Recall Petition OK’d for Schuette’s Handling of Flint Probe

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Lansing, MI — Backers of a petition to oust Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette over his handling of the Flint water crisis investigation got the go-ahead to begin collecting signatures Thursday when the Board of State Canvassers approved the language of the recall petition.

To get the issue on the Nov. 8 general election ballot, backers of the recall have about 60 days to gather 789,133 signatures, and the petition language is good for only 180 days, according to reports from The Detroit News and Detroit Free Press.

The petition language was approved unanimously on a 4-0 vote.

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The petition was presented by Calvin Hodges, of Sterling Heights, who calls into question Schuette’s appointment of Royal Oak attorney Todd Flood to lead the criminal investigation of the lead crisis, which occurred when the city switched its water supply to the Flint River in 2014 while under the control of an emergency manager appointed by Gov. Rick Snyder. 

Flood, a former Wayne County prosecutor, contributed $3,000 to Snyder’s gubernatorial campaigns in both 2010 and 2014, but also gave $1,200 his predecessor, Jennifer Granholm, in 2004-05.

In an interview with the Free Press, Hodges said the $1.5 million contract for Flood and other investigators is “a waste of taxpayers’ money” because investigators are already on staff in his office.  Retired FBI chief Andrew Arena was also named to the special team.

Schuette said when he appointed Flood that he was following a decades-long practice of attorneys general establishing an ethics-based conflict wall between him and his investigation team, and the team defending the governor and state departments against a flurry of Flint related lawsuits.

Flood still reports to Schuette, Hodges said, adding: “It’s political cover.”

In an emailed statement to The Detroit News, Schuette spokeswoman Andrea Bitely wrote:

“Attorney General Schuette believes strongly that it is his duty to protect the citizens of Michigan by thoroughly investigating what went wrong in Flint. The attorney general is not taking this lightly and this investigation will be without fear or favor.”

Meanwhile, the Rev. David Bullock, a Detroit activist, is having difficulty meeting the signature threshhold for a recall petition approved against Snyder earlier this year. Bullock and his supporters have until June 27 to gather about 790,000 signatures.

Snyder has said that all levels of government, including his administration, failed the citizens of Flint, where the switch to the Flint River has also been linked to a Legionnaires’ disease outbreak that killed 12.