by Tim Skubick
October 16, 2009

With sincere apologies to the state’s motto writer … If you seek a pleasant banana republic, look around you at the Michigan House of Representatives.

The rules of a banana republic enhance the power of the person in charge and don’t necessarily reflect a democracy in the best sense of the word.

To be fair, the Michigan House is not run by some despot. But the leaders sometimes use a time-honored, despot-like strategy to advance their agenda. Both parties have done it.

It happened again last week when the voting board was left open for one hour and 18 minutes to give House Speaker, a.k.a. General, Andy Dillon and his militia, err, assistants more time to round up votes to pass a tax on physicians.

Normally, when a vote is taken in the real world, the polls close at a certain time. But not in the House. If they don’t get 56 votes to pass a bill at the outset, the board remains open and the fun begins. Dillon began with only about 42 yes votes.

A handful of Democrats were allowed to vote no because they are in districts where the Republicans could win back the seat if that Democrat voted for a tax hike. Rep. Lisa Brown is a good example. She resides in West Bloomfield, where doctors outnumber the trees.

But there were others.

Rep. Lesia Liss (D-Warren) is an emergency room nurse.

Rep. Jimmy Womack (D-Detroit) is the guy who puts you to sleep in the surgery room.

They were both immediately targeted by Dillon, who pulled them aside, urging them to vote yes.

Liss would not budge, which drew visits from other Dillonites.

Womack got all sorts of visits from other members of the Black Caucus. Since the physicians tax was aimed at paying for health care for the truly needy, those urban lawmakers leaned on Womack to give one up for the home team.

Eventually he flipped, saying he decided to vote the interest of his constituents rather than his former colleagues.

One by one, the speaker picked up enough votes to reach 56, and after almost 90 minutes of soul searching, arm twisting and, perhaps, even a little deal making, the tax was passed.

Did you say deal making?

Oh yeah. Sometimes it takes an “incentive” to get a lawmaker to change his or her mind.

Years ago, former Rep. Jimmy O’Neill of Saginaw reportedly got a library for his district in return for supporting one of Gov. Bill Milliken’s programs.

During the intense battle two years ago to hike the income tax, a lame-duck Republican wore holes in his shoes running back and forth to the governor’s office. And voila!, after Rep. Ed Gaffney backed Ms. Granholm’s tax, he found himself sitting on the state Liquor Control Commission.

And who knows how many other “sweeteners” like this have come down over the years.

This is the kind of stuff you never read about in your civics books.

But rejoice. The Michigan Senate, usually run by Republicans, is no banana republic. Senators slap a nasty one-minute time limit on their voting, and when the time is up, the bill either dies or lives.

Well, not quite. The Senate has a rule that you can order a re-do of the vote. Then that vote is put on hold until enough senators are coerced into changing their minds. It’s just like the House, only a tad more subtle.

Call it a mini-banana-republic tactic.

Tim Skubick is Michigan’s senior Capitol correspondent and has anchored the weekly public TV series “Off the Record” since 1972. He also covers the Capitol and politics for WLNS-TV6 in Lansing.

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Casino Wars Round Two
When the beleaguered horse racing industry, with the governor’s blessing, tried years ago to legalize slot machines at race tracks, the existing Indian and Detroit casinos went to war to kill it. And they killed it.

Casino wars, round two, is coming up.

This time the folks who run the Hazel Park racetrack want more than just slot machines, they want to turn the state’s five tracks into full-fledged casinos, which would provide even more competition for the 26 casinos already in business.

Backers need 400,000 petition signatures to put this puppy on the November 2010 statewide ballot. If they get enough names — and they can buy them easily — then they have to convince you to expand gaming here from 26 to 34. That sell job will be tougher because the other side will pump in even more money to kill this thing again.

Proponents have a new twist in their strategy, however. They are going to make sure that every county — all 83 of them— gets a part of the profits. And the backers are willing to turn over 30 percent of the profits to the state and earmark the money for education, police and fire protection and all the other high-profile essential services they can find. That will have curbside appeal.

Note that the current casinos send only chump change to the state and local governments, so you could see groups such as the Michigan Municipal League, Michigan Townships Association and maybe even the Michigan Education Association get on board. Where there is money to be had, special interest groups tend to line up.

Of course, some will argue there is a saturation point — that there are just so many smoking senior citizens to visit these venues, and you could create a thousand casinos and that wouldn’t mean more gamblers would show up.

But that will not deter the sponsors who want to save the racing industry, which is coming around the clubhouse turn headed for the graveyard.

When casino gaming got started, then-Gov. John Engler noted that he did not want Michigan to become the Las Vegas of the Midwest.

Well, if this new scheme passes, somebody better dust off the bumper sticker that reads: “What happens in Michigan, stays in Michigan.”

How Times Have Changed
Thirty years ago if they tried a stunt like this, the sponsors would have been laughed off the legislative floor. Trying to push through drinking hard liquor before noon on Sunday and allowing the bars to stay open until 4 a.m. would have been crushed by the anti-drinking lobby.

Ah, but today, the so-called “drys,” as they were known years ago, are battling to kill this thing before it multiplies — and it’s no longer a sure bet they will win.

Thirty years ago there was no Mothers Against Drunk Driving. The religious lobby pretty much fought the drinking wars. Now MADD and others are poised to take on the sponsors of the measure, including the governor, who are desperate to raise new revenue without raising taxes.

It will be an emotional battle.

On the one side are all the casinos in the state, which stand to reap huge profits. There’s nothing like a slot machine player at 3:30 a.m. feeling just a little tipsy and plunking those quarters into the machines like there’s no tomorrow.

Mom and pop bars, however, are not that excited because it would cost them $1,500 to get the new license. And while that is only 30 bucks a week, apparently the bar lobby thinks that is too steep.

They also can’t swallow another provision that gives local governments the power to veto the license if there is a local bar that entertains unsavory customers. The bars argue it gives the local governments a chance to get even with bars they don’t like.

The governor is quick to argue that all of this is voluntary. If a bar doesn’t like the fee, it doesn’t have to pay. But if Joe’s Saloon has it and Bob’s Bar down the street does not, there’s a competition thing to worry about.

At any rate, the fact that this proposal is still alive is testimony to the fact that times have changed. And odds are it will pass … an unheard of notion 30 years ago when drinking before church was a mortal sin.