4

Thursday, July 14, 2016
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
OPINION

LARA MOEHLMAN

EDITOR IN CHIEF

JEREMY KAPLAN

EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR

BRADLEY WHIPPLE

MANAGING EDITOR

420 Maynard St. 

Ann Arbor, MI 48109

 tothedaily@michigandaily.com

Edited and managed by students at 

the University of Michigan since 1890.

The shootings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile have, yet again, sparked 

Black Lives Matter protests across the country, as well as in our own backyard. A 
candlelight vigil was held Thursday evening in the Diag for Sterling and Castile. As 
many as 200 community members marched through Ann Arbor Saturday afternoon 
and almost 1000 marched Wednesday night to protest police brutality and support 
the Black Lives Matter movement. The many voices crying out for justice have 
proven that police violence is an issue worth discussing to Ann Arbor citizens. As 
we see more of these voices of the Black Lives Matter movement and others speak 
out, we also see the formation of new policy platforms that hope to mitigate police 
brutality. For instance, “Campaign Zero,” which aims to create a world where “police 
don’t kill people,” has proposed a multitude of practical solutions. Among them is 
the notion of increasing community oversight of police officers. Policies like this one 
would greatly help to reduce the countless tragic, police-related deaths and should 
be enacted to ensure the safety and well being of all individuals.

A proactive approach to police oversight

FROM THE DAILY

KEVIN 
SWEITZER

Perez for VP

W

ith the conclusion of 
the 
2016 
presidential 

primaries, presumptive 

Democratic 
nominee 
Hillary Clinton 
has 
turned 

her 
attention 

toward 
presumptive 
Republican 

nominee Donald Trump and the 
November showdown that awaits 
them. While the 2016 election cycle 
has proven itself to be anything 
but normal, America finds itself at 
a crossroads once again: one key 
milestone remains that still mirrors 
the bygone days of presidential 
election campaigning.

The “veepstakes,” as they are so 

cleverly called by many a political 
pundit, is the mandatory process 
of choosing a vice presidential 
candidate to run and campaign with 
the nominee. As the name suggests, 
this process is more of a sweepstakes 
than it is about political clout, as 
the vice president rarely carries as 
much responsibility or respect as the 
president.

In the early days of this nation, 

the vice president was chosen as the 
second-place finisher in the general 
election. As one can easily imagine, 
this did not work out well, and as 
the two party system emerged, the 
parties started nominating their 
own candidates for vice president. 
This election year is no different, and 
despite all of the calamity associated 
with the election, Clinton will choose 
a Vice President.

Every four years, pundits across 

the nation talk about the benefits 
of every political player for vice 
president. However, at the end of 
the day, the role of the vice president 
is someone who can advise the 
president, serve in the cabinet and 
perform the duties of the president in 
the case of the president’s departure 
from office.

The last thing that Clinton needs 

when campaigning against Trump 
is another boring white man from 
Ohio (sorry, Sherrod Brown) or 
another lifelong politician with a 
history of shady contributions (sorry, 
Tim Kaine). Additionally, she cannot 
afford to risk flipping a Senate seat 
to the Republicans in a swing state 
(sorry, Cory Booker). Even worse 
would be an inexperienced or 
potentially unprepared politician 
who may not be able to perform the 
duties of vice president (sorry, Julian 
Castro). The only person fit for the 
current political climate of 2016 is 
someone who can use economic 
experience to appeal to everyday 
Americans, while understanding the 

complex social identity issues that 
are present in our nation today.

That’s 
why 
I 
urge 
Hillary 

Clinton to choose the Secretary of 
Labor Thomas Perez as her vice 
presidential nominee in 2016.

The 
son 
of 
Dominican 

immigrants, the Harvard educated 
Tom Perez spent much of his young 
life in the civil rights division of the 
U.S. Department of Justice, working 
primarily in the areas of migrant 
worker exploitation and hate crime 
prosecution. Once he jumped into 
the political landscape, he served 
as the director of the Maryland 
Department of Labor, Licensing and 
Regulation before becoming the 
head of the Civil Rights Division of 
the Department of Justice. Perez 
isn’t simply a Latina/o person who 
will fire up the base, he is an avid 
fighter for civil rights and the rights 
of working Americans. As assistant 
attorney general, he led many 
investigations into police violence 
and LGBT access to education, both 
of which are extremely important 
issues in our nation today.

As Secretary of Labor, he has 

been seen as a progressive leader, 
and has the support of many 
organized labor groups, including 
the largest congress of trade 
unions, the AFL-CIO. Clinton can 
work to repair any hard feelings 
with the Bernie Sanders camp by 
choosing a progressive labor leader 
as her running mate. Perez has 
spent his entire career fighting for 
what is right and what is just. This 
is the exact type of leadership that 
Clinton hopes to have and can work 
towards with Perez.

By choosing Tom Perez as her 

running mate, Hillary Clinton will 
be cementing her candidacy as 
the candidacy of equality, fairness 
and the rights of all Americans. 
She already has the foreign policy 
and economic experience to be a 
great leader, and can use Perez’s 
experience in civil rights advocacy 
and labor relations to address the 
key social issues of importance to 
our country. 

Donald 
Trump 
is 
not 
a 

traditional presidential candidate, 
and the 2016 election is one of the 
most nontraditional elections of 
all time. If Clinton wants to win in 
November, she must do her best to 
ensure that her entire campaign is 
on the same page and has the same 
goals in mind. Clinton/Perez 2016 
will do just that, and is the best 
team to defeat Trump in November.

—Kevin Sweitzer can be 

reached at ksweitz@umich.edu.

Baton Rouge, St. Paul, Staten 

Island and Ferguson. These are 
the names of cities that have 
suffered from extreme police 
brutality. But what about Ann 
Arbor? In the November of 2014, 
Aura Rosser, a 40-year-old Black 
woman, was fatally shot by an 
Ann Arbor police officer when she 
reportedly would not put down 
a knife aimed at the officer. The 
officer involved in the shooting, 
David Ried, was not indicted, 
though 
many 
local 
residents 

criticized the apparent lack of 
transparency of the investigation 
— similar to national speculation 
surrounding 
transparency 
in 

police misconduct cases. Though 
the details of the Rosser shooting 
contain 
far 
fewer 
egregious 

actions on the part of the police 
compared to these other cases, 
lessons can still be learned from 
the judgment of the police.

One of these lessons should be 

that civilians must be involved 
in the response to incidents such 
as this, just as “Campaign Zero” 
recommends. 
In 
March, 
the 

Ann Arbor City Council voted to 
consider a set of recommendations 
put forth by the Ann Arbor 
Human 
Rights 
Commission. 

One of the recommendations 
— to increase civilian oversight 
— has been opposed by Police 
Chief Jim Baird, for the time 
being. One of the Human Rights 
Commission’s recommendations 
was the use of an independent 
auditor to review the Ann Arbor 
Police Department’s policies and 
practices regarding misconduct 
— a process Baird would like 
a report from before enabling 
civillian oversight. As the current 
conversation stands, the civillian 
oversight 
committee 
would 

— independently of the Police 
Department — review complaints 
against police officers. Shooting 

after shooting has proven there 
is no time to wait. While we 
understand the desire to table 
the topic of a civilian oversight 
committee, 
the 
wellbeing 
of 

citizens should be a proactive 
matter, not a reactive one, and 
discussion on how a potential 
oversight 
committee 
would 

function should continue.

Police brutality has happened 

and will continue to happen in 
every city across the nation, 
including our own, until we take 
a stand against violence. Let’s 
have this conversation now, in 
our own town, to ensure these 
tragic shootings do not continue 
to occur in our communities 
in the near or distant future. 
Ensuring 
safety 
and 
justice 

under the law for all citizens 
demands a call to action. Let 
Ann Arbor be the example the 
nation so desperately needs; let’s 
be the change. 

Roland Davidson, Caitlin Heenan, Elena Hubbell, Jeremy 
Kaplan, Madeline Nowicki, Kevin Sweitzer, Brooke White.

EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS

