Michigan state Rep. Brandon Dillon, speaking December 6. See Eclectablog for a partial transcript.

The lawmakers—who include Senator Carl Levin and Reps. John Conyers, John Dingell, and Sander Levin—will try to persuade Snyder that proceeding with the anti-union initiative will badly damage the state and that there is a middle-ground way out of the situation, a labor official familiar with planning tells me. For instance, the official says, they will suggest to Snyder that if he must sign the legislation, then perhaps he can drop the GOP’s procedural tactic and allow it to subsequently come before the people in the form of a referendum. That would at least allow Michigan voters to weigh in on the initiative, perhaps defusing some public anger.

In short, we trusted Snyder's judgment. That trust has now been betrayed—for us, and for the hundreds of thousand of independents who voted for Snyder with the conviction that they were electing someone more independent, and more visionary, than partisan apparatchiks like Wisconsin's Scott Walker or Florida's Rick Scott. [...] His insistence that the legislation was designed to promote the interests of unionized workers and "bring Michiganders together" was grotesquely disingenuous; even as he spoke, security personnel were locking down the capital in anticipation of protests by angry unionists.

The Michigan legislature is expected to pass, and Gov. Rick Snyder is expected to sign, an anti-union law on Tuesday, including a provision that would prevent the law from being put on the ballot for a popular vote. But opponents of the law aren't giving up. Greg Sargent reports that "virtually the entire Democratic Congressional delegation in Michigan" is meeting with Snyder Snyder had long said a "right to work" law was divisive and not on his agenda, but has executed a hasty about-face over the past month in response to strong pressure from wealthy donors and far-right groups like the Koch brothers' Americans for Prosperity. But it's come at a cost. The, for instance, eviscerated Snyder in an editorial listing a litany of times the paper had backed the governor and his initiatives:Thousands of union members and allies are protesting at the state capitol again. And as a nice capper to this anti-union betrayal, Republicans have also used the publicity it generated as a cover for limiting access to abortion