Posted: December 30, 2019 11:02 AM

This reporter learned early how rough politics can be.

In the 1960 presidential election this 8-year-old political sophisticate was backing Democratic candidate U.S. Sen. John F. Kennedy because, well, he was from Massachusetts and so was my Dad. It never occurred to me that Dad was backing Republican Vice President Richard Nixon because Dad was from Massachusetts. Only much later did I find out both Dad and Mom were backing Mr. Nixon.

On Election Day, at Royal Oak's Upton Elementary, after lunch, a Nixon rally was taking place among the pupils on what we called the battleground (it was a playground in theory). Kids were holding signs, many handmade, some provided by their parents via the Republican Party. They were shouting for Nixon and as I was feeling prospects were grim, I tried to go back to my third-grade classroom.

The class toady grabbed me by the collar and shouted, "Hey, he's backing Kennedy!" Instantly, I was surrounded by kids looking at me as an escapee from the freak show and saying, "Are you nuts?" and "Don't you know Kennedy is a Commie?" I stammered I could support whoever I wanted, when a fifth grader stuffed his fist in my face.

"You better say you're for Nixon or you're gonna get it," he snarled, to general approval.

At that, a safety patrol boy pushed through the gang. "Break it up," he said. "What's going on?"

The fifth grader, still with his fist in my face, said, "This kid is for Kennedy!"

Sagely, the safety patroller said, "He can back whoever he wants, even if he is stupid."

I wish I could say when the results were known the next morning I was magnanimous, conciliatory, generous in praise to my vanquished rivals. I wish I could say that. I will say that fifth grader never bothered me again, and the class toady went off to annoy others.

That was my introduction to the game. Henry Steele Commager, in his book "The Empire of Reason," said politics was entertainment to the young American nation as it lacked its own literature. And politics still is entertainment.

By 8, I was already fascinated by the power of storytelling and within a few years a growing interest in politics and history suggested political journalism was the right job choice for me. A high school career counselor later tried to convince me I was truly destined to be a shoe salesman, but I wanted to pursue journalism (though at one point my plan was to follow Hemingway and go from writing breaking news to living as a world famous novelist in Paris. I must figure out what happened to that).

Except for a very brief stint in corporate life, journalism has been my career. During all that time as a reporter, I covered government and politics, along with, at times, cops, business, schools. A high school buddy of mine, now one of the wealthiest people I know, asked once why I stayed in journalism when the pay compared to, say, finance, his field, was "so lousy." You never have a boring day when you're telling the world what's going on, I said.

Watching the world as it passes teaches you things. You learn quickly as a political reporter, as does anyone else involved in politics, that politics involves both elections and policy. Because we live in one of the few nations where we know with absolute assurance when each election will occur our notion of politics is centered far more, probably too much, on elections.

It's understandable. Elections square off the players on the actual field. All the practice and coaching comes down to what a candidate does or does not do to win. And once one contest is decided the focus turns to the next bout. Talking to a Republican leader the day after the 2014 election I said he should be happy with the results.

He said Republicans had to remember they were just some 710 days from the next election and had to start getting ready for the upcoming election now.

As an afterthought to elections, policy has become increasingly a tool of election strategy and tactics instead of a means to resolve problems. As such, policy is increasingly driven by ideology rather than pragmatism. It's true of all sides now, and yes, journalism has played a role in creating that reality as has technological innovations, social media, a partisan-based media subset and buckets of money aimed at winning elections.

It's why major problems can't seemed to get solved. Or even seriously addressed. Nationally, we must like mass shootings because we don't take any steps to stop them. Ideology stops us even when there are ways to craft policy that doesn't offend the Second Amendment and could help minimize the chances of random slaughter.

And in this state, an ideological insistence against raising taxes in any way has blocked dealing seriously with roads. We appear to like crappy roads. We don't seem to be adult enough to say revenues have to be raised to fix them and then find the most effective manner to do so.

Is there an answer? Well, one might be to recognize we ain't so smart. The other guy – whomever the other guy may be, female, male, trans, conservative, liberal, Democrat, Republican, gay, straight, pick your religion, pick your race, pick your nationality – might be right. At least listen to them, and if they are wrong show them how they are wrong instead of just calling them stupid. We all are wrong and stupid sometimes.

Journalism, well-practiced journalism, does let folks get their say. Well-practiced journalism uses facts – provable, definable items, facts in context – and does not let assertions stand unchallenged if facts prove them untrue. Journalists struggle today against a technological universe that allows nonsense and lies to spread faster than reporters can report the facts.

Paul Johnson, the conservative historian, once wrote that people mattered more than ideas. Ideas do matter, they have influence, they help lead to positive change, but we also need to abandon or at least alter them if they lead to harmful results. People do matter more than ideas. My business, journalism, has played a big role in showing what ideas work and which don't, as well as helping convince people to change their minds when appropriate.

At least journalism has played that role. It is more and more clear that for politics and government to work as it should, journalism must act as the public's monitors. For most of my career I was interested in why people wanted to know things, which is what drove them to support journalism. After all, newspapers, magazines, news outlets like Gongwer News Service, TV and radio news only exist because there is an audience to pay for them.

The question is changed now. Now I want to know why people don't seem to want to know things. Why do they distrust and dismiss facts? Why do they adhere to beliefs even when they are shown they are incorrect? Why are they so uncomfortable at facing any challenge? Why do they seem comfortable ignoring events surrounding them and the effects those events could have on them?

So many, too many, local newspapers have shut down – and enough electronic outlets have been taken over by individuals and corporate structures more interested in preserving their point of view, enough major newspaper corporations have been taken over by cannibalistic companies intend on stripping their assets to boost their rewards – that the negative effects can already be seen.

A world without journalism is less safe, more corrupt, more expensive and less free. People don't like reporters, hell, every reporter knows that. People will like a world without reporters even less.

Which goes back to the idea that we ain't so smart as we think we are. The fifth grader with his fist in my face wasn't so smart. I wasn't so smart in being hooty after Kennedy won. Any politician who thinks he or she has all the answers isn't so smart. Anybody who follows that politician blindly really isn't that smart. We all need to accept we need to listen more, read more, think more, learn more and be less certain of our innate stable genius.

I trust we will. I don't know that, can't know it, but I trust we will. I'll be watching with all of you to see how it turns out. Good luck to us all.

Posted: December 12, 2019 2:41 PM

The Michigan House Journal for December 11, 2019 will forever show the following on the attendance roll call: "Inman e/d/s. That would be Rep. Larry Inman (R-Williamsburg) entered during session.

The tally on Roll Call Vote 353 of 2019, in the 100th Legislative session will likewise forever show that Mr. Inman voted yes on HB 4204 along with 72 of his colleagues.

Okay, who saw any of that coming? Besides Mr. Inman, that is.

The astonishment was palpable Tuesday evening when the verdicts came down in Grand Rapids federal district court. Mr. Inman, not guilty of lying to a federal agent, and then the hung jury on the other charges.

But they had him dead to rights, so thought most people. They had the texts, they had the witnesses, they had the guy. Apparently, at least on one charge, they had Mr. Inman just like at other times they had John Delorean and Washington, D.C., Mayor Marion Barry.

Mr. Inman is now a member of a very exclusive club. Of the more than 5,000 people who have served in Michigan's Legislature mercifully few have gone to trial on any criminal charges. Even fewer – so few it is not immediately possible to tell if any others have – came away with an acquittal.

Oh, not guilty yet, not guilty yet, we have to remind ourselves, since already steps have been taken to retry Mr. Inman on the issues of extortion and bribery. Yes, there is that still. But now the prosecutors have to decide if they will retry Mr. Inman, and if so, on those charges or perhaps related but lesser charges they might have a better shot at winning a conviction.

Which leaves blank for the moment the question of what if Mr. Inman is acquitted on everything?

Even so, Mr. Inman can easily claim at this moment he was right. Virtually every member of the House called on him to resign. He did not. Look where he is now.

Thousands in his district signed petitions to have him recalled, petitions now held up by legal technicalities. What becomes of those?

He is still denied his office. He is denied membership to committees. Because his behavior was unseemly. Well, throughout most of state history most legislators didn't have an office. Mr. Inman has, though, what they had: the ability to vote on the floor.

The Constitution gives each chamber the right to decide on the credentials of each member. Two legislators who were also not convicted of crimes, those being former Republican Sen. David Jaye and former Republican Rep. Cindy Gamrat, were expelled for behavior unseemly and beneath a legislator.

Could expulsion await Mr. Inman? Well, now you get into question of how icky is this? Mr. Jaye was accused of assaulting his then fiancée. Ms. Gamrat was having an affair with another House member (who himself resigned rather than be expelled). Those met the undefinable-but-know-it-when-you-see-it icky factor. Has Mr. Inman breached that vague wall?

Well, ummm, that likely is something the House will have to decide. Mr. Inman, no doubt, will be there on the House floor willing to offer his opinion.

Posted: November 21, 2019 4:46 PM

Is it possible, truly possible, that after 27 years changes may come to Michigan's term limits system?

Changes, mind you, not repeal. And most likely changes to the legislative requirements of three terms for House members, two for Senate members and then that's it.

Might changes finally happen?

Wednesday's announcement of a lawsuit brought by eight former Democratic and Republican legislators challenging term limits as unconstitutional based on the U.S. Constitution because it denies them access to run does take a new tack in the arguments against term limits, though a federal lawsuit against the 1992 constitutional amendment failed in the late 1990s.

And it comes as Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey (R-Clarklake) has said discussions need to happen on term limits. Voters Not Politicians is interested in changing term limits. The Michigan Chamber of Commerce is considering the issue.

All these developments point to an intensifying focus on at least changing term limits (plenty of people would love to repeal term limits but accept the political reality such a move likely would not fly), an intensity on taking action that has not been seen in all the other discussions of changing term limits.

But what drives this new intensity? In fact, it is the same points opponents to term limits have argued all along. One, that the time limits are too short for lawmakers to develop much of the expertise and knowledge needed to make policy based on actual policy matters and not just politics.

Second, that term limits leave lawmakers with too little time to develop the relationships, understandings and even friendships needed to build a political framework to enact policy questions.

At the press conference on Wednesday, lead plaintiff Republican former Sen. Roger Kahn said road funding is a perfect example of an issue that remains unsolved in part because lawmakers don't have enough time to both make relationships and gain the technical knowledge needed.

And Republican former Rep. Paul Opsommer said House members have their most productive term in their third and last term. Again, when they have both developed relationships and policy expertise.

Again, these have been the points all opponents of term limits have hammered on for now 27 years. They lead, however, to an overriding point which ironically was one argument of term limits to begin with.

Ability to learn and create relationships allows a lawmaker to build credibility and independence from partisan hackles, interest group influence and to some measure of popular opposition. The lawmakers can then actually work on the issues they think best will serve the public.

Which term limits was actually supposed to help happen through the argument that giving folks a short time frame means they wouldn't become beholden to anyone else. Good strategy using a bad tactic in term limits.

Bringing us back to the original question: Is it possible changes may come to term limits? Yes, it is more possible now than it ever has been. Besides the ongoing actions though discussions and legal efforts there is one other reason why.

Patrick Anderson, head of the Anderson Economic Group, has long said once term limits had a full workout – and by that he meant all the lawmakers who had been elected before 1992 were gone from office and only fully-term limited legislators had served through a full cycle – he would be willing to discuss whether changes to term limits are justified.

No one has taken him up on that offer to talk, Mr. Anderson said in an interview yesterday. Maybe all those interested in changes should pick up the phone and see what might transpire. That really might push term limit changes along.

Posted: November 14, 2019 2:15 PM

What to make of a year when we have a budget but don't have a budget at the same time?

Maybe instead we should ask what will the voters make of it in slightly less than a year?

Any corrective resolution to the strange mishmash of the now current 2019-20 budget-non-budget awaits December, with the House deciding to do extra Thanksgiving shopping or another clean of the hunting rifles or celebrate Dear Santa Letter Week this past week.

And political pressure is building on both sides. There are protests to line-item vetoes and transfers made by Governor Gretchen Whitmer. There are complaints that the Legislature wouldn't negotiate, focused on wrong priorities, is trying to subvert the separation of powers.

For every claim and argument one side makes, there is a counter claim or argument. Every time someone blasts Ms. Whitmer for cutting, say, the tuition grants for students at private colleges another person can riposte the Legislature's tiny percentage increase in public university spending means the state's tuition rates will be pushed closer to the stratosphere.

Each side anticipates the other will bear the brunt of the voters' wrath, come November 2020.

Well, okay, maybe. But let this reporter suggest the budget fight will rank down the list of most voter concerns.

In the 2020 election, most voters will be worried or focused on President Donald Trump. Oh, the budget is likely to be an issue, for those voters who will care about it, but looking at 2020 how one reacts to the current budget situation, how much one may care, will be the cherry on the cake of how a voter reacts to Mr. Trump. Support Mr. Trump, that voter likely will blame Ms. Whitmer for any budget issues – again, if the voter even really cares – but, vote against Mr. Trump, why then the Republican-controlled Legislature was the problem.

That is the reality of 2020. But this year's budget-non-budget could have a greater effect on the 2022 election, especially in regard to Ms. Whitmer.

Depending on how the 2020 election goes, Ms. Whitmer will have to deal with a reality beyond her control. If a Democrat is elected president, traditionally the president's party has trouble in the off-election, which means Ms. Whitmer could have problems. She would be the first Democratic governor to stand for re-election with a Democrat in the White House since 1962. Should Mr. Trump get re-elected, she may get the benefit of reaction to him.

But the issue she mainly got elected on in 2018 was fixing the @#%*(^$%@#*#$$%%&%&?/\! roads. A major program to get road and infrastructure repair failed to make it into the current budget-non-budget, so we aren't much closer to a fundamental road fix.

At this stage Ms. Whitmer will need to have a program, a really big program, to fix the roads in place by 2022 (or alternatively some kind of program and really good way to knock the Republicans for not making it bigger) to maintain voter confidence in three years overtake any national effect on her.

The best chance for that big program was this year. So, the 2019-20 budget-non-budget may yet play a big election role. Just keep the popcorn handy for the 2022 show.

Posted: November 8, 2019 2:35 PM

Herewith a question: Which is more likely to be accomplished first, a U.S./China trade deal or a budget agreement between Governor Gretchen Whitmer and the Republican-controlled Legislature?

Candidly the odds may be better than Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping could come to some arrangement than Ms. Whitmer and Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey (R-Clarklake).

For the first time in decades we have an honest-to-Pete power play underway between a governor of one party and the Legislature of another party. And there is a serious implication this could go on a long time.

Mr. Shirkey's spokesperson has flat out said the majority leader does not trust Ms. Whitmer, that a budget agreement is conditioned on her agreeing to surrender through the rest of her term, and theoretically surrender for every governor hereafter, part of her authority. One should expect Ms. Whitmer doesn't have a lot of trust for the Legislature right now, either.

You have to go back to the 1970s when the Democratic-controlled Legislature tried to force Republican Governor William Milliken to bend to its will on the issue of Medicaid-funded abortions to find anything similar to this situation. He refused, and the Legislature decided to adjourn the fight to another arena.

Mr. Shirkey is demanding Ms. Whitmer sign a bill that puts a hard dollar limit on funds she could transfer via the Administrative Board in the budget. Ms. Whitmer, of course, transferred more than $600 million of appropriated funds between programs largely because the Legislature did no serious negotiating with her when the budget was in process.

The only governor to use the Administrative Board transfer route was former Governor John Engler (and two critical members of the board at that time were Democratic Secretary of State Richard Austin and Attorney General Frank Kelley. All the top officials in the current Ad Board are Democrats). Which raises another question: If Republican Bill Schuette were now governor and transferred the same amount via the Ad Board would a Republican Legislature make the same demand of him to limit his powers?

Yeah, no.

What incentive would Ms. Whitmer have to agree to such a demand? As a trade-off could she then demand the Legislature simply accept her budget proposals unchanged? How loudly would lawmakers laugh at that demand?

The separate but equal provision is at play here, just as much as funding for a whole variety of worthy causes – many of whom doubtless Ms. Whitmer didn't relish taking the action she took against – and is equally important. All three branches of government have tested the limits of each other throughout the state's history.

Rarely, though, have we seen such a demand that one branch concede.

For now, it looks like the clock is running on the Lansing power play. It may be a more interesting faceoff than what the Red Wings have been providing fans with lately.

Posted: October 24, 2019 1:08 PM

Think of who we have lost just this year. John Dingell, Damon Keith, Billy Huffman, Don Gilmer and last week former Governor William Milliken.

Think more, however, of what we have lost. That is a knowledge of governing, of how to accomplish things. And in that how to accomplish big things. Even when government was divided among the parties, these people (Mr. Keith, of course, was a federal judge) who were enmeshed in the game, and the dozens of men and women they worked with, knew how to craft tactics and deliver winning strategies that left all sides savoring a little victory.

Not all the time, of course. They each had failures. Nor were these accomplishments reached easily. Every one of their accomplishments on civil rights, the environment, education, the environment, taxes, was a tremendous struggle. Sometimes they involved furious shouting matches, as anyone who watched the massive struggle between Mr. Milliken and legislative Democrats on changes to workers' compensation can attest.

Yet, goals were reached and working relationships maintained.

Why? How? Why was this possible from starting in the late 1950s to the early 1980s? Since about 1983 and 1984, big government accomplishments, big BIPARTISAN government accomplishments, have become fewer and fewer. An ability to work together and reach agreement has given way more and more to bitter partisanship and one-sided victories.

What did these individuals bring, what did these individuals know and understand that we do not?

Was it generational? They were either of the World War II generation or the Silent Generation. They grew up and in some cases were young adults during a troubled world between the Great Depression, World War II, post-war economic uncertainties, the Cold War and the Korean War. Facing often massive difficulties and very uncertain futures, did they understand inherently a need to work together to solve their problems? Did they have a shared commonality that was lost as economic good times greeted the Boomer generation? The time frame in which they were most active politically, beginning in the late 1950s, would correspond to when most of them would have been in their early to mid-thirties the ages, when most a generation begin to take leadership roles.

Was it because they served before term limits took effect? Before the voters instituted term limits, there was a greater overall sense of bipartisanship. Lawmakers were more likely to socialize, often share apartments between partisan members. More bills were jointly sponsored by Democrats and Republicans. Plus, legislators had more time to study issues, become expert in them. The caucuses had less overall sway and while the caucus leaders had control there were fewer instances in which was deemed necessary to impose a hard position.

Whether there was one influencing factor or not, one thing about that time period is clear: People like Mr. Milliken, Mr. Dingell, Mr. Huffman and Mr. Gilmer and most elected officials understood things actually needed to be accomplished and politicians needed to stay true to their overall partisan principles. Rarely was there a situation where a purely partisan stance took place. It happened, yes, but not often.

There was a sense, which now seems essentially lost, that agreements had to be forged so the main goal of the legislation – on whatever subject, education, health care, taxes, transportation – was achieved but Democrats could say their principles were still respected and Republicans could say the same.

Which also meant, each side recognized they were not getting all the wanted. They could still take the agreement to their voters and say, "We aren't giving up on…" name your policy. But the big goal was mostly reached.

In other words, instead of the current definition of compromise too often being, "you surrender, and we have compromised," a compromise actually meant, "nobody is getting everything, but everybody is getting something."

Of course, people will complain about these leaders, say they held up or forced through vital, unneeded, critical, superfluous, important, self-serving, necessary, stupid legislation depending on the complainer's ideology. Did that actually happen? Well, yeah. It was a political time then, too, after all.

Still, with these leaders and the so many men and women who served with them, an awful lot got done. An awful lot of major legislation and judicial rulings that still provide the basis for so much in the state and nation got done. There have been some big accomplishments since, yes, but really not so many.

These leaders are gone, sadly. If their understanding of how to accomplish things is gone as well is what now has to be decided.

Posted: October 18, 2019 3:58 PM

If there was one thing former Governor John Engler was definitely, completely, totally in favor of it was thoroughly overhauling Michigan's social safety net, and not to make it bigger.

Yet, still, there was one thing he did that was reflected in Governor Gretchen Whitmer's announcement on Thursday of a less restrictive assets test for people eligible for basic services.

Make no mistake, farm-raised Mr. Engler was a champion of work. Practiced it, believed in it, preached it, believed completely in the essence of personal responsibility. Assistance was only for those who absolutely needed help, and ideally only for a short period of time. Otherwise one must work, and more for a person's own sense of wellbeing and personal worth than what it might save the state in tax dollars. Though saving the state tax dollars was always also equally high on Mr. Engler's list.

From the very beginning of his administration in 1991, he took steps to circumscribe the state's social welfare system. He first did so by ending General Assistance, which was welfare paid to single individuals. If a single person was able-bodied enough to work then he or she must, he and many others felt.

The Legislature fought him on it, but he won by transferring funds for General Assistance to other programs through the State Administrative Board – setting in motion then, Ms. Whitmer's own actions taken on the 2019-20 budget several weeks ago.

Mr. Engler pushed for work or education requirements for those on welfare. He pushed for lifetime limits on welfare benefits. He…well, you get the picture.

Advocates for the poor set up a poor person's camp on the Capitol lawn. Mr. Engler was protested at speeches. His public popularity sank like a stone in this first months. He didn't care.

And yet, he did take one step that both bolstered his attitude on self-reliance and provided help to at least some folks.

Mr. Engler sought a waiver from the federal government to change the asset rules regarding the poor to disregard ownership of a car. It couldn't be a luxury car, mind you, it would have to a banged-up beater that got you to work and back and not much more.

That was why Mr. Engler sought the waiver. He knew in places like Detroit public transit wasn't good (and the discussion about John Engler and public transit can be held another day) and if he was going to push and promote and require people to find work, they needed transportation to do so. That meant they needed a car to get to where jobs were.

And the state got the waiver.

In expanding the asset limit, Ms. Whitmer's administration made reference to the expansion the administration of Governor Rick Snyder made in 2011 covering a car, a second car actually. And a second car can be used to get to a job as well as help take care of a person's family. If both adults in a household are making little more than minimum wage, then they likely need both the second vehicle as well as assistance with food and other necessities.

Which goes back to Mr. Engler's thoughts and makes one wonder a little if he had any vision of his waiver request coming to this point?

Posted: October 10, 2019 4:03 PM

Trying to guess what the U.S. Supreme Court will do based simply on oral arguments is all too often a question stuffed in a riddle blanketed by a problem smothered in a quandary and finally swallowed by an enigma.

Thus it was this week in the oral arguments in R.G. and G.R. Harris Funeral Homes v. EEOC, the case arising out of Garden City where Aimee Stephens, a transgender woman, charged she was fired after she told her employers at the homes she would present as a woman and dress in women's clothes.

In one reading, it seemed the court was largely leaning Ms. Stephens' way. In a second reading the seemingly eternal bathroom question loomed large and threw the matter into doubt.

However, Justice Neil Gorsuch's question dealing with the "massive social upheaval" a decision in Ms. Stephens' favor would entail did lead to a bit of eyebrow raising. After all, isn't fomenting massive social upheaval something the Supreme Court is supposed to do? It doesn't seem to have had any problem doing so throughout history.

What is doubly interesting is how Mr. Gorsuch tied that question to earlier comments on how he was close to Ms. Stephens on whether federal law outlawing sex discrimination was in her favor.

After all, literally decades of Supreme Court decisions had ruled that sex discrimination dealt with all kinds of factors one had perhaps not initially considered, from questions on pregnancy to appropriate attire. Decisions not specifically aimed at sex discrimination, for example dealing with gay couples, also touched on the issue.

Mr. Gorsuch has written on judicial respect for the textual element of laws. Hence, the argument by Ms. Stephens' lawyer, David Cole, that firing Ms. Stephens for presenting as a woman when she was born a man poses an issue of sex discrimination because the decision to fire her was based on her sex clearly had resonance for many of the justices.

It was Harris Homes' lawyer John Bursch, the former Michigan solicitor general, who focused his arguments on the massive social upheaval concern. Holding for Ms. Stephens would have effects far beyond this one case, he said, or any case about firing an employee. Again, there is the bathroom question, but he added locker rooms, the makeup of athletic teams, and other issues to the debate.

Again, though, isn't creating massive social upheaval kinda something the Supreme Court does? One presumes the justices, along with the rest of the country, have heard of Brown v. Board of Education. Declaring racial segregation unconstitutional has to rank pretty high on the massive social upheaval index. So have previous decisions dealing with women's rights, with same-sex rights, with defendant's rights, with religious rights, free speech rights, and on and on.

How the court will rule on this case, we will know soon enough. What its decision will be premised on, that too will be revealed. And whenever one reads any court decision one has to remember in his classic "The Common Law" former Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote a judge makes a decision and then comes up with the reasons for the decision.

Whatever the decision, whatever the reason for the decision, we can presume the court will argue it will all fit into the constitutional goal of creating a more perfect union. We can know, as well, whatever the decision many people will question whether it does in fact help perfect the union.

Posted: October 3, 2019 4:29 PM

In remembering legendary reporter Cokie Roberts, former Michigan State University professor and renowned columnist George Will said, "If you don't like the game of politics, I don't see how you write about it well. She liked the game of politics, and she understood it was a game."

What game have we now in Lansing? The 2019-20 budget fight has taken on dimensions long-time observers – in other words, old people – have never seen. Standoffs and confrontations are the stuff of state history, payless paydays and micro government shutdowns. This however, ahhh, well, you see…

What has happened in the last 10 days? Republican legislators handed off a budget written mostly by them alone to Governor Gretchen Whitmer, then absented themselves for several days, followed then by Ms. Whitmer signing the budgets while vetoing 147 sections, topped by the Administrative Board for the first time in better than 20 years approving a salmagundi of transfers to then be waived and waved away somewhat mournfully by Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey (R-Clarklake) saying the budget is done, fare thee well.

With the advent of abstract expressionist lawmaking in Lansing come the critics. Republicans saying Ms. Whitmer was trying to force the state to accept her 45-cent a gallon fuel tax increase and she was a hypocrite for vetoing $375 million in one-time additional road funding to fix at least a couple damn roads. Democrats saying Ms. Whitmer had no choice as Republicans would not negotiate and $375 million is about $2.2 billion less than most people who presumably know something about road construction say is needed on an annual basis to actually fix the damnable roads and the rest of the budget was a sloppy mess. Then there have been some critics saying from the gender politics standpoint the male Republican leaders were trying to intimidate Ms. Whitmer and disrespected her authority.

Oh, and one lobbyist said he has heard a couple Republicans say their cars aren't harmed going over potholes and nobody likes orange barrels anyway so this means there will be fewer of them and everyone will be happy. Very well then.

And again, what game is this? Who now is supposed to move? Who's on offense or defense or on the fence entirely? If there is a ball, what shape is it, where is it and what is to be done with it? What court is it in, what zone, whose wicket?

While no one has really said so, it appears the people are supposed to make the move now. Meaning we've gone a long way back to the Colosseum and deciding who becomes a lion's lunch. One guesses there is a hope the public will push back and demand action to, if not fix, at least then to cobble a recognizable budget. How that pressure is to come we shall see, perhaps. Mr. Shirkey says there will be no supplemental budget, but what's wrong with budget additions, budget addendums, budget adjuncts, budget additional allocations or whatever language suits for the moment's political purpose?

What game is this? Well, might as well just call it writing a budget 2019-version.

Posted: September 26, 2019 4:19 PM

Ages ago, when the state was anchored in what was really the worst recession since the Great Depression, the one from 1979 to 1983, Governor William Milliken's administration was desperate to find any way to cut spending. Someone suggested they close half the restrooms in state buildings. An analysis was conducted and determined when calculating lights, saving water, soap, paper and cleaning costs it would all add up to the state saving at least 20 grand on an annual basis. The cost of one state worker at the time.

This reporter found out about it and called Budget and Management Director Gerald Miller. Yes, they had looked at closing the restrooms, he said. But, said our reporter, doesn't it worry you that you'll create an image the state is in such rotten shape you can't even take a leak?

"That's why we aren't doing it," Mr. Miller said, "because of the reaction it would generate."

That conversation came to mind when Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey (R-Clarklake) told the Detroit Free Press Michigan has too many roads and maybe some should be allowed to return to gravel. One presumes be deliberately returned to gravel instead of the chaotic natural way so many roads seem to be returning to gravel.

Is that really the image the state wants to present? 'Cause that is the image the state's going get, like it or not.

The reaction the idea has on social media isn't an enthusiastic rush to embrace gravel roads along with its potholes, mud pots, washboards, stones cracking windshields and unbreathable dust. Most reactions from ordinary folks can be summed up as, "Seriously? Are you seriously suggesting that?"

It does seem counterintuitive as a policy matter to suggest roads should revert to the finest technology of the 19th century. Of course, natural preservation of the environment is a worthy goal, and restoring habitats is as well a lofty public ambition. But were paved roads supposed to be part of that mix?

If Michigan decides sure, let's return a few roads to gravel, how would that proceed? What metrics would be involved? Would you have local fights from residents and businesses demanding their roads remain paved? Would local governments be able to appeal a decision? Wouldn't we see legislators, who once argued roads needed to be built in their areas, now arguing their roads needed to stay paved?

And again, what kind of image would that present? And would that be an image the state would be willing to dispute? If Ohio or Indiana or Wisconsin tries to attract businesses by showing off their beautiful roads (and compared to ours, well, it needs no further comment) and then saying what about Michigan? "Great place to locate if you're shipping freight by mule-train and buckboard."

Posted: September 8, 2019 3:36 PM

The Legislature was determined to force the governor to bend to its will. Legislators were sure they had a strategy the governor could not beat.

Instead, the Legislature was beaten. And they knew it, and didn't try it again.

It happened, it really did, and we can wonder now if it will happen again. Oddsmakers would probably put money on Governor Gretchen Whitmer if the 100th Legislature tries tactics similar to what the 79th Legislature attempted and failed at.

Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey (R-Clarklake) has said, in effect, the Legislature will not raise more money for road repairs and will send Ms. Whitmer a 2019-20 budget, presumably with fewer than two weeks left in the fiscal year, reflecting that decision.

If Ms. Whitmer signs the budget, she has basically given up any genuine hope of seeing a road construction plan with new revenue, at least revenue approaching $2.5 billion, for likely all her current term being enacted. But there will be a budget, which, of course, will also fall short of many of her other goals.

If she vetoes the budget, she puts herself in position to still get some kind of a deal for road funding, what she campaigned on and what she decisively won the governor's race on. But, of course, there will be no budget with the 2019-20 fiscal year days away from starting and the specter of a government shutdown looming.

Who then is in the better overall position? The governor.

In 1978, what roiled the Legislature was the question of the state paying Medicaid recipients for elective abortions. The Legislature was all Democratic, but as anti-abortion as the current all Republican Legislature. The then governor, Governor William Milliken, strongly supported Medicaid abortion funding as he believed all women in the state had to have the same access to full medical care.

Several times the Legislature sent measures to block Medicaid-funded abortions. Each time Mr. Milliken vetoed it, and the Legislature was unable to override the veto.

Then the Legislature hit on a new idea: write a ban on Medicaid abortion in virtually every relevant line of the state's social services budget. All the stuff in the bill dealing with Medicaid. Don't bother with the regular welfare and food aid sections, just make it so he has no options other than sign or veto the Medicaid section. In other words, if Mr. Milliken vetoed that part of the budget nobody on Medicaid would get any health care for anything, from treating a hangnail to treating brain cancer.

Think of the political trauma the governor would face, and while he's running for re-election!, legislators thought. The sight and idea of children and the elderly being turned away from needed health care because the governor is going to defend abortion rights for the poor will be devastating to him.

One legislator, Democratic Rep. Eddie Mahalak, was almost giddy with delight at the strategy.

The Legislature passed the bill. It was presented to the governor. Some legislators speculated on whether Mr. Milliken would sign it or let it become law without his signature (if the governor takes no action on a bill presented to their desk within 14 days while the Legislature is in session, it becomes law).

Mr. Milliken vetoed the Medicaid section, probably still the biggest line-item veto in terms of dollars. And in his veto message he said, "A major policy should not be slipped past the public in this matter. We should deal with it openly, based on the courage of our convictions." Abortion was legal, he said, the issue is whether only affluent women or all women could avail themselves of the procedure if needed.

Lawmakers were stunned. So many honestly thought Mr. Milliken wouldn't test them. Though he had already been in office almost 10 years they clearly didn't know him very well.

Now they were stuck. They knew they could not override the veto. And after trying to sort out some sort of a new plan, they were forced to send him a medical services budget clean of all reference to abortion except for a $1 line item, which Mr. Milliken vetoed.

Astonishingly, some six years later, under then-Governor James Blanchard, legislators held a press conference announcing they were going to attempt the same tactic. Mr. Blanchard wouldn't dare veto the entire budget, they assured reporters.

This reporter asked, "Why not? Milliken did.' Then-Rep. Fred Dillingham, who was leading the press conference said, "Well, there's a rumor that he did that, but he didn't really."

This reporter stood up, walked to a stack of public act books, picked up the 1978 edition, opened it to the veto message and – while the press conference was still underway – put it in front of Mr. Dillingham. Mr. Dillingham went silent, said finally something on the line of "well, we'll have to look at this," and ended the press conference.

The Legislature did not attempt that tactic.

Why then could we expect Ms. Whitmer to take the same tack if the Legislature sends her a budget without a road funding proposal? Because, she has the upper hand.

There is no way the Legislature could override her veto, to begin with. And why even attempt something that you can't win on in the first place?

Second, Ms. Whitmer ran on the issue of fixing the roads. She has pushed the issue virtually every day she has been in office. The voters knew fixing the roads meant coming up with more money. Maybe not 45-cents a gallon, as she initially proposed, but they knew they would have to pay more in some fashion to get roads fixed.

Third, not just the voters but the business community, the Republicans' major ally, is behind a road plan and recognizes it will need to raise revenue, and wants it done.

Fourth, even if you test a government shutdown it could only last a few days at best. Individuals, businesses, local governments, schools will howl so loudly that a continuation budget bill will appear quickly, sapping the Legislature of its last major weapon.

Fifth, pay attention to history. We ain't changed that much over the years, and what was true then is probably still true today.

Posted: August 29, 2019 3:22 PM

Okay, the next 33 days is intended for the state to develop a 2019-20 budget and a road plan. How much of either we get is partly the issue here. Because the next month will also be critical in setting agendas for two future events: the elections of 2020 and 2022.

In setting those agendas, however, the politics of the next month will be critical. Critical to see who can put the greatest pressure on who to win the month. For all the ya-ya, blah-blah come October 1 over the people "won" whatever they "won" out of whatever comes of the discussions between Governor Gretchen Whitmer, Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey (R-Clarklake) and House Speaker Lee Chatfield (R-Levering), the real winner will be which of politicians gets closest to her/his ultimate goal.

Which then triggers the political agenda setting and strategizing for first the critical 2020 election and then the equally critical 2022 election.

The absolute best hope of getting a budget including a plan to invest $2 billion plus into road and infrastructure comes this month. If the two parts are broken, the chance of a serious plan to fix roads being passed anytime during the remainder of the 100th Legislature diminishes dramatically.

Oh, some road proposal would get passed, certainly. But if the experts say fixing the state's roads needs an ongoing investment of $2 billion or more you can bet a pothole whatever road plan is passed beyond September will fall short of that funding, and therefore fall short of Ms. Whitmer's goal. Anything passed after the passage of the rest of the budget will not include the major revenue source needed – from wherever it comes – to meet the full ongoing construction need.

Well, 2020, election year, passing tax increases is very unpopular during election years. The best hope of passing a significant revenue increase is in the next 33 days with the additional funds going to work in 2020.

So, Ms. Whitmer will have to rally her troops to put as much pressure as they can on the legislative leaders to move on revenue. A revenue decision will not come just from three folks talking in a closed room. It will come with unrelenting pressure not just on Mr. Shirkey and Mr. Chatfield but on their various caucus members who will end up putting the real pressure on the leaders.

And opponents of revenue increases will have to push just as hard to convince lawmakers to hold firm. They have a somewhat tougher task because the push to reroute spending for roads means various budget areas, and their constituents, will be left short of funds and fuming, and they will have to adequately explain how no new revenue will keep up sufficient funds for ongoing road maintenance and construction.

Again, we're looking not just at the next month, but the next 27 months. However this September is resolved, big campaign slogans and attacks will be the result. Remember, the big goal in Michigan government next year is control of the House. If Republicans win, they can help stall the Whitmer agenda and force her into a 2022 race with voters asking, "Did you fix the roads?"

If Democrats take the House next year, then two-thirds Democratic control of state government will put a ton of pressure on Senate Republicans leading up to 2022.

The 2020 House campaign could easily shape up to this Democrat raised/tried to raise your taxes; this Republican blocked fixing your roads.

Some months back, this reporter said Mr. Shirkey would be the key player in deciding a final resolution. With Ms. Whitmer and Mr. Chatfield largely fixed in their positions, that hasn't changed much. Mr. Shirkey's suggestion to split the budget from the road package is more a high-stakes ante to call everyone's bluff than it is a major policy position.

After all, it's not just Ms. Whitmer who wants a road plan. Mr. Shirkey and Mr. Chatfield's constituents want a road plan too. Everyone wants a road plan. Okay they disagree on how to pay for it, but they want a plan, they want something to actually start fixing the roads. And, frankly, they are tired of the ongoing argument so they want to see a plan that everyone agrees will actually take care of the issue.

Mr. Shirkey then remains the guy with the hand everyone plays against. Now comes the political action that will drive how the players call his hand, and helps set up the election games for the next several years.

Posted: August 22, 2019 3:11 PM

Lynn Townsend was the Chrysler CEO just before Lee Iacocca took over and said something once that could be applied to just about anything. Consumers, he said, want an "Imperial at a Dodge Dart price."

Everyone wants the best, most expensive of anything and they don't want to pay a penny for it. We're all guilty of this, which helps explain a major reason why Governor Gretchen Whitmer and the Legislature have stalled getting an agreement on fixing the state's roads.

How are we going to pay for a serious infrastructure rehabilitation process? At least one player in this game, that being the House Republicans, has been adamant about not raising taxes to pay for more than $2 billion in road fixes. Senate Republicans have mostly been resistant, but still willing to wiggle a bit.

Opposing raising more money is the argument the public can't be burdened with more taxes. Sometimes it's a winning argument, but here's the thing: that argument has probably lost and lost a long time ago.

Proof? Well, earlier this month voters in Ingham County's Meridian Township approved a tax increase to fix up their roads. That adds Meridian to a list of, according to the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, some 700 local governments in the state that have assessed additional taxes, all approved by voters, for roads and other infrastructure needs.

There are 29 counties levying 31 different millages for roads, according the County Road Association of Michigan. The largest county of these is Washtenaw. Ontonagon starting levying a millage in 1936 – many drivers on Michigan roads today can be forgiven for thinking 1936 is when their particular road was last repaired.

How much these millages raise has to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars. The counties combined raise more than $59 million a year for roadwork. A good chunk of change, but still far less than the $2 billion plus Ms. Whitmer and others say is needed in the state.

Beyond what the taxpayers across the state have already agreed to pay, we see now that soybean farmers are paying to help local governments determine the safety of bridges their heavy bean-laden trucks cross. On their own, without government prodding, they are ponying up cash to help not just their industry but local residents.

One could then argue that by action if not express verbal support, the public has answered the question on raising new money to fix roads. One could further argue the answer is yes, raise money. No one would argue people like paying more money, but they will do it when they see it is needed.

It's kind of a dad-thing, you know. "Honey, the washer is broken." Dad: grumble grumble grumble, fiddles with belts, bolts, drums, nearly shorts out the house and then snaps, "Then let's just go get a new damn one."

Has not the public finally reached its spouse moment on paying for roads? Could not policymakers look at the widespread voter results from localities in almost every county over a very long time frame and conclude the public is sick of making do and will pay for new?

It is probably something policymakers should think about as they bump along Michigan roads towards home.

Posted: August 15, 2019 2:46 PM

If politics is show business for ugly people, then roll up kiddies because there is one grand boffo farce on stage right now in Oakland County.

And this reporter guarantees you no one is laughing harder at this show from his post somewhere in the divine eternal than L. Brooks Patterson.

Beyond comical, though, the pratfalls the county's Board of Commissioners have performed are also sadly ironic, given the legacy of Mr. Patterson.

You may not have liked or agreed with Mr. Patterson's politics, you may have cringed at his comments – especially those spearing Detroit – but whatever your party or your ideology you had to admit Mr. Patterson ran one hell of a top-notch county administration for the last 25-years.

The board of commissioners on the other hand leave one in doubt if any of them could successfully execute a takeout order for lunch.

Does the list of slipups, screwups and very naughty word-ups need repeating? Of course it does, at least in abbreviated form.

Mr. Patterson dies from pancreatic cancer. His funeral is scheduled for Thursday, August 15, which if you're reading this today is today. Also initially scheduled for Thursday, August 15 is a commissioner meeting to select Mr. Patterson's replacement. The commissioners, who have 30 days to select a successor or a special election is called, decide meeting during Mr. Patterson's funeral equals bad optics, so the meeting is reset for Friday, August 16.

Commissioner Chair Dave Woodward, who has wanted to be county executive, resigns his seat so he can be named county executive. Except in doing so, he deprives the county's Democrats of a board majority – the board is now 10-10 Dem/Republican where it was 11-10 in favor of the Dems – which could be an impediment in naming a Democrat the new executive.

As a side comic interlude, County Commissioner Republican Shelley Taub was caught texting her board colleagues to "DELETE! DELETE! DELETE!" their public email to avoid Freedom of Information requests. She tells a reporter it was dumbest thing she ever did. Ya think?

Back to the main action, a special three-member committee is named, two Democrats, one Republican, to interview the applicants for executive. They announce five interviews. Wait a sec, weren't there 21 applicants? Yeah, well, they're interviewing five. Which they do, only the Republican member boycotts the interviews.

Then today, again that would be Thursday, August 15, Mr. Woodward decides to drop out of the executive race. And he is withdrawing his resignation so he can get back on the board of commissioners. Wait a minute, wasn't something else happening today? Oh yeah, MR. PATTERSON'S FUNERAL! MR. WOODWARD PULLED OUT OF THE EXECUTIVE RACE DURING THE FUNERAL!

As one Oakland Democrat said to this reporter, "People weren't even allowed to mourn during the funeral."

And that's just the highlights, folks. There have been plenty of other diverting moments in this burlesque.

One is so tempted to repeat Will Rodgers' comment about not being a member of an organized party, except neither party has displayed much organizational prowess these last weeks.

Many people shake their heads, wondering why with Mr. Patterson so desperately ill the commissioners did not develop a sensible plan for naming a successor. One also suspects developing a sensible succession plan is the kind of action Mr. Patterson would have strongly suggested.

Well, Mr. Patterson always liked a good laugh. He has to be having one now.

Posted: August 8, 2019 4:04 PM

There was a little girl, no more than five, sitting on a stool intently watching what looked like a Disney movie on an iPad while her parents were just as intently listening to a gun dealer instruct them how to convert the semi-automatic rifle they were buying into a fully automatic weapon.

That happened at a gun show several years ago in Oakland County this reporter attended out of sheer curiosity. It was something brought back to mind this week. It's brought back to mind when there is a mass shooting, which sadly means in the three-plus years since that show I have thought of it often.

I'm well familiar with guns. I have no basic objection to guns. There have been times when things got a little odd in my different neighborhoods where I debated having a weapon and consulted with cops and gun experts I knew on what to buy (they all said forget about a pistol, get a pump-action shotgun. "You'll hit everything with that," one said to me).

We come again, yet again, to the question of what we can do to stifle if not end casual mass slaughter, since pleas to embrace and love all humanity fail. We again have to decide whether we will even debate the question in a way that leads to some action.

Because we haven't ever gotten to the point of deciding whether we should do something. For all the locations we can roll easily off the tongue – Columbine, Atlanta, Aurora, Wedgewood Baptist, Sikh Temple, the Navy Yards, Fort Hood, Sandy Hook, San Bernardino, Orlando, Virginia Tech, Las Vegas, Sutherland Springs, Marjory Stoneman Douglas, Pittsburgh, now El Paso and Dayton and of course Kalamazoo – have we done anything?

People say focus on mental health. Okay, the mental health community in this state and in the nation won't argue in one way with that. Mental health care has always been the afterthought in the health care debate, so by all means take on mental health. There is one type of gun violence we likely could reduce if more attention were paid to mental health, and that is suicide. Mass shootings, well the research seems less definitive on how effective that would be.

Attack video games? Really? Not to be churlish, but the Japanese spend far more per capita on video games than we do and how many mass shootings have they had? Of course, if their rules on gun ownership were the same as ours … ah, yes, the vexed question.

It is well established owning guns is a constitutional right. The U.S. Supreme Court held it was and held it was not connected to the militia provision in the 2nd Amendment, in its controversial D.C. v. Heller decision of 2008.

But what else did the court say in that decision? Let the late Justice Antonin Scalia, who wrote the majority decision, tell us:

"Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited. From Blackstone through the 19th-century cases, commentators and courts routinely explained that the right was not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose. For example, the majority of the 19th-century courts to consider the

question held that prohibitions on carrying concealed weapons were lawful under the Second Amendment or state analogues," Mr. Scalia said.

"Although we do not undertake an exhaustive historical analysis today of the full scope of the Second Amendment, nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms," he continued.

"We also recognize another important limitation on the right to keep and carry arms. Miller said, as we have explained, that the sorts of weapons protected were those 'in common use at the time. We think that limitation is fairly supported by the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of 'dangerous and unusual weapons.' It may be objected that if weapons that are most useful in military service — M-16 rifles and the like — may be banned, then the Second Amendment right is completely detached from the prefatory clause. But as we have said, the conception of the militia at the time of the Second Amendment's ratification was the body of all citizens capable of military service, who would bring the sorts of lawful weapons that they possessed at home to militia duty," Mr. Scalia said.

The Legislature has before it a number of bills dealing with what are called red flag laws, HB 4283, HB 4284, HB 4285, SB 156, SB 157 and SB 158. It is completely up to the Legislature whether it will or not deal with those bills. It seems Mr. Scalia, though, has laid out the legal standards permitting action on the bills should the Legislature choose to do so.

One other thing about the gun show that has stuck with this reporter: it was strictly forbidden to carry a loaded weapon into the show. You had to surrender any weapon you had to several nice older ladies who ensured they were unloaded before entering. I've always wondered what the gun show organizer understood that we somehow do not understand.

Posted: July 24, 2019 3:48 PM

It is hardly a headline that the old leave us. It is the nature of life after all. When they do go, we remember what they accomplished and the wise among us regret what we may have yet learned from them.

In recent weeks, several former senior legislators have died, and their loss has raised the question of what in fact we have lost. Further, it goes to a question of how, especially under term limits, lawmakers and policymakers in the state find a way to recover and make good use of the value those former lawmakers and officials could provide.

Among the complaints term limits opponents have made is that our system, in place since 1992, hurts the ability of lawmakers to develop experience and build relationships.

But since the deaths recently of former Sens. Billy Sunday Huffman and Gary Corbin (and though he was not an elected official, I would add Bob Berg because of his positions with both former Governor William Milliken and Detroit Mayor Coleman Young), a number of people have complained that term limits has limited something else.

That is mentorship, the ability of former leaders, legislators, officials to provide newer and generally younger legislators and officials with insight, advice and counsel based on their experience, their victories and defeats.

Talk to former legislators, and those who served from the 1970s to the 1990s will tell you how Democrats and Republicans together would meet casually and almost always have the senior legislators talk about how issues were handled in previous sessions, how they assessed and dealt with problems, what they wished they had done differently, and how solutions had worked or hadn't. Every person who talks of those times says how incredibly valuable those sessions were, how those sessions helped them understand the background of issues, who had the best knowledge on the issues, specific legal and administrative booby traps to watch for, constituencies that needed to be consulted, how to work with the other side, and how, generally, to do the best job they could for their constituents.

The lifetime limits on legislative and state office service plays a major role in limiting the ability for mentorships. Pat Anderson, a principal author and supporter of term limits, has said now that the full effect of term limits has been realized – in other words, that no lawmakers in office prior to term limits taking effect are still in office – a reasonable change could be to alter the lifetime limits, so long as that amendment does not block the ability of newer people to serve.

Short of that, lawmakers and officials could take steps on their own to encourage current officials to meet with former officials to draw on their experience and knowledge. House Speaker Lee Chatfield (R-Levering) did this in a way when he invited the former speakers to come together before he took the post. Doing so more often, in – as much as this reporter hates to suggest it – off the record lunches or events to discuss specific pending issues, could be encouraged.

True, all the best advice in the world won't stop someone from making the worst mistakes in the world, but that lies on the person acting not the advisor. Right now, the state seems stuck on a few issues. Would it hurt to have folks who have figured how to get unstuck to make suggestions?

Posted: July 18, 2019 3:10 PM

If you had not heard about U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Detroit) before this week, and you have been at least half-awake, you have certainly heard of her now.

Along with her fellow Democratic freshman U.S. Reps. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Alexandria Octavio-Cortez of New York, Ms. Tlaib is part of the "Squad" the four women formed, trying to push Democrats further left. Before this past Sunday, they were still known primarily to the political cognoscenti who wondered at their tangles with U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California).

Then Sunday, President Donald Trump entered the fray through Twitter, saying they if the Squad members hate America they should go back to where they came from (which in Ms. Tlaib's case is literally Detroit). And it's been nonstop since then. Many commentators say Mr. Trump's attack is an attempt to define the Democratic Party and his eventual 2020 opponent through these four with his – well, sorry, but this is what they are – racist attacks.

Ms. Tlaib has always been unafraid to speak her mind and share her views. She was removed with other protestors from a Detroit Economic Club luncheon with Mr. Trump. She made it plain in her campaign for Congress that one of her goals was to see Mr. Trump impeached. She has been active on social media, has been for years, speaking up for Palestinians, showing off her family, and making statements. She posted a Facebook video after Mr. Trump's tweets saying no bully would silence her, and she urged everyone in her 13th District to join together to fight for working families.

These are all, in their own way to be expected. But the image of Ms. Tlaib this reporter best recalls comes from 2013. She was in the state House and working in the House Appropriations Community Health Subcommittee with then chair Republican Rep. Matt Lori. Both played a big role in developing the state's Healthy Michigan Medicaid expansion, but given the animosity to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) and the Republican control of the Legislature, Mr. Lori's role was clearly bigger.

It was after the subcommittee had taken significant action to fund the program. This reporter was standing behind Mr. Lori waiting for another reporter to finish asking questions. Before I could get in to speak to him, Ms. Tlaib knelt beside Mr. Lori, whispering to him. What I could hear mostly was her thanking him for all he did for to move the bill.

Then she leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.

That instant has stuck with me. At one time, lawmakers showing emotion with each other, even members of the other party, was actually a regular happening. Thus, I remember then-House Republican Leader Bill Bryant weeping as he said his goodbye on the House Floor to Democratic Taxation Chair George Montgomery. Or when then-Democratic Sen., now Wayne Circuit Judge, Virgil Smith hugged then-Republican Sen. David Honigman when Mr. Honigman returned to the chamber after life-saving surgery.

Yes, those were mostly during the pre-term limits era, when lawmakers worked together and socialized together and tried to find solutions together. It's not that term limits makes any of that impossible, just far harder than it should be. And when the toxicity of partisanship is added to the stew, it is less and less likely to see genuine emotional moments between lawmakers. Well, less likely to see emotional moments that don't involve anger.

But that moment of heartfelt gratitude Ms. Tlaib showed Mr. Lori was one time in what was even then a toxic partisan time lawmakers could and did work together, and express their appreciation for each other.

Whatever happens with this latest controversy, for this reporter at least when he thinks of Ms. Tlaib, that is one moment he will remember.

Posted: July 12, 2019 2:47 PM

Like any politician, U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell is active on social media, especially on Facebook. And it is through her Facebook page she has informed her constituents, friends and folks just browsing on her congressional activities, on reaching the new normal in her life without her husband, congressional legend former U.S. Rep. John Dingell, and her worries.

And those worries often focus on divisiveness. Not the general concept of divisiveness that is discussed and written about and speculated on in a general philosophical sense. But political divisiveness as it affects friendships and families.

In many ways, Ms. Dingell (D-Dearborn) uses her Facebook page as anyone else might. She makes ample use of Peanuts and Winnie the Pooh cartoons to wish people happy days. Of course, her page is festooned with photographs. There is the occasional video, for example of Ms. Dingell doing a little shimmy while singing "Yankee Doodle Dandy" on July 4.

She also uses the page to help in her journey through grief. This also is not new. Sen. Ken Horn (R-Frankenmuth) will still write moving letters on Facebook to his young granddaughter who died. This week, Ms. Dingell posted a photograph of Mr. Dingell's grave at Arlington National Cemetery and how at first, this past Monday, which would have been Mr. Dingell's 93rd birthday, the cemetery was for a time closed due to flooding. But she felt she had to be there, and later that day the cemetery was opened and she was able to spend time with him.

And on that page she also expresses the pain of watching friendships possibly being shattered because of political animosity that exists not just in government but among friends and families.

In June, Ms. Dingell wrote of a breakfast group she had been part of for some 20 years, a group that has been an anchor for her. The members could disagree, sometimes strongly, on issues, but always, she said, respectfully.

Things have changed, she said. "I went today, and it was just plain uncomfortable and by the time I left most of those at the entire bagel place had become involved for or against I don't even know what." A friend, "someone I deeply respect," had come angry about Democrats, about the talk of impeachment, about guns, about other issues, she said.

"Others at separate tables then expressed opinions responding, one wanting me to support impeachment, others concerned about prescription drugs, others saying I was doing right thing. A third person, someone I know as a veteran, came over to tell me in no uncertain terms, using very harsh names and words what he thinks of Democrats, its leaders and how we keep America from being great. By now everyone present had become involved and aware and I know many felt very uncomfortable. I sure did." Though the friends still at her table, all Republicans, she said, urged her not to be bothered, Ms. Dingell said she was all day.

Once the breakfast group was to talk about sports, families, books, neighbors and, yes, politics, but now, "I told my friends this was why it had become difficult to meet them.....a simple gathering place is becoming one more place that divides."

It is not the only post where she has expressed those worries. Worries so many people have raised about splits in their own families or in their neighborhoods.

Mr. Dingell was a red-blooded Democrat, but had many Republican friends and praised them. Ms. Dingell started life as a Republican, had worked for former U.S. Sen. Robert Griffin, a Republican from Michigan, and then switched parties. The vicious divide between the two parties existing now is something one hopes politicians will grow out of eventually.

But the split happening in families and among friends: Could that prove to be the more serious split in the end, one that is harder to heal, one that causes greater lasting damage to us all? Should we, like Ms. Dingell, worry more about that split?

Posted: June 27, 2019 1:59 PM

Could a Lindstrom finally stand in the U.S. Senate chamber? Maybe.

No, no, no, this reporter is not running for the U.S. Senate. The only thing this reporter will run for is president of the Alfred Hitchcock Film Society, and even then, he'd lose over the vexed "Jamaica Inn" question.

However, cousin Dave is running, in Kansas.

David Lindstrom, one of the six sons of Uncle Paul and Aunt Harriett Lindstrom of Weymouth, Massachusetts, officially announced Thursday he is running for the Republican nomination for the open U.S. Senate seat in the JayHawker state.

Cousin Dave arrived in Kansas because he is one of three of Paul and Harriet's boys to play pro-football (the Lindstrom family's prowess in football is legendary. People still marvel at this reporter's renown for bench-sitting as a third-string defensive tackle) along with his brothers Chris and Eric. Chris's son, Chris Jr., was just drafted in the first round by the Atlanta Falcons after a stellar career as the top offensive guard at Boston College. Dave had the longest career of the three brothers, playing for the Kansas City Chiefs and living in the Kansas suburbs of the Missouri city.

Possibly Dave's first major claim to post-football fame was as the focus of a lead story in the Wall Street Journal more than 20 years ago, which looked at his efforts as a Burger King franchise owner to hire folks on welfare and help them move into the working life. Not quite as famous was the reaction of my neighbors when I shouted to them early that morning, standing on the front porch in my bathrobe while holding the paper, "Hey, this story is about my cousin!"

Dave was the Republican candidate for lieutenant governor in Kansas in 2002, and the GOP ticket that year, um, lost. He was then a top county official and has been a major local philanthropist.

He's running because current U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kansas) is not. He's stepping down after four-terms in the chamber.

And Dave is getting in early for what a number of Kansas political observers think could be a crowded and fraught GOP field for the nomination. Only one other candidate has so far announced. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, a Kansan and former U.S. House member, has said he will not run for the seat.

Dave is pushing all the right conservative Republican buttons, which one might expect in Kansas. In a newspaper interview before he announced Dave said he worried about a growing embrace of "socialism," and that, "I think our country's under attack." Dave said he worries that some politicians are helping create an environment of "entitlement, as opposed to hard work." That, he said, is how he views socialism.

Now if Dave hired this reporter's brother Peter, a top opposition-research specialist out of Washington, D.C., to handle that part of his campaign, he'd be a guaranteed winner.

Except that Peter is a Democrat. Hey, just like football, we Lindstroms hit 'em from both sides.

Posted: June 21, 2019 3:54 PM

We are entering an unusual period in Michigan governance. The economy is still pretty good. The state is relatively flush fiscal-wise. July 4 is soon upon us with parades and hot dogs and fireworks and cakes with flags and did we say parades already?

And we do not have a budget. Nor, unless all state leaders have the same divine dream at the same time and come to accord over coffee some morning next week, will we have a budget by July 4. Which means: There's a budget fight a-comin'. Which is directly tied into the road fight that's here already but hasn't yet put on the gloves.

So, what does the tale of the tape tell us? Who has the stronger hand in this robust discussion we expect soon? It's no surprise really, it's Governor Gretchen Whitmer.

But, let's be honest, and not to take away from Ms. Whitmer's position, the governor – any governor – has an advantage over the Legislature in settling a budget. There is the veto thing, after all. And the governor always has a bargaining advantage over lawmakers. Need a library, a rest stop, help with a development issue, let's see representative or senator, where were you exactly on that road tax vote?

Fixing the roads does exactly give Ms. Whitmer a bigger advantage. It was the issue she ran on, it was the primary issue that got her elected. She's come up with a proposal and been pushing it hard with the general electorate.

Of course, her proposed 45-cent hike in fuel taxes isn't popular. But getting Afghanistan's, sorry Michigan's, roads fixed is very popular. And creating a situation where the roads stay nice and fixed, like they are in most states, is also very popular. And Ms. Whitmer has kept pushing the idea of don't like my plan, come up with something else. That shows flexibility in finding a solution.

She was helped in that this week when House Democrats did come up with a plan that boosted revenue for roads, though not through a fuel tax hike. The House Dems taking that step silences one complaint majority Republicans have made: that Ms. Whitmer's defenders have not produced a plan. Now the focus goes squarely on the Republicans to produce an actual proposal that answers Ms. Whitmer.

House Republicans have done the most, thus far, on the roads question, but their somewhat non-specified strategy of cutting the budget, possibly selling assets and trying to redirect funding runs into a ton of overall management problems they as yet have not resolved. You can only sell an asset once, after all, and fixing the roads is an ongoing problem. Pulling money from schools for roads, that's a tough sell, as will be finding the money to replace the school money pulled for the roads.

Not that Ms. Whitmer will have an easy time. She'll take some body blows in getting a resolution. There will be, there will have to be, compromises. All sides will have to come out with what they can call a win in the fights. It could get tense. Right now, one suspects it won't come down to 11:59 p.m., September 30 before a resolution is reached. But we could be into football season before it's finished.

Of course, the way the Tigers are playing it may as well be football season already, except that means watching the Lions, so maybe the best show will be the budget/roads fight.

Posted: June 14, 2019 3:45 PM

The state dropped its cases against the Flint water crisis defendants on Thursday. Well, the state probably saved itself some embarrassment in doing so. Because this reporter was willing to bet cash money former Health and Human Services Director Nick Lyon was not going to prison. Nor was the state's former chief medical executive, Dr. Eden Wells, going to prison. In fact, probably none of the charged individuals were going to prison.

By dropping the cases, the state is free to file new charges, add new defendants. It is also free to not file charges.

No one should prejudge what the state will do. But the state has to come up with something seriously damning if it honestly hopes to send someone to jail. This reporter remains willing to bet cash money that almost no one will end up behind bars because of the injury done Flint and its residents.

The task of proving a mens rea – a criminal intent – of state officials involving Flint is going to be probably impossible. Seriously, does one honestly think state officials maliciously intended to harm the residents of one of the state's largest cities? Even if one does think that, prove it, and do so beyond a reasonable doubt. This reporter has sat on five juries, this reporter in three of them stood and pronounced the defendant guilty. This reporter also covered Mr. Lyon's preliminary examination and toted in his mind the large numbers of allegations defense counsel could rip up. This reporter knows what reasonable doubt is and that seemed all the state's case stood on.

Can't prove criminal intent, okay, can you prove criminal negligence? Maybe. But still that will be very hard to prove. And in some cases, if not most, next to impossible to prove.

And if the state can make a case, either involving criminal intent or criminal negligence, will it be able to prove its case to a jury located outside Genesee County? Because change of venue motions are going to fly thicker than a crowd of mosquitoes on a summer's night should the state get cases to trial.

Which brings us to the question of how does Flint get justice? Because Flint deserves justice.

Legally, of course, there are still civil cases. A type of justice can be earned that way, but will that account for everyone in the city?

Perhaps justice will have to handled in a financial manner. Assuring that every resident has health insurance forever. Special funding for the schools to provide the additional aides needed to help small kids. Special funding for college or technical training. Assisting homeowners with mortgages. Paying for the entirety of infrastructure improvements for decades to come. Greater incentives for economic development in the city.

Flint was harmed. That is a fact. Flint deserves justice. That too is a fact. If it is unlikely to see people imprisoned, what then is the manner the state should grant justice to this still wounded city? Whatever that manner is, the state better start working on it.

Posted: May 16, 2019 4:40 PM

In case anyone was vacationing on the dark side of Neptune the last few days, the news was breaking Wednesday that Rep. Larry Inman (R-Williamsburg) was indicted on extortion and bribery charges. House leaders have called on him to resign. He says he is innocent and will not resign.

The issue at hand is not whether Mr. Inman should leave office. The issue is what should happen should he or any other legislator leave office, either by resignation, expulsion or death.

What should happen is the people of the affected district don't wait freaking forever to have representation back in the House or Senate.

Over the last 20 something years we've seen this pattern played out too often. One of the most recent examples was with Lansing Mayor Andy Schor. A former member of the House, he resigned his seat as he was taking the mayor's office, and then Governor Rick Snyder scheduled an election for his successor in November 2018, as part of the general election.

It was nearly a full year before Rep. Sarah Anthony (D-Lansing) raised her right hand to take the oath and most of the residents of Michigan's capital city had someone again acting on their behalf in the House. This goes beyond simply voting on issues, it includes advocating for the lawmaker's community, or communities, on legislature or grants and helping open the doors to bureaucrats to assist local residents.

This scenario has happened a number of times in recent decades. A lawmaker departs, for whatever reason, and if that lawmaker's district tends towards the party opposite the governor's party, the governor schedules the election for more than a year after the initial lawmaker left.

This is just not right. And generally doesn't happen elsewhere. In Ohio, our neighbors south of us, when a lawmaker leaves the Legislature (which seems to happen more frequently in Ohio than it does here) the party caucus of the departing lawmaker chooses the successor. Those decisions are made no more than weeks after the departure.

Having a caucus pick a successor likely wouldn't fit with our tradition of elections. Yet, we could still arrange, by statute, to ensure that a new legislator is named in a respectable time frame.

The time from legislative resignation to newly sworn-in legislator should take no more than 90 days. The governor calls the election dates, a primary 45 days away, with a general 45 days after that. This would likely require adjusting some of the current election timetables, but that should be the framework.

Obviously, exceptions would need to be made. If something happens within 90 days of the end of the year in an election year, and the lawmaker was term-limited, the person elected to succeed the lawmaker is named to serve for the remainder of the term, for example. When former Rep. Peter Pettalia died in September 2016, his seat went without representation for the rest of the year, including the always busy lame-duck session. Why shouldn't the state make it so that Rep. Sue Allor (R-Wolverine) could have taken office immediately upon certification in that situation?

And to the complaint local governments would make on an election's cost, require the state pay for the election so long as it is only a legislative replacement election. The state could create a fund for legislative special elections, and just keep it rolling if there are none in one fiscal year (though Michigan has had special elections in every off-year since at least 2009). If local issues get tacked on to a special legislative election, then the local governments have to pay for their share of the fun.

Perhaps in the case of Mr. Inman we needn't worry. Perhaps. But there will be a legislative vacancy sometime, and it's just not right to deny folks their rightful representation for more than just a few months.

Posted: May 9, 2019 1:43 PM

Bob Berg died Wednesday, succumbing in a long battle against multiple myeloma. If you never got a chance to know him, well you missed someone who knew how to work with Republicans and Democrats, show commitment, honesty and thorough integrity through his posts as spokesperson for former Governor William Milliken and former Detroit Mayor Coleman Young.

But one does not know someone for more than 40 years, as did this reporter, without picking up a few stories.

Bob, for example, loved Porsches. Was rapturous about Porsches. He was delighted to regale you for … for… oh, hours, about how he cared for his Porsche, how he only had it serviced at one specific shop in Cleveland (and a tuneup there in the 1970s cost about two months of this reporter's wages), and then his long routine about preparing the car for the winter – because it could never be allowed out in the winter, God knows, not all with all the salt on the roads – with super-inflating the tires, draining the oil and putting in 20-weight oil and on and on.

One wretched January day during the 1978 blizzard, a radio reporter named Lee Foley punked Bob by running into Bob's office, next to Mr. Milliken's office, and shouting Bob's wife had an emergency with the kids, but her car wouldn't work so she had to take the Porsche and she had just showed up and the Porsche was COVERED IN SALT!

Bob, who was pale anyway, lost what color he had in his face, cried out, "NOOOOO!!!" and rushed from his office. Bob then spent much of day prowling the Capitol looking for Lee.

And Bob along with George Weeks, then Mr. Milliken's chief of staff and who we sadly lost last year, was also part of one of the best reporting stories this reporter can tell. And it involves Cindy Kyle, now communications director for the Institute for Public Policy and Social Research at Michigan State University, but from the late 1970s to early 1980s a top reporter at Lansing's Associated Press Bureau (and this reporter's darling wife).

In telling this story, you have to know in the days before 9/11/01 anyone could pretty much wander through any state office building without having to show ID, have an appointment, be searched, go through security and all the rest. That included the governor's office, and it was accepted that reporters could hang outside the door of Mr. Milliken's personal office and try to grab him or whoever was in the office with him for a quick interview.

You must also recall in the late 1970s personal computers were limited to Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak's garage and most computers were the size of the Capitol. Which meant business was done by typing on typewriters, specifically IBM Selectrics. While all reporters knew how to type, many men did not. Typing in those Neanderthal times was still largely a woman's occupation.

It was late one evening during one of the many recessions Michigan suffered through in those years, and Mr. Milliken was meeting with then-House Speaker Bobby Crim, Senate Majority Leader Bill Faust, House Republican leader Bill Bryant, Senate GOP leader Bob VanderLaan, Management and Budget Director Jerry Miller and Bob (Berg) and George (Weeks).

Close to 20 reporters, including this one and Cindy, were right outside Mr. Milliken's office door, waiting for some signal they had all reached an agreement.

Finally, the door opened a crack, Bob leaned out and said an agreement was reached. All the leaders had to brief their caucuses and then details of the agreement would be released, he said.

BAM! That was all we needed, the reporters flew from the doorway to get bulletins out – which in the late '70s meant little more than sending smoke signals.

That is, all the reporters ran out except Cindy, who continued to stand by Mr. Milliken's door.

Bob looked into the office, said, "They're gone," and BAM! again as Mr. Crim, Mr. Bryant, Mr. VanderLaan and Mr. Miller rushed out and headed straight to one of the Selectrics stationed at the receptionist's desk, each holding a pile of notes from the meeting.

But all they could do is take the cover off the Selectric. One of them, Cindy doesn't recall who, sat at the typewriter and seemed to expect it would work by force of his will. "I don't how to type!" he finally shouted. "Who can type?"

But none of the other men could type either. A wail came up, "Who can type? Who can type?"

Cindy raised her hand and said, "I can type."

"THE GIRL! GET THE GIRL!" the leaders of Michigan all shouted. Cindy calmly walked to the Selectric, turned it on, rolled in a sheet of paper…

And typed while she asked questions. "The agreement will cut how much from the budget? Okay. And what about school aid, okay, yes. And there will be cuts where else? Okay. And, I'm sorry, what taxes were going to changed?" All the while, legislative leaders shouted at her all the details they had intended to keep secret from reporters.

Bob and George both stood there watching this, slack-jawed and continuously muttering some word that started, "mutha" something or other.

When she finished typing, Bob took the sheet and walked over to the copier. Our state's leaders, somehow still not realizing who Cindy was, were thanking her for her help. Bob brought over copies of the agreement to the leaders who then rushed off to their caucuses before another midnight session started.

When they left, Bob handed Cindy back the original typed sheet. "It's your story," he said, and boy was it ever.

Requiescat in pace, Bob.

Posted: May 3, 2019 3:49 PM

There's a joke going around social media aimed at people of a certain age that if they want to make sure their children and grandchildren will never find out their secrets, they should write them down by hand and leave them in plain sight. The joke being that theoretically people below a certain age cannot read cursive writing so the secrets will be safe forever.

Rep. Brenda Carter (D-Pontiac) has something to say about that. She has introduced legislation requiring the Department of Education to develop a curriculum on teaching children cursive writing and make that available to the state's school districts. Many school districts, maybe most, have done away with teaching pupils to write in cursive.

Should her HB 4483 become law, it would add Michigan to the now more than a dozen states – Ohio was the latest – to have established at least a proposed curricula for teaching kids how to loop and connect letters, and at a minimum how to correctly hold a pen or pencil for the most efficient and less tiring manner of writing.

This goes beyond calligraphy and Spencerian script, reading old love letters between the grandparents and Mom's teenage diary, and the apparently growing – as well as expensive – hobby of collecting fountain pens and writing with exotic inks.

Handwriting was high tech for most of human history. Through letters, journals and official documents it kept alive all human activity. Development of items we take for granted, such as pencils and pens and inks – the development of iron ball ink was a major invention -- were in fact significant technologic developments, assuring transmission of information as well as recording the events that, at least theoretically, give us insight into current matters.

And, research shows handwriting plays a major in role in brain development, one that typing and God knows voice recording does not. That goes beyond just small children. Studies have shown college students who took notes in longhand remembered material better than did students who typed notes on a computer screen.

There are advocates who argue because typing has now totally dominated the world, kids should forget about learning handwriting, period. In which case, those who can write cursive probably could use it as a secret code and, dare one say it, take over the world. Okay, maybe that wouldn't happen.

This reporter, though, wonders if there are other benefits to handwriting such as forcing one to stare at something other than a screen. Doing that might help people notice other things, notice the real things of life not attached to a computer, like trees and flowers and a best friend's expression and the car that will run you over because your face is stuck looking at a phone while crossing the street.

Plus, learning handwriting means you can develop a truly distinguished signature, much like the Governor Gretchen Whitmer's very fine signature. One can tell she paid attention in handwriting class.

Posted: April 25, 2019 2:27 PM

Things happen that cause one to wonder. Anyone working in politics and government who then tries to explain what happens in politics and government to hapless civilians understand that concept since they are inevitably riddled with questions about "why do they do that," "what do you mean," "are you kidding," and "isn't that kinda stupid?"

However, something happened during a Senate committee meeting this week that left this reporter wondering, "Why?" Specifically, why wouldn't someone honor a Holocaust survivor?

It took place during the Senate Oversight Committee meeting. The panel was listening to and questioning Attorney General Dana Nessel on her newly formed hate crimes unit.

Hate crimes and dealing with hate crimes is kind of a vexed issue, since it is both a logical concept (most people probably would say if an innocent person were, for example, beat up because they are black or Jewish or gay or for whatever reason the perpetrator should face extra punishment) but also one that raises cautions (former Sen. Dan Cooper in the 1970s said everyone is allowed to be a bigot in their own home, and that is true: while ideally one should not be a bigot a person can be so long as the person does not act out that bigotry harming someone else).

Plus, the question has become fraught in today's hyper-partisan atmosphere. When Michigan's hate crime law, the Ethnic Intimidation Act, passed now a generation ago there wasn't much controversy. Enhanced penalties for crimes committed against specific individuals – for example, child sex abuse – is and was not a new idea and the state was still dealing with the murder of Vincent Chin (killed by two autoworkers during a recession because they thought he was Japanese) so lawmakers recognized the law was appropriate.

However, today in many ways we no longer see people as having different opinions than ours, they are our blood enemies to be opposed and defeated at every moment.

So it was clear the Republican majority on the committee wasn't immediately taking Ms. Nessel's arguments about the hate crimes unit at face value. Thus it is these days.

It was also clear in the audience there were people both supporting and opposing the hate crimes unit. Several opponents were seated in the row before this reporter, nodding and saying, "that's right" when some tough questions were thrown at Ms. Nessel.

It is critical to this story to know the day of the hearing was the state's Holocaust Remembrance Day. Ms. Nessel referenced that and how her family in Europe had suffered during the Holocaust. And when she finished testifying, Sen. Jeremy Moss (D-Southfield) introduced Rene Lichtman.

Mr. Lichtman, now in his early 80s, survived the Holocaust in France, hiding with his mother as so many were forced to do. His father was killed, many other members of his family were killed in concentration camps in Poland.

That day's discussion was very important, Mr. Lichtman said, because "hate speech leads to, can lead to hate crimes." Not necessarily by the person uttering the hate speech, he said, but by someone hearing it and acting on it.

The Nuremberg Trials were about hate crimes, Mr. Lichtman said. "People were murdered. They didn't commit any crimes, they were murdered because they were Jews, gypsies, Bolsheviks."

He acknowledged, "I don't care if someone hates me as a Jew, if they think that," but "hate speech makes me very worried."

When Mr. Lichtman finished, committee chair Sen. Ed McBroom (R-Vulcan) asked the committee and audience to applaud Mr. Lichtman. And virtually everyone in the committee room did so.

Virtually all of them applauded. The men sitting in front of this reporter pointedly did not applaud. They pointedly sat with their hands in their laps.

Having to ask questions of Mr. McBroom, this reporter was not able to ask the men why they did not recognize Mr. Lichtman. At 81 or 82 he is one of the youngest survivors now of the Holocaust. This reporter has known other survivors, now gone. He has friends born in displaced persons camps after their parents were liberated from the death and concentration camps.

Those who have lived our history, be it the civil rights movement, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the women and gay movements, or the Holocaust are all aging. One day the veterans of the 2016 election will be old. Why would you not want to hear their stories? Why would you not want to acknowledge them?

It causes one to wonder.

Posted: April 18, 2019 3:25 PM

In what can surprise absolutely no one, a poll released this week showed 75 percent of those questioned disapproved of Governor Gretchen Whitmer's proposal to raise Michigan's fuel taxes by 45 cents to pay for a massive road improvement program.

Of course, 75 percent opposed it. Yeah, so?

Is the fact 75 percent oppose a tax increase enough of a reason not to raise taxes, whether the gas tax, the registration tax, the sales tax, beer tax, liquor tax, the oil and gas severance tax, the tobacco tax or pick a tax, to pay for what everyone agrees is desperately needed funding to fix Michigan's roads?

Nobody likes spending money, even for things critically needed. Everyone likes to shop, everyone likes to acquire the shiny new thingawhackawoo, but nobody likes to spend. It's one reason why shopping with credit cards is so attractive: Look, I bought the fully-loaded 2019 Willywillyyowwow and no cash, no filthy lucre, no coin of the realm, no legal tender actually vacated my wallet, thanks to my Giantdebtcard!

The power of free is astonishing. Add the adjective to anything and it instantly makes the item more desirable than anything else that could be imagined. An economist once ran an experiment one Halloween where he gave kids the option of a tiny snack-sized candy bar, say a Snickers, for free or spend one penny and get a Babe Ruth Louisville Slugger-sized Snickers. Yeah, virtually none of the kids coughed up a penny.

Along with not wanting to spend, there also remains an illusion that sufficient money is already hidden away in the state. In looking at Michigan's sorry roads, a student wrote recently in Hillsdale's student paper the state should take money from someplace else to finance improvements. The student didn't deny the roads needed fixing, just take the loot from someplace else. Where the student wanted the state to take the money from – university budgets, prisons, free lunches for poor kids, the State Police – was not mentioned. Of course, when people say take the money from someplace else, they never suggest where that somewhere else should be.

Still fixing roads must be paid for. It is uncontested there is not enough money now to pay for a sufficient road repair plan. Nor is it uncontested the public wants the roads fixed.

This raises a basic question in essential governing: There is a clear need for a service, there is an equally clear public desire for the service, and there is an equally clear opposition to paying for the needed, wanted service, what then do policymakers do?

Perhaps the question needs to be rephrased: How does the public wish to suffer? Would it rather not spend money on roads, but travel on roads that rival Afghanistan quality? Or spend money and then zip down well-maintained roads to yell at their public officials about high taxes?

Posted: April 3, 2019 3:42 PM

Politics is a touchy-feely business. Well, it has been a touchy-feely business, with glad-handing, back slapping, the occasional headlock to argue out positions.

Now comes former Governor Jennifer Granholm to suggest the touchy-feelyness may need to be limited.

Her comment, via Twitter, stems from the question of whether former Vice President Joe Biden behaved inappropriately in his dealings with a Nevada legislator, Lucy Flores. Ms. Flores' complaint was that Mr. Biden touched and kissed her hair during a campaign.

This is not a small matter, since Mr. Biden appeared to have been on the verge of declaring he would run for president before this issue arose (and there are some observers who feel he might be the strongest Democrat to challenge President Donald Trump, especially in the Midwest states like Michigan, Wisconsin and Ohio that Mr. Trump won).

The issue has also generated a growing debate, much of it, to gauge by social media, between women over what is and is not appropriate and whether this is keeping with or taking to an extreme the still evolving message of the #MeToo movement.

Ms. Granholm commented on Twitter, "Having hugged dear @JoeBiden a number of times, I am 100 percent certain that his intentions are to show empathy, warmth and support. "

She added: "AND in this era we all (me too, as a hugger) might reevaluate initiating contact beyond a handshake since so many feel it's an invasion of personal space."

Ms. Granholm is a renowned hugger. In her run for governor in 2002, she reached the point where she hugged instead of shook hands at some locales. At a Michigan Journalism Hall of Fame banquet during her administration, inductee and legendary Detroit sports reporter Joe Falls not only got a hug, he asked for a kiss and she gave him one.

Ms. Granholm's tweet generated considerable comments. Many encouraged her to continue hugging, many supported Mr. Biden, many said they had stopped hugging – at least one suggested it was out of fear of possible repercussions against him – and a number said a discussion on appropriateness was needed.

However, one person complained that the Democratic Party may come across as a party of scolds. Another worried that what might come of the #MeToo movement will be fear and not respect.

Will we see a more straitened political behavior going forward, at least in regard to human contact? Oh, probably. Will it improve the tone of politics? Well, ummm, let's just wait and see, shall we?

Posted: March 28, 2019 1:31 PM

Measles is back upon us and the state has now had more cases than it has had nearly a generation. Measles. A disease once nearly eradicated in this state and nation is back upon us. Could something, anything, good come from this?

Yes, actually. People might start to get their kids vaccinated again.

This reporter has written about vaccinations, been frank about how the question of vaccinations has pushed his sense of objectivity to the limit.

This reporter has written of Michigan's critical role in vaccinations, especially the polio vaccine. I have written how following a live national press conference in the 1950s that announced how the new polio vaccine worked and was safe church bells rang and special services were held in thanksgiving that such a devastating disease was brought to heel. Now people claim religious objections to vaccines, then church bells rang in celebration a vaccine had been found.

This reporter has also written how when the news of the polio vaccine was announced, his mother wept because her kids would now be safe from polio when kids she knew growing up outside Cleveland were struck down.

At least 22 cases of measles have been confirmed in Michigan in the last several weeks. There could be more cases that have not yet been confirmed.

So far as we know all these cases result from exposure to one infected person. One person, visiting the state, visiting south Oakland County who went to dozens of places during that visit and potentially exposed who knows how many people.

And now we have to consider how many people the newly infected people have in turn exposed.

Measles is a miserable disease. I know. I had it before a vaccine was available. The complications it can wreak on a small body are serious, deadly serious. Children die from measles.

Michigan has a lousy vaccination rate. Yes, thankfully, most parents do vaccinate their children. Yes, there are some people, a relatively small number, who have medical sensitivities or allergies to vaccines. Which makes it all the more critical that parents get their kids vaccinated to protect both them and those few who legitimately cannot be vaccinated.

The state has a major campaign to encourage vaccination, spurred on by a mother whose own unvaccinated child died of pertussis, a vaccine-preventable disease. The state now requires parents who would object to vaccines get information on vaccines before making their final refusal to enroll in school. These have helped improve the state's vaccination rate from dismal to lousy.

But measles might move more parents to act. Because nothing spurs action like fear.

How sad it is to have write that. How sad it is that a person cannot be persuaded by science and logic and a sense that if nothing else their child has a right to be free from a deadly disease if that is possible. How sad that one has to be scared to act, and how gallingly grateful must we be that they were scared to act.

Right now in Michigan the warnings have come true. Doctors and health officials and scientists and parents all warned what could happen if too few people were vaccinated and a disease entered into that situation. We have more cases of measles now than we have had in 25 years. In 2018 we had more cases of measles than we had had since 1994. What kind of a record to we want to reach in 2020 and beyond?

How about this record: no cases of measles, or pertussis, or mumps or chickenpox, or any of the other vaccine-preventable diseases? If that happened, then something good did come from something very bad. Be the right kind of statistic, get your kids vaccinated.

Posted: March 21, 2019 3:27 PM

The easiest line in Shakespeare to remember is not "to be or not to be" but "words, words, words," the reply Hamlet makes to Polonius when asked what the Danish prince is reading.

So much of the argument over former Governor, and former Interim Michigan State University President, John Engler's interview or non-interview with lawyers for Attorney General Dana Nessel is over words, words and words.

Ignore for the moment the larger issues at play in the attorney general's investigation into how MSU handled the sex abuse scandal of Larry Nassar. This skirmish is between lawyers. And a lawyer's weapons are words, how and under what circumstances those words are employed, deployed and in some measure destroyed.

The headlines and commentary over the flap are focused on accusations Mr. Engler wants to lie or that the AG's lawyers have behaved unprofessionally. But the real fight lies in the words traded before the roundhouse rights. They are all polite, sometimes friendly, but also all calculated to land punches and duck others.

Ms. Nessel wants her investigators to interview Mr. Engler. Following discussions/negotiations it was agreed for an interview on Thursday, March 28, in Washington, D.C. Mr. Engler, though he has a home in Michigan, spends much of his time in Washington where he worked heading several associations after leaving office in 2003.

The email trail between Ms. Nessel's project manager for the investigation, Christina Grossi and Mr. Engler's lawyer, Seth Waxman, is a fascinating – for those who are fascinated by such things – lesson in how lawyers write and phrase their writings.

Take the heading on the letter emailed by Mr. Waxman to Ms. Grossi – the one where he said Mr. Engler would not participate in an interview unless Ms. Grossi was recused from the entire investigation because he accused her of inappropriate behavior – saying, "Re: Michigan State University Investigation – John Engler Voluntary Interview."

"Voluntary" interview. Not required, not subpoenaed, voluntary. It is a significant word because it sets the tone, as far as Mr. Waxman is concerned, as to interviewing Mr. Engler at all.

As has been pointed out, primarily by Mr. Engler's supporters, Mr. Engler was hired as the MSU interim president after Nassar was sentenced. He was not at MSU when Nassar committed his abuse. Unless, therefore, he is compelled to be interviewed, his lawyer is making the point Mr. Engler doesn't have to show up.

Reviewing how the pieces have moved on this board, Ms. Grossi agreed. While she persistently raised concerns about holding the interview outside Michigan, at one point she wrote, "I recognize that he is sitting for this interview voluntarily."

Then, in a furious email written at 6:21 a.m. on Tuesday – and, no kidding, nobody should ever write anything serious and determinative at 6:21 in the morning – when she apparently saw Mr. Engler was in Michigan to go to an MSU basketball game, Ms. Grossi wrote that if Mr. Engler "is not going to voluntarily participate…we will explore all legal resources available to secure his interview in Michigan involuntarily."

Which Mr. Waxman immediately parried in his letter, again in the heading and repeatedly in the body where Mr. Engler has "at all times been willing" to meet, never "communicated any unwillingness to do so," and again using the word "voluntarily" throughout.

Which leads us to another set of curious words in this whole affair: Ms. Nessel's statement. She defends Ms. Grossi, as she should because Ms. Grossi is part of her team, and says there's no reason for her to be recused because, pay attention here, "there is no current case nor is she investigating John Engler." Which means….hmm? There is no "current" case, and Ms. Grossi is not "investigating John Engler." Is Ms. Nessel giving Mr. Engler a pass on anything when there is a "current" case?

Finally, Ms. Nessel reminds everyone that Ms. Grossi wasn't actually doing the interview, the chief investigator was, and she holds that out to Mr. Waxman saying Ms. Grossi oversees the investigation, "including but not limited to arranging for our lead investigator to meet with" Mr. Engler.

However this gets resolved, it will be resolved in writing. Watch the words used and ignore the fireworks set off.

Posted: March 7, 2019 11:59 AM

Let us presume the state allocates more than $2 billion in new spending for Michigan's roads and bridges. That is the goal set by Governor Gretchen Whitmer in her budget proposal this week, and we should presume when all the moaning, groaning, jawing, yawing, angst-riddled, nail-chewing, acid-reflux moments have passed, the state will have $2 billion-plus more to spend on trying, finally, to create a permanent fix to its roads.

For the moment, never mind how that number is achieved, whether through Ms. Whitmer's 45-cent gas tax increase, a combination of tax changes, tax changes and spending shifts, tax changes and bonding, a tax change-bonding-personalized billing for individual potholes-bake sale combination, whatever, $2 billion-plus will be raised for roads.

The question on the table is: who will be the person most likely to make that $2 billion-plus actually happen?

This reporter puts the early betting on Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey (R-Clarklake).

Yes, yes, Mr. Shirkey has cast considerable scorn on Ms. Whitmer's proposal. Like all Republicans in the Legislature he has shown no love for the governor's plan. But there are two critical factors to consider as we move into the debate.

The first is Mr. Shirkey's acknowledgement that new revenue will be needed to tackle a real fix to the roads. Probably at least $1 billion, he has said.

Second, and more important, Mr. Shirkey has previously been the key player in a major state policy that at the time, six years ago, many people thought would never come to pass.

Does the proper noun Healthy Michigan ring a bell to anyone? Yes, in 2018 Mr. Shirkey was the primary actor in getting passed a controversial work requirements proposal for Healthy Michigan. But without him, there is very good chance that some 700,000 people in Michigan would not have health insurance. He was the key figure in shepherding the Healthy Michigan plan into becoming law in 2013.

As was reported when Gongwer named Mr. Shirkey the newsmaker of 2013, he was and is a conservative's conservative who surprised himself by concluding that expanding, and changing, Medicaid was the right way to proceed on the issue.

His efforts made it possible for enough Republicans to reject rejecting the proposal – and taking plenty of criticism from other Republicans as they did – to get the policy through.

Which shows us what? That among conservatives, Mr. Shirkey is a realist as much as, if not more than, he is an ideologue. That he can find ways to make a policy that stays true to his principles and meets a public need.

Ironically, that is how things used to work in Michigan's government and in government generally. When a problem was critical enough, Democrats and Republicans would figure out a solution that allowed both to be true to their partisan principles. Those solutions were compromises. If you have forgotten what a compromise is, or have never heard of it before, look it up in a dictionary. Of course, the compromises weren't perfect. Of course, people called those who supported the compromises sellouts and cowards and words a family newsletter prefers not to repeat.

But the compromises got done and a lot of times, in their sometimes halting, half-way measure ways, they did some good. Healthy Michigan was a compromise. Has it done some good? Yes.

And Mr. Shirkey has already acknowledged a major investment in fixing the roads is a public need. Which means Ms. Whitmer's administration probably sees him already as the key player to reach a foundational agreement on the road to "fixing the damn roads."

Oh, the critics will howl Mr. Shirkey is too conservative, his statements show he won't support needed revenue, what about his staunch support for right-to-work, Medicaid work requirements and repealing the prevailing wage. Okay, fine. You put your money down, I'll put mine down, and I will bet my initial presumption – that the state comes up with $2 billion-plus for roads – does happen and that Mr. Shirkey is the key to getting it done.

Posted: February 28, 2019 4:16 PM

Technology has in so many ways made life more … convenient, you will shout. Yes, yes, my friends, it has made life convenient. Ask those of us who struggled through the horror of the Verizon blackout on Wednesday. My gosh, our cellphones were worthless without a wifi signal, how could we check emails, play Words with Friends, keep ourselves awake during committee meetings watching YouTube videos. How did humanity survive for 500,000 years before cellphones, we moaned.

Yeah, but the word I was seeking was confusing. Ask East Lansing Mayor Mark Meadows. Or possibly ask U.S. Rep. Mark Meadows (R-North Carolina).

Few of us have unique names, after all, so getting emails intended for someone else is not an unusual occurrence, especially for those folks with a Yahoo or Gmail address. This reporter has been invited to Thanksgiving dinners in California, gotten complaints about not taking care of the parking at the apartment building I apparently own in London and had to spent part of a night calling Finnair in Helsinki to make sure the ticket for someone else named John Lindstrom was routed to him before his flight from Helsinki to Kuopio took off at 7 the next morning. All on his Gmail account.

Which leads us to Mayor Meadows – now in his second stint as East Lansing's mayor which was broken up by six years in the Michigan House – getting email and social media messages intended for U.S. Rep. Meadows.

Rep. Meadows is noted as one of the more conservative members of the U.S. House, is chair of the Freedom Caucus which is the uber-conservative caucus and is one of President Donald Trump's biggest defenders. Those who watched the testimony of Mr. Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen on Wednesday saw Rep. Meadows go after Mr. Cohen vigorously.

Mayor Meadows is a staunch Democrat and a pragmatic liberal who is overseeing major redevelopment of the city's downtown (which not everyone is happy about) and helped convince city voters to enact an income tax to provide greater financial security for the city's retirement system and provide more funds for police and fire protection and improving the city's infrastructure.

Late Wednesday, Mayor Meadows posted on his Facebook page that he had gotten a message saying, "You stupid ignorant man, defending the clown racist Trump. Shame on you. You will be remembered in the history books as a kiss ass defending a devil."

Mayor Meadows went on to say, "Have I mentioned that I receive bunches of Facebook messages and emails directed to Congressman Mark Meadows on a daily basis. I like getting them. And I like responding to them – especially those that are laudatory. I wonder how many votes he has lost."

Mayor Meadows also said Rep. Meadows had "truly embarrassed" the Meadows name. He said he sometimes calls himself Angel MM and Rep. Meadows as Devil MM. And as the mayor believes Mr. Trump to be a "serial liar" he also considered "Devil MM" a "damn fool."

Mayor Meadow's comments drew lots of responses, mostly praising him and criticizing Rep. Meadows.

But one person did wonder what Rep. Meadows might think if he gets emails intended for the mayor. One could imagine the representative trying to figure out why he would be expected to deal with afterhours parking in the neighborhood or why can't the city deal with the ratty looking house on Yibbittyyoppitty Street.

Posted: February 22, 2019 2:07 PM

Everyone hates Michigan's no-fault auto insurance system. Well, they hate it until they get in a horrid accident. But aside from that nagging terror at the back at everyone's mind they hate the no-fault system. Why? Well, because it's so damn expensive.

That is what has driven the push to find a way to lower rates for decades, almost since the day nearly 46 years ago no-fault took effect. Make it cheaper, the public wants, just make sure it cares for me forever should I have a chance head-on encounter with a Mack truck.

The latest effort to find a resolution is sort of a shotgun approach: try as many attempts as possible presuming something will get hit. No-fault reform is a priority of Governor Gretchen Whitmer, in fact mentioning a bid to lower insurance rates drew the only bipartisan standing ovation of her State of the State address. Both legislative houses have made it a primary focus, with hearings already underway.

Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan has a proposal and has taken the issue to federal court.

And Detroit's own latest gazillionaire leader Dan Gilbert is ready to move ahead with a ballot issue if needed to force changes.

Surely, surely, something will work this time, folks hope.

With all the efforts underway, let us for a few moments focus on the court case of Mr. Duggan, however. Several analysts have suggested that a ruling by a federal judge that the rates charged by insurance companies allowed by the act, as well the mandatory scope of no-fault will be enough to terrify lawmakers into acting.

Except, a court has already held that the concept of no-fault was constitutional but there had to be a constitutional way to ensure affordable rates.

That would be Shavers v. Attorney General, a 4-3 ruling by the Michigan Supreme Court in June 1978. It had been the most anticipated Supreme Court case for a couple years. While waiting for the case, the Detroit Free Press ran an editorial saying something on the line of perhaps in our lifetime we will see a decision in the no-fault case.

Shavers was filed about the time no-fault went into effect in 1973 and challenged the whole notion of the law. It was not the only case to do so (this reporter regrets to confess that he got into a minor auto accident and was sued in small claims court to cover the other motorist's equally minor damages. I had insurance, he did not. My insurance company thought mine would be a good test case dealing with an uninsured motorist versus an insured motorist, so moved the case to circuit court. The plaintiff never showed up, the court threw out the case and as my reward my insurance company dumped me). But Shavers was the case before the Supreme Court.

Context always being important one of the major issues at the time was that of redlining and legislation to ban redlining was going nowhere.

In terms of no-fault, yes people were upset they had to buy auto insurance, but it was the rates, oy, the rates. Yeah, trust me, you'd love to pay 1978 rates now, but for 1978 they were hefty.

And it was on the rates the Supreme Court focused much of its attention. Justice, and former Governor, G. Mennen "Soapy" Williams wrote in his majority decision the act constitutionally provided benefits to the injured and did not exceed the Legislature's police power.

But, "the entire rate structure is suspect. The statutory stricture against 'excessive, inadequate or unfairly discriminatory' rates is without the … support of clarifying rules established by the (insurance commissioner), without legislatively sufficient definition, and without any history of prior court interpretation. The legislative due process mandate is thus reduced to mere exhortation. When we add that the statute authorizes insurers to utilize any classification scheme which 'may measure any differences among risks that may have a probable effect on losses or expenses,' it becomes clear that rates can be established on insubstantial bases which do not satisfy due process," Mr. Williams wrote.

That alone might have been enough for the Supreme Court to scrap the law. But they chose a different route. They gave the Legislature 18 months to fix the problem. And in that they achieved that rare phenomenon of legislative unity, because every single legislator said almost in unison, "Who the hell is the Supreme Court to tell us anything?"

Ah, but lawmakers did act and tried to handle the redlining issue as well in their solution by setting rules on how much rates could vary by rating territory. That seemed to solve the larger issue, at least for a little while.

So, courts are on record saying no-fault cannot allow a rate structure that provides little relief for the compelled purchasers. How Michigan lawmakers end up solving the problem this time around, well, we'll see.

However, having watched this issue since its nativity, let me venture to forecast that whatever solution is reached, in a few years people will complain about their auto insurance rates again. It's tradition, if nothing else.

Posted: February 14, 2019 3:51 PM

We are now getting down the featured match of the year. Governor Gretchen Whitmer has held her State of the State Address and said she will offer a proposal on transportation funding in her budget which is expected in now less than two weeks. Of course, all anyone can imagine is she will call for a tax increase of some kind and has to call for a tax increase if the state is going to finance the more than $2 billion analysts say is needed to fix and maintain our road system, the $2 billion she promised to add for roads in her first budget.

And in this corner the Republican leaders of the Legislature have indicated they might go along with more revenue for transportation, but are not as yet cozying up to a tax increase.

Meanwhile, you have all the contenders in the preview fights – K-12 schools, colleges and universities, water infrastructure, mental health – trying to punch out some more money for their needs and wondering if anyone will pay attention to them.

Ah, so complicated. Former President Franklin Roosevelt had it so easy when he was asked how we would pay for World War II. "Tax and bond, and bond and tax," he told Congress. Try getting away with that now.

Do we need a tax increase to pay for what almost everyone agrees are critical needs to our roads and other services? How do you know when a tax increase is needed?

Again, so complicated. There are many people, one can find them easily, who will argue we don't need a tax increase because if we just get rid of the waste, fraud and abuse we would find gadzillions in loot. Yeah, no. Greater efficiency is always needed and one has to assume at least a few state workers aren't completely honest (we are all human, after all). But there is no $1 billion or more in the state side of the budget that can be realized through eliminating WFA.

Well, we could just stop spending on things we don't need. Sure, but define what we don't need and see if you can get unanimity on that. Spoiler alert, you won't. Every penny the state spends someone claims and trying to take it away from them will be another major fight. Especially if you are looking at cuts of, again, $1 billion to $2 billion.

Can you justify a tax increase based just on the numbers? Maybe, but that is still more a political than mathematical question.

From the 2000-01 fiscal year to the 2018-19 fiscal year, Michigan's total budget went from about $36.9 billion to $55.9 billion. Yowzer, many will say. You can't find $2 billion out of that? Well, the total budget includes federal money of which the state has no real option in how it is spent. From 2000-01 to the current year, federal revenues went from $10 billion to $22.4 billion, or 27.1 percent of the total budget to 40.1 percent. (These are all figures from the Senate Fiscal Agency).

Interestingly, since 2008-09 the federal share of the state's transportation budget went from 52.6 percent to 27.2 percent now. A big part of that is federal funds are down by about $1 billion from 10 years ago, and the state has raised the gas and registration taxes so state revenues are up by about $500 million in transportation.

To fix the roads, there are plenty of people who will say, sure, raise the gas tax. But by how much? A panel of former legislative leaders said over 10 years it should increase by 47 cents a gallon. Is that too much?

There are other options still. Moving the sales tax charged on gasoline to transportation from schools is talked about, but now you have a constitutional problem that has to be okayed by the voters, which is a political problem galore. And if it passed, estimates from the House Fiscal Agency are that $610 million could flip over to roads instead of schools. Which will mean the Legislature will have to find another $610 million to replace the lost school money.

.

You could do a kind-of sideways tax increase maybe. The state could extend the sales tax to more services and require any part not going to the schools go to transportation. Again, big political headaches. Anyone remember the ill-fated sales tax on services from 2007 that was repealed after about a month?

Or you could just say, look, the state is $10.4 billion below the revenue limit set under the Headlee Amendment, just let's raise taxes for crying out loud.

Either way, lace up the gloves and get ready for a slugfest of some sort.

Posted: January 31, 2019 1:17 PM

With state government shut down because of arctic-like temperatures and folks – some of whom probably enjoy ice fishing and snowmobiling – complaining about keeping their thermostats set to 65 for the natural gas emergency, those who are old enough naturally want to compare this enforced hibernation to winter crises past.

And naturally those who can will remember the blizzard of January 1978.

No polar vortex here, this was an honest to God blizzard, arguably the worst in state history. The mid '70s featured a number of ferocious winters (followed by hellfire hot summers) but nothing topped them like the blizzard which struck the central U.S. on January 26 and 27, 1978.

The lowest barometric pressure ever recorded in the central U.S. – and the third lowest in U.S. history, not caused by a tropical storm (for all you weather freaks paying attention) – was recorded in Mount Clemens during the storm. Detroit got off easy with slightly less than nine inches of snow. Lansing got close to 20 inches, Traverse City got about 24 inches and Muskegon – thanks to lake effect snow – got 52 inches.

And the cold, lord the cold and wind. Windchill estimates have since been recalibrated, but this reporter's brother, then a student at Case Western University in Cleveland, called to report that windchills were measured at close to -100 off Lake Erie.

A DJ on one of the Lansing stations, this reporter cannot remember which, begged people not to venture outdoors. "It is certain death," he said. No kidding, he did.

State government of course shut down. In the pre-personal computer/cell phone days one had to rely on radio, television and landline phones to communicate and find out if they were coming in or not. Gongwer News Service, which relied on the U.S. Mail, which also wasn't being delivered, had to shut down.

That was okay to this reporter who had come down with a bad case of flu. The only place I wanted to get to was the small grocery across the street from my north Lansing apartment building to get soup. But I couldn't do that because all the doors in and out of the building were frozen and blocked in with snow. It took a full day for the landlord to be able to get someone over to clear the doors so the residents could get out. (As an aside, a year later one apartment in the building was destroyed by fire. In a way, we were lucky it happened when it did because at least people could get out of the building.)

A former Associated Press reporter of my acquaintance, and a veteran of Chicago winters, couldn't see her car in her apartment parking lot so covered was it with snow. She ventured out to Lake Lansing Road and thumbed a ride in a Corvair. "Where are you going?" the driver said. "Downtown," the reporter said. "Cool," the driver said, and they slid along a vacant freeway to the Capitol.

The executive Lincoln could not get then-Governor William Milliken from the governor's residence to the Capitol, so the National Guard sent a half-track to ferry him to the building.

And when the workday was declared over, the AP reporter, having no other way back to her home, piled into the half-track with the rest of the Executive Office staff.

That created a bit of a problem for the state later. While trying to find Communications Director Bob Berg's house the half-track ran over a neighbor's tree. Later that year the Administrative Board recompensed the neighbor for the cost of the tree.

Stay warm everybody and try not to cost the state any money.

Posted: January 24, 2019 4:07 PM

We truly have never-ending campaigns, thanks in large measure because we are one of the few nations on earth where we know exactly when elections take place, and therefore can build a political economy around endless campaigning.

That semi-historical/philosophical comment aside we are now already deeply into the 2020 campaign and it has nothing, nada, zip, bupkis to do with the battalion of candidates who have announced they are running for president. No, we are sunk deep into the 2020 campaign thanks to an otherwise mundane court document.

In said document, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson asked for a stay of a trial scheduled to begin February 5 in League of Women Voters v. Benson which challenges Michigan's current congressional and legislative district maps for partisan gerrymandering. She requested the stay in the U.S. District Court in Detroit in part, but not a very big part, because the U.S. Supreme Court is going to hear arguments on gerrymandering in cases from North Carolina and Maryland.

Mostly, though, she asked for the stay because the Department of State is in negotiations on a settlement in the case. And while a stay could involve as many as 34 total districts in Congress and the Legislature, it could lead to new maps for the 2020 election and the possibility that Senate members could have to run for election two years earlier than they otherwise would.

With that we are smack into the level of political hype we typically see just weeks before an election.

Republicans and conservative allies are accusing Ms. Benson, the first Democrat to hold the secretary of state post since the early 1990s, of trying to engineer the biggest partisan power grab in Michigan history. (I suppose Democrats could argue back that the 2011 district maps were the biggest partisan power grab on behalf of the GOP). They claim she is in a corrupt relationship with former state Democratic Party chair Mark Brewer, who is the League of Women Voters' lawyer and (according to one columnist) one of her "top funders" during the 2018 election. She must immediately recuse herself from the proceedings, they charge, but first she has to release all the documents developed during this process.

And she is trying to force the state to spend millions on elections in 2020.

Okay, everyone take a breath.

First, the only way there will be a settlement is if the court approves a settlement.

Second, if there is a proposed settlement, the court could easily sit on a judgment regarding said settlement because the U.S. Supreme Court is hearing arguments on said gerrymandering cases and will issue a decision, presumably, by the end of June.

Third, if the U.S. Supreme Court, given its now more conservative bent, rules that drawing district lines to favor one party over the other is peachy-keen (which it could) then the intervenors (Republican legislators and Michigan Republican members of Congress) in the case could call for the settlement to be rejected. And the court would probably reject it.

Fourth, the district court still has to decide if it will issue a stay or say negotiations be damned, let's have a trial anyway.

Fifth, presuming a settlement is reached, approved and survives the new U.S. Supreme Court ruling, the still Republican-controlled Legislature gets to draw the lines – the newly constitutionally enacted non-partisan citizens commission does not get its crayons to draw lines until after the 2020 census – and even if Democrats challenge that proposal the court could approve it.

Sixth, if the court rejects the legislative plan, it could draw the lines itself or appoint someone to draw the lines, which both sides may find fair or both sides may both hate.

Seventh, in the end the 2020 election will be decided by a variety of issues most on the mind of the voters in 2020, which could be anything.

Will any of what has just been outlined calm the waters now so roiled? Of course not, the ships are facing one another in battle formation and the guns have opened fire. We are fighting the 2020 election and waving the flag of truce from our little dinghy will be unnoticed.

However, could we make one point? Mr. Brewer gave Ms. Benson $500. A quick skim of her campaign finance reports shows dozens and dozens and dozens and you get the idea of people who gave her more money, including one couple who gave her a combined $13,600. Ms. Benson raised $1.547 million for her campaign, meaning Mr. Brewer's contribution was 0.03 percent of her total haul.

When last $500 was a major political contribution you could buy a newspaper, a couple of comic books, a Hershey bar, two doughnuts, a cup of coffee, a pack of smokes and still get change for a dollar. Some bald chap named Eisenhower was president at the time.

Posted: January 17, 2019 3:50 PM

For decades, many people in Michigan, regardless of their party or ideology, if asked who was the best politician they could name, the answer was: John Engler.

From his auspicious beginning getting elected to the House in 1970 when he was a fresh graduate from Michigan State University, to his unseating a long-term Senate incumbent in the 1978 primary, to taking control of the Senate majority in the early 1980s to his astonishing election as governor in 1990, Mr. Engler was a master politician. He had more than a determined will, more than guts, more than just plain smarts. He had vision and knew how to accomplish that vision. He didn't care if you disagreed with him. He didn't care that you hated him. He had a vision, he would accomplish it and even his opponents ruefully acknowledged he had them beat.

So how was it he failed as interim president of his alma mater?

Like any human, Mr. Engler made lots of mistakes in his political career. Unlike most people, he learned from those mistakes and rarely made them again.

He got bested, occasionally, in his political life. Former Rep. Lynn Jondahl once told this reporter of a time in the 1980s when the House and Senate were at a standstill on some budget issue. Mr. Jondahl was in the room when then-Democratic Speaker Gary Owen taunted then-Republican Senate Majority Leader Engler over a potential agreement.

"What's the matter, John?" Mr. Owen said, according to Mr. Jondahl. "Can't you control your caucus? I control my caucus. Why can't you control yours?" Mr. Engler said nothing in reply, just glaring at Mr. Owen. In fact, Mr. Engler did have several caucus members who disliked him intensely and would just as soon find a way to toss him out of his post. Those members were soon either gone themselves, replaced by Engler allies, or cowed into being loyal. You might best him once; you almost never got another opportunity to do so.

No one would describe Mr. Engler as a charmer. He hammered at points and facts and logic, often in hopes of wearying or overwhelming an opponent. But he also knew when he needed to turn the talk over to someone who could charm on his behalf. Admittedly, that wasn't often, as he generally either won over the opponent or simply brushed the person aside. But he did know that softness was sometimes needed.

He never believed in going small on something. Mr. Engler spoke often of how at his first inaugural former Governor George Romney told him to, "Be bold." Mr. Engler was. His proposals were always big and bold. Now, he'd take the deal, he'd go halfway, a quarter-way, a millionth of a way to his ultimate goal, and he'd live by the deal. But the next day he would start pushing for more, to get closer to his vision, taking deal after deal, until the vision was accomplished.

Presumably, that was what MSU's Board of Trustees was looking for when in the depths of the worst scandal in the school's history they called on Mr. Engler. Presumably they wanted bold vision and the guts needed to accomplish it. In some ways, Mr. Engler delivered. He achieved a legal settlement with the Nassar survivors in a couple months as opposed to several years, and amid talk it could top $1 billion, the number was $500 million. He broomed out many university administrative officials who drove the clown car that allowed Larry Nassar to escape culpability.

Students hated him, he didn't care. Faculty hated him, he didn't care. He had a vision, he was going to get that vision accomplished.

So, what happened? Okay, technology and social media helped drive his opponents. Mr. Engler's fateful interview with The Detroit News on Friday, had it happened, say, in the first term of his governorship in the pre-Internet era, would not have rocketed through the state and nation as quickly as it did. That said, Mr. Engler was always on top of technology. He knew what it could allow; it didn't bother him.

Our culture demands greater empathy, more understanding and acceptance. He has three daughters, a wife who takes no guff herself. When former GOP national committee member Chuck Yob said secretary of state was a good place for a woman on the ticket because "they like that kind of work," Mr. Engler said he was out of touch and needed to go. This was back almost 20 years ago, for Pete's sake. One has to think he understood current culture.

Except, presuming he does understand current culture, presuming he does at least intellectually understand that victims need and deserve special consideration and care, it didn't register with him. He simply seemed to think this was no different than politics as usual. He certainly acted, and God knows spoke, as if he was once more facing off against an opposition leader.

But he was facing mostly kids, wounded and abused. He was facing their parents, hurting and angry. He faced a whole university community, mortified, angry and even scared. He also faced the world, shocked, disgusted and demanding to know what happened and how will it get fixed?

Somehow, possibly the best politician in Michigan history didn't see any of that. Missed a population that, even though they didn't like him, didn't trust him, still needed him to assure them.

He missed that sense of emotional need, missed what he needed to do to help reclaim trust. Mr. Engler figured they needed swift resolution of the problem and to just move on.

Yeah, sure, swift resolution, okay, that was needed. Moving on? Well, yeah, that kinda comes on its own, not easily, but it does.

But there was a lot more needed. Something not tangible, not measurable, yet still overwhelmingly present and needing acknowledgement. And the smartest guy in the room this time was just plain blind to it all. Why was he dumb when he needed to be smarter than ever? We'll probably never know.

Posted: January 10, 2019 1:35 PM

Already, with the changes Governor Gretchen Whitmer is enacting, it seems former Governor Rick Snyder is becoming a distant memory. That is the cruelty of life, politics and journalism. Last week you were top of the pops; this week people look at you and say, "I'm sorry, you are…?"

With time, though, some people will look back, some people will reflect and draw meaning and lessons from the eight years Mr. Snyder led the state, Some people will

What can we say then about Mr. Snyder?

The state is in many ways in a better place economically than it was when he took the oath in January 2011. But how much of that is due to Mr. Snyder's policies we will not know for some time yet.

Clearly, Michigan has done better because the nation's economy is much stronger. Why Michigan lagged the rest of the nation in a one-state recession during the time from 2002 to 2008 is still unanswered (and let us not forget the nation was not exactly bubbling during that time, if the phrase "jobless recovery" means anything to anyone). But as the Great Recession ended and the U.S. grew economically, so too did Michigan.

Which of Mr. Snyder's policies – the business tax cut, changes in regulations, the creation of a "right to work" status – had the most economic effect on the state, we don't yet know. Perhaps all of them did. Perhaps none did. Sadly, the only way we will be able to tell is how Michigan endures the next recession and how it grows out of that recession.

In terms of Mr. Snyder's political ideology, Mr. Snyder is a business conservative. In that, he hewed to fiscal policies designed to promote businesses by cutting their costs. That included tax cuts, of course, but also policies to cut debt.

Unlike a more classic smaller government conservative, who always is on the lookout to cut taxes and spending in any way possible, Mr. Snyder did not make spending cuts his primary priority. Though he certainly enacted plenty of cuts, one can talk to the higher education community about that, Mr. Snyder also saw the need for state investments and spending.

Also, while a business conservative is, well, conservative on fiscal policies, he or she also tends to adopt social policies acceptable to the larger public. That is not always a good thing, looking back at our history. But under some circumstances it can help lead the way to a more inclusive, open and tolerant society.

For example, many businesses have been ahead of government in recognizing and promoting LGBT rights.

As a business conservative, Mr. Snyder recognized the need for broader health care, which led to what was probably his best achievement socially and politically, the Healthy Michigan Medicaid expansion which brought health insurance to hundreds of thousands of residents. It is a success, though Mr. Snyder bungled some parts of his political strategy on the issue.

Which brings us to Mr. Snyder's lack of political background. While saying he was not a politician was popular, especially in the early days, it was limiting. It made it harder to both set broad policy and work with the Legislature to achieve that policy. There were too many times he respected his "legislative partners" and signed clearly unpopular bills, even though many legislators did not believe him to be a true Republican.

He did stand his ground on issues. Refusing, for example, to sign legislation that would have allowed guns on school grounds which was sent to him following the slaughter of small children at Sandy Hook Elementary School was a key example.

But not being a politician by nature also had its tragic consequences. Politicians, good politicians, learn to listen to people and recognize problems they raise. They learn to at least check things out and see if there really is a problem.

Too often business executives and top administrators put greater trust in metrics and systems.

So, we had the Flint drinking water crisis. Even before we learned homes were contaminated with lead, dozens of Flint residents appeared with containers of muddy, brown-tinted water from their taps. Too often Mr. Snyder's administration responded saying the water should be safe.

A good politician would have looked into the issue, trying to figure out why the water looked the way it did and what could be done to fix it. Sadly, Mr. Snyder was not the only politician lacking that instinct, even though we know some people in his administration expressed worries about Flint switching its water system to the Flint River, too many of his fellow Republicans failed as well. But with history, it will be Mr. Snyder who will take the greatest blame.

Clearly, there are lessons here for Ms. Whitmer and governors to follow. It will still take some time to assess what those are, however. Let's hope we don't miss them.