people do live in an entirely different world.
Maria DeVos
$5,600 3/19/2019 Mike Rounds (R)
$5,600 3/19/2019 John Moolenaar (R)
$5,600 3/20/2019 Tim Walberg (R)
$5,600 3/20/2019 David Perdue (R)
$5,600 3/21/2019 Bill Huizenga (R)
$5,600 3/22/2019 Paul Mitchell (R)
$16,000 3/23/2019 Lindsey Graham (R)
$5,600 3/26/2019 Tom Cotton (R)
$5,600 3/26/2019 Dan Sullivan (R)
$5,600 3/26/2019 Joni Ernst (R)
$2,800 3/26/2019 Steven Daines (R)
$5,600 3/26/2019 Martha McSally (R)
$5,600 3/26/2019 Thom Tillis (R)
$5,600 3/27/2019 Mitch McConnell (R)
$5,600 3/28/2019 Cyndy Hye-Smith (R)
$5,600 3/29/2019 John Cornyn (R)
$5,600 3/31/2019 Cory Gardner (R)
$5,600 6/27/2019 Bradley Byrne (R)
$5.600 6/27/2019 Bill Cassidy (R)
$5.600 6/30/2019 John James (R)
$11,200 6/30/2019 Ben Sasse (R)
$5,600 6/30/2019 Shelley Moore Capito (R)
$2,800 9/12/2019 Paul Mitchell (R)
$2,800 9/20/2019 Liz Cheney (R)
$20,000 9/30/2019 Republican Party of Michigan
$5,600 9/30/2019 John Bergman (R)
$35,000 10/1/2019 Republican National Committee
$50,000 10/2/2019 Republican National Committee
$5,600 10/30/2019 Donald Trump (R)
$14,400 12/5/2019 Republican National Committee
$5,000 12/5/2019 Majority Committee PAC
$5,600 12/5/2019 Kevin McCarthy (R)
$75,000 12/5/2019 Congressional Leadership Fund
$100,000 12/9/2019 Better Future Michigan Fund
$5,600 12/13/2019 Shane Hernandez (R)
$125,000 12/19/2019 Senate Leadership Fund
$2,800 12/19/2019 Beth Van Duyne (R)
$2,800 12/19/2019 Genevieve Collins (R)
$2,800 12/20/2019 Esther Joy King (R)
$2,800 12/21/2019 Jessica Taylor (R)
$5,600 3/9/2020 Randy Feenstra (R)
$5,000 3/30/2020 Great America Committee
$11,200 3/30/2020 Fred Upton (R)
$11.200 3/30/2020 Peter Meijer (R)
$2,800 3/31/2020 Braley Byrne (R)
$150,000 6/10/2020 Senate Leadership Fund
$50,00 6/12/2020 Congressional Leadership Fund
$200,000 6/12/2020 America First Action
$40,000 6/25/2020 Republican Party of Michigan
$71,000 6/25/2020 National Republican Senatorial Committee
$50,000 9/25/2020 Republican National Committee
$2,800 9/29/2020 Lisa McClain (R)
$5,600 9/30/2020 Paul Junge (R)
$5,600 9/30/2020 Eric Esshanki (R)
$2,800 9/30/2020 Ashley Hinson (R)
$2,800 9/30/2020 Wesley Hunt (R)
$2,800 9/30/2020 Mario iaz-Balart (R)
$2,800 10/7/2020 Tommy Tuberville (R)
Total: $1,162,000
Richard DeVos Jr $620,600
Daniel DeVos $1,625,605
Suzanne Cheryl DeVos $1,270,100
Pamela DeVos $27,000
Doug DeVos $735,400
When we tally up all of these DeVos family member campaign contributions, we get $5,440,705 for the 2019/2020 Federal Elections. This is what power looks like. This is what money buys. It buys, influence, access, loyalty and policy that benefits their financial an ideological interests.
In Part I of this series, we looked at how two of the companies the DeVos family owns, Amway and RDV Corporation, have provided significant funding to candidates in the 2020 Election.
In Part II, we looked at candidates in Kent County who have received funding from then DeVos family. In Part III, we take a look at how much the DeVos family has contributed to candidates running for state office.
We used Michigan Secretary of State Campaign Finance data to see how much candidates and other groups that influence state office have received from the DeVos family.
There were two State House races in Michigan in West Michigan, where the DeVos family made substantial campaign contributions, in the 73rd an 74th House District races. We included Steve Ehmann again, since he is the Executive Director of one of the DeVos companies, RDV Corp.
Brian Posthumus – GOP candidate running for the 73rd District
- Doug DeVos $1,050
- Maria DeVos $1,050
- Suzanne Cheryl DeVos $1,050
- Pamela DeVos $1,050
- Daniel DeVos $1,050
- Steve Ehmann $1,050
Mark Huizenga – GOP candidate running for the 74th District
- Doug DeVos $1,050
- Maria DeVos $1,050
- Suzanne Cheryl DeVos $2,100
- Pamela DeVos $1,050
- Daniel DeVos $1,050
- Richard DeVos $1,050
People might ask, why on two State House candidates? Again, it is important to make it clear that the DeVos campaign contributions are strategic and not random. The 73rd and 74th State Houses Races are important to win in order to maintain Republican control of the State House. The other issue is that the DeVos family also contributed to the House and Senate Republican Campaign Committees, which in turn, fund state candidates. These PACs make determinations on which state candidates to contribute money to, based on the importance of the race and on how hotly contested they are. This is a dynamic we see at the federal candidate level with the DeVos family, where they are more inclined to contribute to PACs than they are to individual candidates. So, look at how much money the DeVos family members contributed to state races through these two GOP PACs.
House Republican Campaign Committee
- Doug DeVos $83,950
- Maria DeVos $83,950
- Suzanne Cheryl DeVos $83,950
- Pamela DeVos $83,950
- Daniel DeVos $83,950
- Richard DeVos $83,950
- Steve Ehmann $83,950
Senate Republican Campaign Committee
- Doug DeVos $83,950
- Maria DeVos $83,950
- Suzanne Cheryl DeVos $125,925
- Pamela DeVos $83,950
- Daniel DeVos $83,950
- Richard DeVos $83,950
- Steve Ehmann $83,950
The total for the State elections from the DeVos family comes to $1,217,275, and that doesn’t include state races outside of West Michigan. This is the kind of numbers we would expect from the DeVos family, which has been one of the major Republican Party donors across the country and number one in Michigan for several decades. In Part IV, we will look at the DeVos family campaign contributions at the federal level.
One would think that after last weekend, the American Patriot Council would want to write about the so-called Freedom March they held in Allendale, Michigan. They didn’t, probably because once again they were out numbered by counter-protesters, and they failed to rally their base, even though they had been planning these Freedom Marches since August.
Instead of writing about their Freedom March, which was essentially a pro-Trump rally, the American Patriot Council founding fathers decided to write about their “Criminal Watch List.”
The American Patriot Council has now decided to add Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to their Criminal Watch List, because, as they claim, “Facebook has been deleting conservatives and conservative stories in recent weeks.”
First, even to the average Facebook user, it seems pretty clear that “conservative stories” are in abundance. In fact, the Tech Transparency Project did a study earlier this year about White Supremacist groups using Facebook. Here is what they found:
- Of the 221 designated white supremacist organizations, more than half—51%, or 113 groups—had a presence on Facebook.
- Those organizations are associated with a total of 153 Facebook Pages and four Facebook Groups. Roughly one third of the organizations (34) had two or more Pages or Groups on Facebook. Some had Pages that have been active on the platform for a decade.
- Many of the white supremacist Pages identified by TTP were created by Facebook itself. Facebook auto-generated them as business pages when someone listed a white supremacist or neo-Nazi organization as their employer.
- Facebook’s “Related Pages” feature often directed users visiting white supremacist Pages to other extremist or far-right content, raising concerns that the platform is contributing to radicalization.
- One of Facebook’s strategies for combatting extremism—redirecting users who search for terms associated with white supremacy or hate groups to the Page for “Life After Hate,” an organization that promotes tolerance—only worked in 6% (14) of the 221 searches for white supremacist organizations.
- In addition to the hate groups designated by SPLC and ADL, TTP found white supremacist organizations that Facebook had explicitly banned in the past. One known as “Right Wing Death Squad” had at least three Pages on Facebook, all created prior to Facebook’s ban.
Ryan Kelley and Jason Howland, both founding fathers of the American Patriot Council, say that they will be contacting the FBI and the Department of Justice to make formal complaints against anyone who is on their “Criminal Watch List.” The article they posted on October 27th, states that they have already filed complaints against Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. That’s interesting, because it seems that the only recent thing we have heard about the FBI and Gov. Whitmer, was the failed plot to kidnap her by a group of domestic terrorists, some of which have connections to Ryan Kelley and the American Patriot Council.
Ryan Kelley is also quoted in the article as saying that he got some, “criticism recently by far left Antifa and BLM groups for the saving of an historical statue in his home town.” Interesting that he refers to the statue as historical, when in fact it is essentially a Confederate statue that people have been protesting against for months.
Lastly, the American Patriot Council made the claim that the media around the country is noticing their “Criminal Watch List.” The media around the country link they are referring to is a small TV station in Maine, which featured maybe 12 people participating in an American Patriot Council Freedom March.
It would seem that the American Patriot Council is a bit full of themselves, almost bordering on comical narcissism.
DeVos money in the 2020 Elections: Part II – Even at the local level, DeVos money bankrolls candidates
In Part I of this series, we looked at how two of the companies the DeVos family owns, Amway and RDV Corporation, have provided significant funding to candidates in the 2020 Election.
In Part II, we take a look at candidates who have received funding from candidates at the local level, often candidates who are not on the public radar, and how much funding they have received from DeVos family members.
Before looking at the data, it is important that we recognize that the DeVos family does not give money to candidates in a random fashion, rather they are very strategic with their money. It would be easy and a mistake to say that they fund all GOP candidates, but this would be a mistake. The DeVos family funds certain GOP candidates because of the strategic role they play in politics. While we may find the DeVos influence repulsive, they are not stupid.
Kent County Sheriff
In August of 2019, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), ended their 8 year contract with Kent County. This was certainly a victory for the immigrant justice movement, yet some might see this as a tactical decision by Sheriff Michelle LaJoye-Young. The first female Sheriff in Kent County made a decision, after the Jilmar Ramos-Gomez case made national news, to require ICE to have a judicial order to have people detained at the Kent County Jail. What we wrote in August, challenged that narrative, making it clear that the immigrant justice movement, led by Movimiento Cosecha, made the ICE contract public and pressured the county to end that contract. The County would not end their contract and made clear that they would continue to cooperate with ICE officials.
With that context in mind, it was instructive to look and see who some of the big campaign contributors were to Michelle LaJoye-Young. According to the county clerk’s data, the following members of the DeVos family gave money to Sheriff Young’s bid to stay in her position in Kent County:
- Doug DeVos $2,000
- Maria DeVos $2,000
- Suzanne Cheryl DeVos $2,000
- Pamela DeVos $2,000
- Daniel DeVos $2,000
- Richard DeVos $2,000
That is $12,000 that the DeVos clan contributed to Michelle LaJoye-Young’s campaign, and if you include another $2,000 from the Executive Director of RDV Corporation, Steve Ehmann, then that total is $14,000.
Kent County Clerk
Lisa Posthumus-Lyons is running for re-election for the Kent County Clerk position, a position that wields a significant amount of power. According to data from the Kent County Clerk’s office, the following members of the DeVos family contributed to her re-election campaign:
- Doug DeVos $2,000
- Maria DeVos $2,000
- Suzanne Cheryl DeVos $2,000
- Pamela DeVos $2,000
- Daniel DeVos $2,000
- Richard DeVos $2,000
That makes $12,000 that the DeVos clan contributed to Lisa Posthumus-Lyons campaign, and if you include another $2,000 from the Executive Director of RDV Corporation, Steve Ehmann, then that total is $14,000. See a pattern?
Also worth noting is the fact that Peter Secchia contributed $7,100 to Posthumus-Lyons as well.
Kent County Treasurer
The race for county treasurer is also a strategic battle for the DeVos family. The GOP candidate, Peter MacGregor, has been the beneficiary of lots of DeVos money over the years. In fact, as a State Senator, the DeVos family has been the number one campaign contributor to MacGregor, according to the Michigan Campaign Finance Network.
According to the clerk’s data, Peter MacGregor has received funding from the following members of the DeVos family:
- Doug DeVos $2,000
- Maria DeVos $2,000
- Suzanne Cheryl DeVos $4,000
- Pamela DeVos $2,000
- Daniel DeVos $2,000
- Richard DeVos $2,000
The total here is $14,000 from the DeVos family to Peter MacGregor, as he seeks to win the seat for the Kent County Treasurer.
There are also 19 Kent County Commission races, but the only ones we could find where the DeVos family contributed were in 2 races. The first was to Mandy Bolter, who is the current Chair of the Board of Commissioners. This makes sense, again, from a strategic point of view, that the DeVos family would fund her campaign, since Bolter gets to influence the agenda for the county. Here is a list of the eVos family members who contributed to her campaign:
- Doug DeVos $1,000
- Maria DeVos $1,000
- Suzanne Cheryl DeVos $1,000
- Pamela DeVos $1,000
- Daniel DeVos $1,000
- Richard DeVos $1,000
In this race the Executive Director for RDV Corporation, Steve Ehmann, also contributed $1,000, making the total DeVos contributions to Many Bolter $7,000.
The only other Kent County Commission candidate to receive campaign contributions from the DeVos family was Lindsey Thiel, who is currently the commissioner for the 11th District. Only one DeVos family member contribute to her campaign, Dick DeVos, who gave $1,000 to Thiel.
When we add up all the money that the DeVos family contributed to races at the Kent County level, they contributed $50,000 to influence the outcome. This may not seem like a great deal of money local elections, but their contributions as a group were more than any other private entity, with only the Kent County Republican Party contributing more in some of the county races.
Who is bankrolling the Ballot Proposals in Grand Rapids?
There are two groups spending money to convince voters on whether or not to make local elections even years or keep them on odd years, like it is now?
The group that is opposed to Proposal 1 goes by the name, Keep GR Local. Based on the campaign finance data, the group raised $14.178.33 to convince people to vote no. Mayor Bliss contributed $500, former Mayor George Heartwell $100, Current City Commissioner Ysasi gave $150, former City Commissioner Ruth Kelly contributed $100, Steve Pestka $500 and the COO of Rockford Construction contributed $500. However, the bulk of the funding came from the Grand Rapids Area Chamber of Commerce Ballot Question Committee, which contributed $10,000 to this campaign.
On the opposing side there is the group Empower the Citizens, which collected the signatures to put this issue on the ballot. According to the Campaign Finance documents from the Kent County Clerk, they raised a total of $36,000. Some of the largest contributors to this campaign were:
- Bonnie Burke $7,100
- Sidney Jansma $3,500
- Norma Van Kuiken $5,000
- Barbara Gordon $5,000
- Margaret Potter $4,500
- Robert Powers $2,000
- Rev. Robert Sirico $2,000
Jansma is the Chairman of the Board at Wolverine Oil & Gas. Norma Van Kuiken lives in Ada, and has historically contributed to GOP candidates, and the Rev. Robert Sirico is the founder and President of the far right think tank, the Acton Institute.
Seems like there are big bankrollers on both sides, and the biggest are connected to power.
