by Susan J. Demas

April 16, 2008

Photo by David Trumpie

Rick Johnson has one of the best views of Lansing. From his eighth-floor Boji Tower office, you can admire the sheer enormity of the Capitol’s neoclassical fortress.

It’s something those working inside the dome rarely get the chance to do.

More than three years have passed since Johnson laid down his gavel as speaker of the House. And though his Fraser Consulting conference room strikingly resembles his former office, down to the Michigan coat-of-arms and walnut woodwork, the LeRoy Republican has since taken up causes that wouldn’t have endeared him to his caucus.

In his spare time, Johnson is a founding member of the Stem Cell Research Ballot Committee. He’s also one of the most vocal opponents of recall efforts and has campaigned for the top three targets, all Democrats.

“These are not partisan issues,” Johnson declares.

Meanwhile, former Senate Majority Leader Ken Sikkema pens policy reports on the edge of the Lansing beltway for Public Sector Consultants at Pine and St. Joseph.

After helping lead the charge for deregulation of Michigan’s utility industry in 2000, he now says it hasn’t worked. Sikkema, a West Michigan Republican from Wyoming, also came out strong for a tax increase last year when most Republicans declared that notion akin to treason.

“In my former life, I would often say to my caucus, ‘We’ve gone from tax-and-spend Democrats to tax-cut-and-spend Republicans,’” recalls Sikkema, who was term-limited out in 2006. “You’ve got to reconcile the two.”

But there’s a palpable feeling of betrayal among prominent members of the GOP faithful in Lansing, who can’t understand why Johnson and Sikkema don’t toe the total party line, even if they are out of office.

There’s a reason their newfound maverick status cuts so deep. They’re not to be dismissed as mere RINOs (Republicans in Name Only); their conservative credentials aren’t in question. And neither former leader is part of the ever-shrinking band of Republican moderates, like former Gov. William Milliken, who shocked no one by endorsing John Kerry in 2004, or former U.S. Rep. Joe Schwarz, who declared himself an independent after being outflanked by the far right in his 2006 GOP primary.

House Minority Leader Craig DeRoche has worked with Johnson and Sikkema and considers them friends. But the Novi Republican who succeeded Johnson as speaker says he has a different view on issues being on the inside.

“There are different expectations,” he says. “In government, you’re there to serve the people and businesses.”

Michigan Republican Party Chair Saul Anuzis is blunter, chalking up the duo’s independent streak to their new careers as lobbyists.

“They were respected leaders when they were in the legislature, but now they both advocate on behalf of their clients and not necessarily the people who initially elected them,” Anuzis says. “I think their opinions on these matters are wrong and not in step with the vast majority of either the Republican Party or the general population of Michigan.”

But Schwarz, who’s no stranger to tongue-lashings from the state party, argues Republicans have wounded themselves by valuing leaders who choose dogma over policy and compromise. After serving with Sikkema in the Senate and Johnson on the stem cell campaign, Schwarz says they’re precisely the kind of leaders the GOP needs right now.

“One thing I admire about Ken Sikkema and Rick Johnson is they’re independent thinkers who aren’t captive to any specific ideological group inside or outside the Republican Party,” the Battle Creek surgeon says. “They were two of the more effective legislators and public policymakers.”

Reaching consensus

You couldn’t find two men who appear more different in style. But in substance, both were consensus-builders in the Capitol.

Johnson, the plainspoken Osceola County farmer who never went to college, had his first stint in elected office in the 1970s cut short when his draft number was called. Later, Johnson became one of the Young Turks fighting for John Engler’s 1978 state Senate bid.

“A lot of people up there said, ‘Oh, you guys don’t know what you’re doing. You’re crazy,’” Johnson recalls with a grin. “Well, John Engler won that election. And overnight, a lot of people like me became political geniuses. We just happened to be on the right team.”

After winning election to the House in 1998, Johnson was seated on the Democratic side and the experience “kind of forced” him to forge good relationships with the enemy. That planted a seed for pragmatism, which served Johnson well as speaker (“My theory is you don’t burn bridges”).

Slightly burly, with a ruddy complexion, Johnson, 55, excitedly flits from topic to topic, often mid-sentence. Sikkema, on the other hand, looks every inch the wonk, down to his black wire glasses and perfectly pressed white dress shirts a size too big.

Armed with a Harvard history A.B. and an M.B.A. from the University of Michigan, Sikkema has accomplished the rarest of feats in the political world: he can elegantly surmise complex policy in plain English, without talking down to an audience or putting it to sleep.

Sikkema’s first foray into politics was as a legislative aide to Democratic former Sen. John Otterbacher.

“I came to Lansing with a fistful of résumés and I handed them out to Republicans and Democrats,” Sikkema, 57, recalls with a sheepish smile. “I didn’t understand at the time you had to be sort of typecast. I said, ‘Hey, I want to work in policy. Who’s going to hire me?’”

While that experience helped Sikkema appreciate the art of bipartisan compromise, it also led to his political awakening as a Republican. “It became very clear to me that the Democratic philosophy that government can solve every problem was something I wasn’t comfortable with,” he says.

New focus

Both Johnson and Sikkema, who were at the helm together in the legislature from 2002 to 2004, are relieved to be on the outside now. Neither seems eager to throw his hat back in the ring, although Johnson could, under term limits, serve two terms in the Senate, and Sikkema is frequently mentioned as a successor to U.S. Rep. Vern Ehlers (R-Grand Rapids).

As Fraser’s chief operating officer, Johnson has multiple clients and lobbies in Lansing and Washington, D.C. But his extracurricular fights against legislative recalls and for embryonic stem cell research have garnered more attention as of late.

“He’s entitled to his opinion; mine are different,” DeRoche says. “What he does with his own time now is his time. He’s a lobbyist. I’d never say anything critical about a former speaker.”

Neither would Johnson, but he gamely volleys back, “last time I looked, a person had the right to free speech in this country.”

“I voted for tax increases several times,” he adds. “Where were the zealots then? It was never an issue.”

As for the stem cell issue, which Johnson’s committee hopes to put before voters in November, it’s a deeply personal one. Johnson’s brother was severely injured in 1998 and “he’ll never get any better unless this kind of research is done.” He knows many of his pro-life brethren adamantly oppose it.

“If they ever had the opportunity to sit in a hospital ER ward wondering if someone’s going to live or die, and knowing that something like this could help save those lives, they may look at things a little differently,” Johnson says quietly. “I have; I have gone to funerals of people who have passed away that this kind of research can help.”

Sikkema has irked the free-market crowd with his energy research for Public Sector Consultants, which Republican PR guru John Truscott suggests the former majority leader tailored for his clients. But Sikkema says that’s “completely unfair,” noting he’s in good conservative company with the Cato Institute and Progress and Freedom Fund.

“I’m free to let the research take me where it takes me,” he smiles. “There is some release, if you will.”

But it was his heretical position on raising taxes last year that’s won him the most ire. Like the bipartisan Emergency Financial Advisory Panel, Sikkema said the $1.8 billion shortfall had to be solved by cuts, substantial reforms and revenues.

DeRoche says he’d had clashes before on taxes with Sikkema, whom he described as “one of the smartest policy guys you’ll ever meet.”

“But I’m a numbers guy — finance is my background,” he says. “Ken’s a policy guy.”

Sikkema chuckles that he knows plenty about numbers — like how many votes it takes to get a bill passed and how to balance a budget. He notes Engler could be considered a pariah today for raising gas and cigarette taxes.

“I think it’s a new-fangled notion today that there’s never a time that you can’t go out and get revenue,” sighs Sikkema.

Policy first

Today, both Johnson and Sikkema are enthusiastic John McCain men, rooting for their party to take back Congress and the Michigan House.

But they’ve noticed disenchantment with the GOP, which Sikkema says is “too narrowly focused” on taxes in Michigan. Johnson, a lifelong party loyalist, estimates that 60 percent of the state isn’t Democrat or Republican and muses, “it’s unfortunate that an independent can’t run because our party system is so locked down.”

The view from outside the Capitol is pretty clear — both describe themselves as putting policy above politics. It’s an attitude both men think Lansing could benefit from, especially after last year’s budget brawl. And it’s something they think is critical for the party they call home.

“You don’t have to give up political success to be policy-focused,” says Sikkema. “This idea that everything, every day, every vote, every word has to be driven by your political agenda in order to achieve political success is just not true.”

Johnson cuts to the chase: “Quit playing politics. Make good policy and the politics will follow.”

Susan J. Demas is 2006 Knight Foundation Fellow in nonprofits journalism and a political analyst for Michigan Information & Research Service.