Support For Carl Levin Recall Effort Grows. Challenge Deadline Passes

Opponents of the indefinite detention provisions of the National Defense Authorization Act continue to circulate petitions to recall Senator Carl Levin. The effort has recently captured the attention of a national organization called People Against

Detroit, MI (I-Newswire) July 20, 2012 - Opponents of the indefinite detention provisions of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) continue to circulate petitions to recall Senator Carl Levin. The effort has recently captured the attention of a national organization called People Against the National Defense Act (PANDA). PANDA has placed an alert at the top of their webpage which links to a message in support of the Committee to Recall Carl Levin.

The petition language was approved by default on July 4th, The reason cited for the recall was,

“He co-authored and introduced an amendment regarding detention provisions (Subtitle D Section 1031) to S.1867 (the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012). He voted in favor of the final version (H.R. 1540) which contained the detention provisions in section 1021.”

On July 14th the deadline for Levin to challenge the language of the petition passed in accordance with section 168.952 (6) of Michigan election law.

At the July 18th Oakland County Commission meeting, co-sponsor Scotty Boman received a round of applause after announcing the petition to attendees. Boman was among several activists who were attending a meeting to support a resolution being presented by District 6 Oakland County Commissioner Jim Runestad. The Runestad resolution calls on the Oakland County to condemn the NDAA detention provisions, and make their disapproval known to the President. Furthermore the resolution says,

“…that all agencies of Oakland County are instructed to decline requests by federal agencies acting under detention powers of Sections 1021 and 1022 of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 that could infringe upon residents’ freedom of speech, religion, assembly, privacy, rights to council, or other rights not here explicitly enumerated as well as their safety from harm committed by politically powerful enemies of the Constitution.”

Petition sponsors cite Levin’s pivotal roll in provisions they describe as “de facto martial law,” as their reason to initiate the recall effort. The recall will require 468,709 signatures. On July 3rd Boman said, “Warren and I can’t do this on our own. We can get this started with a build-it-and-they-will-come approach. In 2008 1,810,234 people voted against Carl Levin. We need to have about a quarter of these people sign the petition, and a much smaller portion to step up and be activists.”

Sponsors of the effort are counting on volunteers downloading petitions from their website and circulating them independently. Co-sponsor Warren Raftshol said, “We are building an internet campaign via Facebook, and these petitions are legal and official. I invite people to forward the link to Carl Levin's Facebook page and tell him they object to NDAA detention.”