'Fake' Mich. Tea Party tossed off ballot

DETROIT, Sept. 3 (UPI) -- The allegedly fake Michigan Tea Party will not appear on the state's November ballot, the Michigan Supreme Court said in a 5-2 ruling Friday.

The court's order will effectively bar all 23 candidates nominated by the Tea Party, which state Tea Party activists and Republicans claim was a Democratic-led effort to drain votes from Republicans and help Democrats win tight races, the Detroit News reported.

A group calling itself the Michigan Tea Party putting candidates on the ballot has allegedly been linked to Democrats since it emerged in May, the Detroit Free Press reported Friday.

From a group hired to collect signatures to party activists who found candidates and the candidates themselves, the Michigan Tea Party has many ties to Democrats, the newspaper said.

The signature-collection firm, Progressive Campaigns of California, is the same firm Michigan Democrats paid $1.5 million to in 2008 for a failed petition drive to amend the Constitution.

Jason Bauer, 30, of Waterford, former operations director for the Oakland County Democrats, notarized 12 of 23 Tea Party candidate affidavits.

State Senate candidate Frantt Whitehill of Midland, who insists he's a real Tea Party member, is a Democratic donor who ran for precinct delegate as a Democrat in August, the Free Press reported.

Stephanie McLean, a Lansing-based Democratic political consultant, said whoever had a hand in the Tea Party mess probably "thought they were doing something really smart" to help Democrats.

In hindsight, she says, it was a bad idea likely to backfire.

In Friday's ruling, two of the Supreme Court's Democratic justices sided with the panel's three Republicans in affirming a ruling earlier this week by the State Court of Appeals.