FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: David Holtz,
(517) 999-3646
Thursday, Jan. 6, 2011
LANSING – Citizens group Progress Michigan today criticized the selection of Maura Corrigan as director of the Department of Human Services, pointing out the former Supreme Court justice’s rulings and actions that put ideology before children, consumers and the Great Lakes.
“As a justice of the Supreme Court, Maura Corrigan put large corporations and extremist ideology ahead of the safety and well-being of consumers and children, and there is no reason to expect that she will exercise her misplaced priorities as director of the Department of Human Services,” Progress Michigan Executive Director David Holtz said. “Michigan families are struggling in tough economic times, and they deserve a champion for ordinary families, not corporate special interests.”
As a justice, Corrigan has sided against families and consumers repeatedly, including:
- Overturning the Michigan Environmental Protection Act of 1970, ruling that citizens do not have the right to hold big polluters like BP and Enbridge accountable when their actions pollute our lakes and rivers. Even after the oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico and here in Michigan, Corrigan refuses to hold these companies accountable for their pollution. Instead, she wants taxpayers to pay to clean up the oil companies’ mess.
- Ruled to overturn decades of precedent by throwing out a case involving a woman from Flint who was raped and murdered, ruling that the woman’s daughter could not have a trial because she did not ask for it within three years of the murder, even though police did not solve the crime for 16 years.
- Pressuring Washtenaw County in 2002 to put a stop to adoptions of children by same-sex couples, ending a system that helped put children into loving homes with two parents (Detroit Free Press, 6/10/2002).