The decision-making authority of elected officials in Benton Harbor, Michigan was suspended under a new emergency manager law passed by Republican Gov. Rick Snyder.

In a speech Wednesday, Snyder said he also wanted to abolish the minimum number of hours children are required to be in school. He announced that he was targeting 23 school districts for takeover by state-appointed unilateral executives.

"Every single one of those places has just been told that them having locally elected officials, that's a problem," MSNBC Rachel Maddow explained Thursday. "That democracy is in the way of making things more efficient in Michigan, that Democracy is not the way we fix problems in America, that it is a problem."