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Sinema-like Gabriela Santiago Romero is a failure of council by districts in Detroit [1]

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Date: 2023-08-09

Frustrating U. S. senators like Senator Joe Manchin (D?-West Virginia) and Senator Kyrsten Sinema (I formerly D?-Arizona) don’t just pop out of nowhere. They start somewhere, and maybe they could have been stopped at a lower level.

In Detroit, Councilwoman Gabriela Santiago Romero, representing Detroit’s City Council District 6, has the makings of another Senator Sinema. I hope it doesn’t come to that, but the warning needs to be sounded now, so that she doesn’t move any higher up than City Council.

Sinema has figured out how to say the right things while ignoring her constituents. Romero is learning how to do that, and she’s already quite good at it. That skill should not be rewarded. In this Jacobin article by Andrew Perez and Joel Warner, I see the lessons Romero is learning from Sinema:

Months before Arizonans started filming Senator Kyrsten Sinema repeatedly refusing to answer their questions about her political positions, she told restaurant lobbyists about how important it is for senators to hear what their constituents have to say and for lawmakers to share their positions on issues and their reasoning. “Senators need to hear from their constituents,” Sinema said in April. “Hearing from constituents early and often makes a world of difference. . . . You don’t want to assume that because someone is a Republican or because someone is a Democrat that you know exactly where they stand. They may have a public position on an issue, but it’s also that person’s job to represent his or her constituents. And you can provide them with key information to help them best represent their constituency.” Urging constituents to “be polite,” Sinema continued: “There will be people who agree with you on an issue, there will also be people who disagree with you on an issue. My opinion is that that is normal and that is okay. But it’s always best to have a meeting so folks know what your position is and that you share with them the reason that you have this position. And having that meeting matters regardless of what the person’s opinion is on the issue overall.” Sinema made the comments at the National Restaurant Association’s (NRA) annual public affairs conference, a virtual event designed to help restaurant owners effectively lobby lawmakers. The senator spoke with Sean Kennedy, the NRA’s executive vice president of public affairs, whose wife’s fundraising firm raises money for her campaign and leadership PAC. Sinema had recently helped block $15 minimum wage legislation in March, a key priority for the restaurant lobby.

See. All the right words. All the wrong deeds.

That’s how Romero is going to be with Michigan if she makes it from Detroit City Council to the Michigan legislature, or worse, to the U. S. House of Representatives or the U. S. Senate. Telling lobbyists how important it is to listen to constituents while ignoring those same constituents.

A few years ago, Detroit’s City Council was reorganized by districts. The city would be split into seven districts, each district would have a councilmember to represent them, and there would be two at-large councilmembers. The idea was that it would make City Council more responsive to the people. At least that’s how it was sold.

But nothing in the law requires the district councilmembers to care about the problems of their constituents, or even listen. And the two at-large councilmembers don’t have to care at all, because supposedly their district colleagues are the ones supposedly listening to the constituents.

There is only one issue in which Romero seems to be listening: the problems with the Ambassador Bridge Company. To summarize that issue: imagine that Mr. Burns, instead of owning a nuclear power plant in Springfield, owns an international bridge between the United States and Canada carrying 25% of all commerce among those two countries.

Romero is staunchly opposed to the bridge company’s unchecked expansion on the Detroit side of the bridge.

Or at least she seems to be. I don’t trust her. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least bit if she was actually on the bridge company’s payroll, having been tasked with playing the part of lone opposition on the council.

Romero sure knows how to pander to groups. But when a single constituent talks to her about any other problem, even if it’s about a problem that affects several of her constituents, she doesn’t really listen, and treats the constituent like an idiot.

And yeah, some of the constituents are idiots. For example, at a “coffee and conversation” event, there was this guy, let’s call him “Bolesław Głupiecki,” an old idiot complaining about the “Arabic police.”

And Romero didn’t have the guts to say to Głupiecki “Hey, listen, you idiot, the Detroit Police are going to send whoever they got, they don’t take requests. I get complaints about the police not sending anyone and here you are complaining that they sent officers but they weren’t the ones you wanted.” She didn’t say that. But she could have and it wouldn’t hurt her politically in the least.

If she had said something like that, Głupiecki might have felt hurt. And who cares about one old fool, Romero got elected with 75% of the vote, losing Głupiecki’s vote is irrelevant.

But maybe insulting Głupiecki would have moved the conversation to figuring out what was the legitimate problem he was having and what Romero could do to solve that problem not just for Głupiecki, but also all her other constituents dealing with that same problem.

To be abundantly clear: I think Głupiecki has a legitimate problem. I don’t know what that is. But even if I could figure it out, it wouldn’t help Głupiecki, because Romero doesn’t listen to me either.

Her staff tells me what I want to hear. Yes, the councilwoman thinks the thing I’m talking about is a legitimate problem. Yes, the councilwoman is thinking about solutions to that problem and yes, she will be talking to her colleagues on the council about this problem many of her constituents are having.

But I never hear that straight from her. It’s worthless coming from her staff. Then again, it might be just as worthless coming from her mouth. I have no trust in her and no confidence in her ability to even try to do anything about any problems.

Of course if I was someone like Bill Ford, the great-grandson of Henry Ford, she would treat me very differently. “Yes, sir! That is a problem I will do something about! Your pain ends today!” But because I’m not Bill Ford, she doesn’t care about my pain nor the pain of any of her other constituents.

And she says she’s the Mayor Mike Duggan’s least favorite councilmember, as if it was a badge of honor. What does she get from that? Nothing, other than pandering to her constituents who are dissatisfied with Duggan. I can’t even talk to Duggan and get ignored by him.

Romero probably wants us to think of her as Michigan’s equivalent to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York U. S. House District 14). But Ocasio-Cortez actually has ideas and stands for something other than her own career advancement. And I don’t know firsthand, but I get the sense that Ocasio-Cortez’s constituents feel like she’s listening to them.

In reality, Romero is more like Senator Sinema. Detroit is stuck with Romero until at least 2025, and she might win another term thanks to incumbent inertia. But Michigan Democrats: don’t let her move to higher elected office. Let’s not inflict on the nation another Kyrsten Sinema.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/8/9/2184242/-Sinema-like-Gabriela-Santiago-Romero-is-a-failure-of-council-by-districts-in-Detroit

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