Richard Baird, a top advisor to Gov. Rick Snyder, is tossing his weight around the capitol these days. Baird, who was at the center of a property tax and voting scandal just before the GOP's Aug. 23 convention, has taken to threatening some of his opposition.
Democrats in August revealed Baird had illegally been benefiting from homestead property tax exemptions in two states – Illinois and Michigan. Democrats also raised concerns that Baird remained on the voter rolls in Illinois, as well as being on the Michigan voter rolls. To his credit, Baird admitted there was a screw up related to his Bath Township home, and the county clerk came out supporting his claims. Baird then cut a check for over $16,000 to cover the back taxes and interest on his Michigan home. To address the voter issue, Baird sent a letter to Illnois election officials declaring he was no longer voting in the state, asking them to remove his registration.
Democrats and union activists aren't letting Baird off so easy. Senate Minority Leader Gretchen Whitmer (D-East Lansing) called Baird a "crook" on WKAR's Off the Record, and Carla Swift, president of the AFL-CIO, published an editorial calling the gubernatorial aide out. Baird's response was to threaten to sue both women. In Swift's case, he left a voicemail for her. In Whitmer's case, he used his government email address to reach out to Senate Majority Leader Randy Richardville (R-Monroe) for contact information for Whitmer.
One would think a government employee caught in a scandal running a secret group to gut Michigan's education system would know to use a non-publicly funded email address. He did that with the skunk works scandal while working in the governor's office, but while being paid by the now defunct NERD Fund. The NERD Fund was Snyder's secretive nonprofit that was the center of a controversy last year. Snyder shut the fund down and put Baird on the government payroll for $140,000 a year. That was a $40,000 pay raise over what he was getting from the NERD Fund.
On her part, Whitmer is daring Baird to sue.
