by T. Scott

April 16, 2009

Joe Garcia, one of the Capitol’s best known and respected lobbyists, a big guy with strong opinions and not shy about sharing them, caught the community by surprise recently when it was reported that he was retiring from his post as managing partner of Karoub Associates, one of Lansing’s oldest and most prominent lobbying firms, to become a partner with the Honigman law firm. Dome caught up with Garcia in his new Washington Avenue law office during a rare break in his schedule to talk about his reasons for the switch, his lobbying career, coaching, the state of his beloved sport of horse racing, legislative term limits, the news media and more.

Dome: Let’s go back to the beginning of this year. You’re at Karoub running one of Michigan’s largest and most storied multi-client firms, you get to call whatever shots you want, and you suddenly announce you’re retiring and going over to Honigman. What’s the story?

Garcia: I didn’t retire and I didn’t leave per se. I think that what is not generally understood — and I didn’t feel any compulsion to explain to anybody other than my partners — is that it was simply a business transaction and a realignment of the management of the firm.

Dome: A realignment?

Garcia: I had been there for 30 years. I had been the managing partner for 15 years. The original business transaction was the purchase of the business by Gregory Eaton, Jack Schick, Mike Ranville and myself. Ranville retired some six or seven years ago, and Greg and I both recently sold our shares to the other partners. The reason was simple: it was time for them to have an opportunity to manage and run their own business. This opportunity to work with one of the premier law firms in the state and Midwest presented itself. So everything was timely. There was never any intent on my part to retire, it was more a matter of affording the others an opportunity to run the business by me stepping down, because I had done just about everything I could do as a manager. I am still consulting with Karoub, I’m still working with them to retain clients and to get new clients.

Dome: Is that a potential conflict?

Garcia: This firm has been around longer than Karoub Associates, and this is purely a legal firm that has had great success. What I’m doing here is adapting to a culture that has been enormously successful. And it doesn’t involve management, it doesn’t involve worrying about receivables and payables; it doesn’t involve worrying about who’s got a bigger office. Those kinds of things are behind me, and I’m not going to deal with them anymore. It is what it is; we did well at it, but I think 15 years was enough. If you want to say I’m the Honigman lobbyist you can, but it would be inaccurate. I’m a lawyer and I’m part of the legal team here.

Dome: What is the relationship between Honigman and Karoub?

Garcia: What Karoub and Honigman have had over the years is an informal relationship to refer clients to each other where it is beneficial. A lot of firms have those kinds of relationships, some of them more structured than others. We’ve had that arrangement with Honigman, where there were no conflicts and where it was mutually beneficial.

Dome: But your announcement was a surprise.

Garcia: Well, yes and no. I think it’s a surprise in this sense: I’m not a traditional hire at this law firm. At 61 years old with a career not just managing but owning my own business, you don’t see people like that hire into a law firm and start from scratch again. “Non-traditional” is the best way to describe it. It’s a surprise in that sense. It’s not a surprise in the sense of the relationships that were already there.

Dome: When was the last time you were actually in the Capitol or lobbied anyone?

Garcia: I had a meeting with the governor yesterday. I’m in the Capitol frequently. Strangely enough, I’ve probably been to more committee hearings and talked to more legislators since I’ve moved over here than I did over at Karoub. That was part of it [the reason for leaving]. I really was less a lobbyist there than I was an administrator and a manager, and that gets old after a while. I’m not knocking it, don’t get me wrong. It’s just everything has its day, and my day there as the managing partner was over.

Dome: Are you helping them with the transition?

Garcia: Well, I’m available to them, let me put it that way. Just like anything else, you don’t work that long in an institution and then want to watch it crumble. I’m hopeful for their success. I believe strongly they will succeed, and anything I can do to help them, I’m going to do it.

Dome: Who’s running the firm now?

Garcia: They’re doing it by committee.

Dome: At various times during your career, publications have named you the Capitol’s most effective lobbyist and Karoub as the most effective firm. To what do you attribute that?

Garcia: I believe our lobby firm was the best. I don’t believe it, I know it from three perspectives that you can use to measure success. One, did you achieve the goals of the client? We were successful. Two, did you benefit as a result by achieving financial success? We were successful. Three, and more important, while you were there did you surround yourself with good people who make you successful? Yes. So if I was number one in anything it was because those people made the firm what it was and made me effective. It’s that simple. No organization operates on one individual being a superstar. You surround yourself with good people, and they make you look good. The head coach of a Super Bowl winning team is the best because he has good assistants, because he has great players, because things work out for him, and sometimes he’s just lucky.

Dome: But lobbying is very much a one-on-one relationship. To what do you credit your personal success?

Garcia: That’s easy. It’s integrity. It’s your word is your bond, that’s it. You don’t lie to people, you don’t try to deceive people, you’re honest — and if you’re not honest you won’t last in this business. That to me is the bottom line, that’s where you start and that’s where you end. That and hard work.

Dome: You’ve had your share of victories on legislative issues. What are the ones that stand out in your mind?

Garcia: When you start naming a few, you leave other important ones out, which I don’t want to do. But the Taubman issue was a huge issue, not just for the company but for our state. That was a company that was threatened with being taken over by an out-of-state company. The patriarch was in prison, so they targeted the son and went after him on an artificially low stock price to try to run him out of Dodge. What would that have meant to Michigan? You’d lose the shopping malls business, the real estate investment trust, you’d lose all the philanthropy the Taubman name has been associated with. So winning that fight was huge, not just for the Karoub firm and the Taubman Company, but for Michigan.

Dome: What other issues?

Garcia: The two earlier Cobo Hall expansion packages were huge for the Karoub firm. We did the first one 25 years ago, and it was a combination of a hotel/motel tax and a liquor tax. And the way that it was structured, so that the liquor tax could go back to all of the counties to be used for health programs, was smart. …We’ve always believed that you need a world class convention center for the North American International Auto Show, and so we took pride in the passage of both of those.

Another huge project was the Wayne County bailout back in the 1980s. When Ed McNamara first became CEO there, the county was just mired in debt. Between Mr. McNamara, Mike Duggan and Dave Katz, our firm and a lot of legislators, that program got taken care of and the county was put back on a sound financial footing. And Mr. McNamara was able to do some nice things with the Ilitches and the Fords in building new stadiums, and in building a new terminal at the airport — we’ve got one of the finest airports in the country. When you look at the totality of what we were able to work on, and then how that spun off into later achievements, you can see why there was a lot of pride in all those programs.

From a business perspective it sounds like bragging, and I’m not going to brag. But I’ll just flat out tell you that from the time we took over managing the Karoub firm until two months ago when I started here, we more than doubled our client base and more than doubled our financial base and we more than doubled the total personnel working at the firm. I took great pride in that. There were a lot of people who thought we couldn’t succeed, but we banded together, we fought hard, we worked hard and we did succeed.

Dome: How about your biggest disappointment?

Garcia: I can admit to one right out of the gate, the only one that still haunts me. And that’s not being able to do enough to save the horse racing industry. My full career I’ve worked in that industry, and to watch tracks close and to watch the industry declining, I was very disappointed. I love horse racing. I love watching it. I love studying it. But this just isn’t a Michigan trend, it’s a national trend. Where they’ve been able to have slot machines at race tracks, those tracks are surviving and thriving. Where you don’t have a variety of services and gaming opportunities to offer, you’re going to die. That’s probably the biggest disappointment in my career.

Dome: You started your career as a high school coach, didn’t you?

Garcia: I went to undergrad and played basketball at Wayne State, then taught and coached at Pontiac Catholic High School from 1969 to ’73. I didn’t coach basketball because I was not a very patient young man with the officiating of the games. I coached football and wrestling at Pontiac Catholic. My mentor, Mel Larsen, was the guy who brought me in. Mel was the principal at Pontiac Catholic and had been my high school football coach at Dearborn Sacred Heart. I became the head coach at Pontiac Catholic in ’72 when Mel ran for the legislature and won.

Dome: And you followed him to Lansing.

Garcia: After he got up here he met some good folks — Eddie Farhat at the Michigan Catholic Conference. That’s how I ended up in Lansing [at the Catholic Conference].

Dome: The Catholic Conference has produced a lot of top lobbyists.

Garcia: Sister Monica started there at the same time I did, and she has been the executive director now for almost 30 years. We were fortunate and blessed to have some really, really fine people there, and Eddie Farhat was one of them. Darrell Tennis at one time called it a “multi-client prep school.”

Dome: How did you get to Karoub?

Garcia: I was at the Catholic Conference for five years, ’73 to ’78. I spent one year at the Michigan Food Dealers, which is now the Michigan Grocers Association, and then started with Karoub in 1980.

Dome: Do you think your coaching background helped in lobbying?

Garcia: Kids ask, how do you get into lobbying? I say, you start by coaching. Of course, they don’t understand. But I mean that the skills of coaching all transfer. It’s being structured and organized and disciplined in how you’re going to approach everything. It’s being strategic in how you’re going to attack another team or an issue. It’s having good people around you, it’s working hard and, more than anything else, it’s being able to communicate well. It wasn’t just communicating with the young men who were playing football, but also with their parents so they understood what we were trying to accomplish.

Dome: Who have been some of your favorite lawmakers?

Garcia: That’s a tough one because the list is voluminous. It’s kind of broken down by eras. When I first got here, this town was full of wonderful, wonderful people. Some were characters, but by and large they were well-defined. You knew who they were when you got here because their reputation preceded them.

Governor Milliken is probably one of the finest human beings ever to hold public office in Michigan. You may not have agreed with him on everything, but it was very, very difficult to ever be upset with him, because you knew why he took the positions he took and what he was trying to accomplish. Bill Ryan was the speaker of the House when I got here, and you’ll never find a more classy individual and one more driven by his own philosophy and his beliefs and how they transferred over to public service. Morris Hood was one of my heroes; Jimmy O’Neil, one of my heroes; Mike Griffin, one of my heroes; Mel Larsen, my ultimate hero and mentor.

I became part of a card group that got together every week. It was Democrat and Republican, House and Senate, and just good people. You sit and play cards with somebody, and even if you don’t ever talk about an issue you begin to understand that person. You had Bill Faust and Harry Gast, two of the pre-eminent state senators. You had Doug Cruce and Art Miller, you had Keith Muxlow.

Moving on to more contemporary legislators, in terms of them being guys my age, I always had great respect for Joe Schwarz. I also had great respect and admiration for Curtis Hertel, for Pat Gagliardi, for Tom Alley, and for many of the legislators who served when the House was tied at 55 — because they had to make it work, and they did. When you look at it, it is too bad that it [shared leadership] doesn’t happen more often.

Dome: Huge question, but how has lobbying changed during your career?

Garcia: There are more lobbyists out there. Anybody who leaves the legislature, anybody who served as a staffer or worked for another lobbyist thinks they can go out and start their own shop — and many of them do. There are more lobbyists, there is more competition. But the biggest changes are the result of term limits. Term limits changed everything, and not for the better.

Dome: You feel strongly about it.

Garcia: I could spend an hour on term limits, but I won’t. I’ll try to hit my buzzwords and make it as clear as I can. I think term limits have been a disaster for the State of Michigan. Who started the discussion on term limits? Newt Gingrich and his Contract with America. Of course, they don’t have them in Congress. …Well, if it’s not good for Congress why the hell is it good for anyone else? Term Limits, in my opinion, have led to less stability, less trust, weaker relationships between colleagues, more partisanship, more sniping at each other. There’s more pandering as to where am I going next, as opposed to figuring out how I can do the job I’ve been elected to do here.

The reality here is that term limits have allowed lazy man’s democracy to take place. You don’t have to turn out to vote to get rid of incumbents, it’s done for you automatically. … How does that change lobbying? You take that short-term-thinking mentality and you have to appeal to it, that’s how you advocate. What’s going to be the single most important thing to this person? You appeal to short-term thinking with short-term expedient advocacy.

Dome: How do you change the perception of lobbyists as the bad guys?

Garcia: You don’t. But go back to what I told you I thought was the single most important thing: my honesty, my integrity and my word. If you’re that kind of person, you’ll succeed no matter where you go and despite people having a poor perception of lobbying. The media help construct that perception, and that’s never going to change. [Senior Capitol correspondent Tim] Skubick and I have fenced over this for years. But the reality is…I know who I am. I know what I’ve brought to the system. I know the profession is honorable. Lobbying is no different than lawyering, it’s advocating for a client’s interest. …Perception of lobbyists, perception of politicians — it’s a marriage created by the media, fostered by the media, perpetuated by the media.

Dome: What about Jack Abramoff?

Garcia: You have those in every career and profession. They just are more in the public eye when it is government.

Dome: Does money play too large a role in politics?

Garcia: It’s a necessary part of the process. People who run for office have to raise money. The hard part is separating out what gets contributed — and who contributes it — from making good public policy decisions. Jim Karoub always said, “never ever ask a legislator to vote in a way that would be detrimental to the legislator’s own district and constituents.” Because we contributed to somebody doesn’t mean that legislator should go back home and say, “oh, by the way, I sold you out because I got their contribution. ” That’s just not good for self survival and it’s bad public policy. I can’t ever in my career recall a time when I felt like that had been violated, when there was a quid pro quo.

Dome: Doesn’t the system need additional reforms?

Garcia: There are always going to be reforms, but for every reform they put in somebody will find a way around it. The reforms they put in usually only go part way, because they don’t want the system reformed. If they did, they’d do it. I don’t feel responsible for that, I just know as a lobbyist you have to figure out how best to deal with it, how to make certain your clients can participate without them having an expectation that a contribution is going to lead to a “yes” vote.

Dome: Switching gears, what do you do for hobbies?

Garcia: I used to play basketball until I got so old and sore and arthritic that I can’t any more. I work out. I read a lot.

Dome: What do you read?

Garcia: Mystery stuff; I read every Grisham. I read a lot of Patterson. I read a lot of history. I enjoy my family. I have three grandkids and I love them to death. They’re good because you can give them back! I’ve been very blessed in my relationships. I’ve met great, great friends from all walks of life, from when I was in high school, college, every place I’ve worked. I count some of the legislators I’ve gotten to know over 30 years as good friends.

Dome: Favorite movie?

Garcia: A couple of them. The Godfather is a classic. Everyone expects you to say that, and I do say it because if it is on, I’ll watch it. Another favorite movie that is lesser known is the one about a guy who goes to live on a Greek island and meets the Anthony Quinn character — Zorba the Greek. There are so many life lessons in the movie. I’ll wager not many young people have seen it, but I love the movie.

Dome: Any concluding words?

Garcia: I think lobbying is an honorable profession. Whenever I’ve talked to young people, I’ve always said that. Regardless of what you read, regardless of what you think, regardless of what you hear from your parents or others who think political systems are corrupt, it is an honorable profession. It is what you make it out to be. I’m disappointed when the profession gets run down and I’m disappointed when the process — the legislative process that was here before I got here, continues to be here and will be here long after I’m gone — gets disrespected.