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| Leon Drolet |
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| Candidate for |
Michigan State Senate District 11
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| Party | Republican |
| Prior offices |
| Michigan House of Representatives |
| 2001-2007 |
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Leon Drolet was a
Republican candidate for
District 11 in the Michigan State Senate in the
November 2, 2010 state legislative elections.
Drolet's political experiences include being a ballot activist in Michigan, Macomb County Commissioner from 2007-2009, and formerly a Michigan State Representative from 2001-2007.
In late 2007 (after Drolet's term expired through term limits on January 1, 2007), he formed a group called the Michigan Taxpayers Alliance shortly after the Governor and legislature passed a large tax increase. The group's mission was to protect taxpayers and its first efforts referred to Michigan's 1983 history of recalls following a tax increase. Drolet's group used a lapel button with the simple words, "Recall 1983," to evoke that history and imply the threat of a 2007-2008 recall. Drolet then threatened to recall any legislator who voted yes for tax increases and received considerable media attention as a result. By the time his citizen groups started actually organizing petition gathering, the scope of the recall dropped from about a dozen legislators to three. Eventually, resource constraints and difficulties caused by "blockers" caused Drolet to focus soley on a petitition recall of Speaker of the House Andy Dillon. In May 2008 Drolet's group turned in thousands of signatures more than required but was disqualified because many signatures were collected and circulated by non-residents of the district, and disqualified under Michigan law. After a federal lawsuit determined the residency requirement to be unconstitutional, the recall vote was rescheduled for the same election in which Dillon was to be re-elected, rendering it mostly moot (while it was possible to vote to recall Dillon and re-elect him simultaneously, he would have been removed from office a mere few weeks, and the political reality was that the delay had drained the anti-Dillon movement of all momentum).
Drolet was also associated with successful Proposal 2 (2006) Ballot Initiative ending types of "affirmative action" giving "preference" based on race or gender. He also is known for co-chairing the Michigan Civil Rights Amendment, Proposal 2 (2006) (MCRI) Committee, which successfully passed Michigan's Proposal 2 of 2006 in November 2006 after a three-year struggle to get on the ballot and survive various legal challenges. MCRI ended race and gender-based preferential types of affirmative action in government hiring, education, and contracting, although federal litigation is still pending even as of December 2009.
Elections
2010
- See also: Michigan State Senate elections, 2010
Drolet was defeated by Jack Brandenburg in the August 3 Republican primary.
References
