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CLEVELAND (AP) — State Attorney General Bill Schuette used the spotlight of Republican National Convention to highlight the Flint lead-contamination crisis and contradict his GOP compatriot Gov. Rick Snyder on whether it is safe for certain residents of the impoverished city to drink the water.
Schuette, 62, a likely 2018 gubernatorial candidate and Michigan's lone stage speaker in Cleveland this week, has filed criminal charges against three public workers, sued two water engineering companies and promised that more charges are coming. He told the crowd that pregnant women and mothers with newborn infants "still should not bathe or drink the water" — apparently disputing guidance from federal and other experts who have declared that filtered water is safe for everyone in Flint.
"I will make it right because in Michigan, the system's not rigged," Schuette said in remarks during which he also honored law enforcement after fatal shootings of authorities in Texas, Louisiana and at a Michigan courthouse. "In Michigan, we have one system of justice. That mean the rules apply to all no matter who you are. ... Justice is coming to Flint."
Flint is not typically a favored topic inside the state GOP.
Snyder, who was featured in a video played inside the convention hall Monday afternoon but is not attending, has apologized for his administration's role in the disaster and was called in front of Congress to testify. The crisis began when the water source was switched in 2014 while the financially strapped city of nearly 100,000 was under state management.
Snyder spokeswoman Anna Heaton said of Schuette's comments on the water: "All levels of government and independent experts such as (Virginia Tech professor) Marc Edwards have publicly stated the opposite, and it's important that residents are using the water because it will improve the system."
Schuette spokesman John Sellek said the attorney general's point was that "he wouldn't advise his family" to drink or bathe with the water "and so many people in Flint don't trust it yet."
Snyder, who attended the 2012 national convention, will be at two Michigan Republican Party events in Cleveland outside of the official agenda on Thursday, the final day.
He has not endorsed presumptive nominee Donald Trump. Schuette did not mention Trump during his speech, but he said last month that he supports Trump because "I'm not going to toss the keys to (Democrat) Hillary Clinton — no way."
Schuette — a former congressman, state agriculture director, state senator and appeals court judge — asked delegates to stand with law enforcers but also parents "whose one desire is that their children can go to school safely and learn to read and find the path to the shining city on a hill."
Democratic U.S. Rep. Dan Kildee of Flint, a possible 2018 gubernatorial candidate, said Schuette, in speaking at the convention podium, "is endorsing all that Donald Trump's Republican Party now stands for. How Bill Schuette can look himself in the mirror and defend such divisiveness and hate baffles me."
Schuette opened his Flint probe in January after initially declining to investigate. He has said he reversed course after receiving more information from media reports.
He spoke Monday before leaders approved convention rules on voice votes and rejected demands for a state-by-state roll call vote over objections from angry dissidents, some of whom claim that the new rules give too much clout to the GOP hierarchy.
Michigan was not among the small number of states where a majority of delegates submitted petitions for the roll call vote.
"It's important to have a vote on those rules so that people can be heard — so the delegates who understand what happened, who don't support what happened, can have their voice be heard," said Wendy Day, a Michigan delegate for Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. "That's all we were asking for. It wouldn't have taken a lot of time or effort. They could have given it to us. But they chose not to, and that's a shame."
