Posted on 10/16/2002 7:29:14 PM PDT by Dan from Michigan
Granholm says she didn't vote on Proposal A, after all
By KATHY BARKS HOFFMAN
The Associated Press
10/16/02 6:39 PM
LANSING, Mich. (AP) -- Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jennifer Granholm thought she voted in 1994 on the ballot proposal that changed the way the state pays for public schools.
But she acknowledged Wednesday that she did not vote in that March special election. Her opponent, Republican Lt. Gov. Dick Posthumus, had raised the issue Tuesday in Detroit after the pair's second and last debate.
Posthumus, a former state senator who helped shape and pass the ballot proposal that became known as Proposal A, said it was a vote those interested in becoming a leader in Michigan should not have missed.
"My opponent said she supported Proposal A, but the real truth is she never bothered to take a stand on the issue," Posthumus said Wednesday. "When it came time to cut property taxes for homeowners and reform the way we fund our public schools, Jennifer Granholm's silence was deafening."
Granholm, the state attorney general for the past four years, was a prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney's Office living in Huntington Woods at the time of the vote.
Granholm's campaign spokesman said Tuesday that Granholm remembered voting in the Proposal A election. But she said Wednesday she was mistaken when she made that remark.
"I should have voted. There is no excuse for not voting. I regret not voting. I am firmly supportive of Proposal A," she said. "When Dick Posthumus failed to vote in 10 of 16 local elections, he said there was no reason for not voting, and I agree with him."
Those missed elections came during Posthumus' first term as senator from 1983-88, according to The Grand Rapids Press.
A check of voting records by The Associated Press shows that Granholm has failed to vote in seven school elections since 1994. Posthumus has not missed voting in a school, primary, presidential primary or general election for at least the past 10 years.
Posthumus spokesman Sage Eastman said Granholm's changing comments on whether she voted "continues to show that Jennifer Granholm hasn't told the truth when it comes to Proposal A."
"First she said she wanted to tweak Proposal A and wanted to let property taxes go up, and then she said she supported Proposal A. And now we find out she didn't support Proposal A," he said.
"If this is what she was willing to say on this issue, voters have got to wonder what other issues has she done this on."
Granholm has repeatedly denied that she ever said she might allow property taxes to increase if elected.
"I will not raise your property taxes. Let me say that very clearly," she said during the pair's first debate last week in Grand Rapids.
We need to GOTV for Posthumus.
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