In November, Michigan voters will choose two justices to serve on the state Supreme Court. Michigan Public's Morning Edition is featuring interviews with the six candidates.
Thomas W. Howe is a resident of Fenton and he’s a candidate for the court. He spoke with Michigan Public's Morning Edition host Doug Tribou.
Doug Tribou: Judicial candidates in Michigan are listed without any party affiliation on the ballot. However, parties do nominate candidates for the court, and the U.S. Taxpayers Party of Michigan selected you as one of its two nominees. There are two seats up for election, and there are currently six Democratic nominees and one Republican nominee currently on the court.
To start, tell us a bit about your professional background and why you have decided to run for the court.
Thomas Howe: Well, I'm a 35, or more, I don't know, 36-year engineer for the automotive industry. I accidentally got involved in this probate disaster here in Michigan with my mom and in Genesee County here. And currently right now, I'm trying to unravel it in federal court.
So there's no justice here in Michigan at this point. And the Supreme Court is responsible for all the lower courts and making sure that they operate correctly and constitutionally. And our Supreme Court justice here, Megan Cavanagh, is not doing her job.
DT: The current chief justice of the court.
TH: Yeah. She's been there for eight years. These bar judges, just like Megan Cavanagh, who's a Michigan bar member, an unlicensed bar member, they're ignoring all the probate cases. They never get heard in the Michigan Supreme Court. And so your chances of justice are zero here in the state.
DT: Well, just to pick up on a couple of points there... most cases, of course, don't end up at the state Supreme Court. Most probate cases, even if they're appealed, might be resolved, say, at the Court of Appeals, if they went above the lower court level.
And you say she's an unlicensed member of the bar. She's a practicing attorney who is licensed to the bar. And I will say she's a Democratic nominee in this election and also running. So I think you're trying to make a distinction that the bar is not a license, but I believe it would be viewed that way as a license to practice law in the state of Michigan.
TH: Viewed is one thing. The facts are different, okay? If you look at any bar member's P-number card, it says membership on it. It does not say license at all. And there's no law in the state of Michigan that allows a private membership association like the Michigan Bar Association to be the official licensor in the state of Michigan.
DT: Just one additional point here: the state Supreme Court sets the rules for bar admission for members of the bar in the state of Michigan.
As I mentioned in the introduction, you are a resident of Fenton. You mentioned that you have worked professionally as an engineer over the last three and a half decades or so, but you're not an attorney. Michigan law requires Supreme Court justices to be licensed to practice law in Michigan, and to have been admitted to the practice of law for at least five years. You don't meet either of those requirements. So if you were to win the election, you would not be able to serve on the court. Why are you running then?
TH: Because the state needs a different choice. The issue is that the bar members that are currently on the Michigan Supreme Court are not doing their job. They'll never do their job, and the public needs to take this court back. The system is broke. Since Megan Cavanagh has been on the bench, the probate court has accelerated the damage that they do to the citizens. Now you have to remember, these are public functionaries. They work for me. They work for the citizens of their county.
DT: Right. And you can elect them or not elect them as you see fit. And if the terms are held in full, two seats come up every election cycle, so that people are coming and going on and off the bench often, if they're not re-elected. And then there are frequently cases where someone retires or resigns, and then there's an appointment. So the court is not a stable organization with eight people constantly in for eight years at a time. There's a rotation and the people have the chance to vote those people out.
TH: Well, that's true. So here's your chance, right now, for the state of Michigan to finally make a good decision and vote these two members out who have done nothing to help the people in the state of Michigan here in these particular courts.
DT: So for our listeners' clarification, I want to just make another note here. Under Michigan law and a 1997 opinion from the attorney general, it is legal for people to run for the Michigan Supreme Court, and they can qualify for the statewide ballot, as you've done, even if they don't meet the requirement of five years of legal practice.
But they must meet that requirement by the time they're sworn in. And again, since you are not practicing law under the bar as a member of the bar, it's impossible for you to have five years of experience by the start of next year. Was that the intention of the U.S. Taxpayers Party? Was the intention to purposefully run non-attorneys to make that case?
TH: It's possible.
DT: I might ask, why not try to run a constitutional amendment to change that? If you're unhappy with attorneys being the only ones eligible for the court, an amendment to the Constitution might be able to resolve the issue that it seems that you're trying to get to.
TH: And that's a great question. And that comes up for everybody to vote yes on the Constitutional Convention. And then over the next two years, there'll be a group of people, and I'm not sure who — they will be appointed, hopefully by our new governor, Donna Brandenburg, and Lieutenant Governor Robert Cowper, who [are running] for the U.S. Taxpayers Party, who are probably two of the smartest people I've met.
And people are really unhappy with basically the Uniparty. Both [major-party] candidates are both bad. And so you have a really good candidate. And you should look at Donna Brandenburg and Robert Cowper II for your governor.
DT: It's not hard to imagine someone getting into the voting booth who's interested in third-party candidates and has read or heard your name or the name of Jody White — who's also a nominee of the U.S. Taxpayers Party — and chooses you on their ballot, assuming that you might actually take office, which it certainly appears that you cannot.
Do you have any concern about confusing voters if it turns out that you're not going to be able to actually sit on the court when they've cast their ballot thinking that is the case?
TH: No, because we want this. This needs to be challenged because it's not legal to have an outside corporation, the Michigan Bar Association, to basically... they've shanghaied the state of Michigan and and they don't have authority to do this. The laws that have been passed are usurpation by both the Legislature and the Michigan Supreme Court.
DT: Thank you for your time this morning.
TH: All right. Thank you.
Editor's note: Quotes in this article have been edited for length and clarity. You can play the full audio of this interview near the top of this page.
