Governor Rick Snyder was questioned today by the House Oversight Government Reform Committee as it continued probing the Flint water crisis.
Michigan Radio’s Lansing Bureau Chief Rick Pluta was in Washington for the hearing.
Pluta tells us the Democratic committee members focused on attacking Snyder’s government-as-business approach to governing, and at one point “forced Governor Snyder into a corner, saying, yes, he understands that government is not a business and can’t always be run like a business.”
When asked by New Jersey Democrat Bonnie Watson Coleman whether Michigan’s Emergency Manager Law failed in preventing a crisis, he said, “That would be a fair conclusion.” According to Pluta, that answer was a big deal.
“This is the first time that he acknowledged that there might be shortcomings in the Emergency Manager Law,” Pluta says, “and remember he had to defend not just the law on this, he had to defend the process … The people in Flint have said that this law was forced down [their] throats with no recourse, and the governor is now playing defense on that action.”
Rick Pluta tells us more about this morning’s hearing in our conversation above.
