by Gongwer News Service
September 4, 2009

Locked in the governor’s office were the governor, the four legislative leaders, some of their top staff, and the state’s top budget official. They had been there for hours, trying to work out details for an agreement for the upcoming budget. The start of the fiscal year was looming, and the state was struggling through the worst recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

And every time the door to the office opened, an official would walk straight into a gauntlet of reporters who had been leaning against the door to the governor’s office and lining the corridor. Reporters were so numerous, they actually had to move out of the way so the officials could go in and out of the governor’s office.

This did not occur this week, though Governor Jennifer Granholm and the four legislative leaders and her top budget official, Bob Emerson, were meeting well through the day on Thursday, trying to reach an agreement on the 2009-10 budget (which starts now in less than a month) and potentially some agreements on the 2010-11 budget.

The reason it didn’t occur is because there were no reporters clamored outside the office door. Oh, reporters did try staking out parts of the meeting as best they could (at least one did), given that they were kept far, far away from the actual governor’s office, away from being able to watch the comings and goings, unable to throw out questions and occasionally gather in the stray answer, unable to assess from the furrowed brows and pursed lips how progress (if any) was proceeding.

But in the late 1970s and 1980s, that scene did occur. There are photographs, somewhere, of reporters stacked like cordwood against the door of Governor William Milliken’s office on the second floor of the Capitol (the dimensions roughly correspond to the current ceremonial gubernatorial office) during the budget negotiations being held late in the night. If the door opened suddenly, reporters had to be careful they did not fall crashing into the office in a repeat of the classic Marx Brothers scene from “A Night At The Opera.”

In the office, Mr. Milliken and the legislative leaders, including House Speaker Bobby Crim and Senate Majority Leader Bill Faust and Management and Budget Director Jerry Miller, hammered away at the budget, sometimes reaching agreement, sometimes not.

Not much was said publicly about the actual discussions. Reporters would come away from their doorside vigils writing and airing stories that, frankly, said little more than negotiations were ongoing. There was an incident when a grim-faced Mr. Crim emerged and, when pressed on what was happening, snapped, “I’m going to talk to my caucus before I talk to you,” got on an elevator and rushed away to a caucus meeting.

Yet, somehow even that little bit of information, or confrontation, or dismissal, implied progress, indicated something was getting done, was happening and would eventually reach concurrence.

Lawmakers and Ms. Granholm and Mr. Emerson have been meeting regularly, or so we’re told, all summer on the budget. With September and the new fiscal year celebrations scheduled for September 30 and October 1 (bring your party hats), those negotiations will likely intensify.

Yet, to everyone outside the actual participants, do the discussions appear really real? Assurances abound, but nothing can be said about the actual nature of the talks because they are confidential. Ms. Granholm has expressed frustration privately about the little bit of the discussions that has been leaked, and then refused to comment on the substance of those leaks.

Still, there are the assurances, and the confidence expressed that the budget will be resolved. Meanwhile, groups lobby and rally and advertise against cuts, against taxes, for expenditures, against wasteful spending. And yet it still doesn’t seem real.

There is a growing debate on the secrecy surrounding the talks, a growing concern from various sides on what cuts or tax increases are slouching towards Lansing to be born from behind the closed doors. The Lansing chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists is even considering holding a session on the issue.

However, private conversations that leak out in bits and pieces have been the nature of government and politics since Caesar and Cleopatra. If officials are unwilling to sound out the ideas and concepts behind an agreement in public, in part from fear of public reactions, then closed-door meetings will be where the work gets done.

But there is yet a way to show the people that business is getting done: let the reporters crowd the door. Let them note who comes in and who goes out, let them fire questions and record the answers and non-answers, let them and the rest of the state see the grim expressions, the pursed lips, the weariness and, finally, the relief when decisions are made and agreements forged. News conferences to announce agreements and strategies are all very nice, thank you, but let the public into the game as much as possible by letting the reporters get as close to the closed door as possible.

Maybe that could actually open a door towards greater confidence in the state’s government.

For nearly 50 years in Michigan, Gongwer News Service has provided independent, comprehensive, accurate and timely coverage of issues in and around Michigan’s government and political systems. For subscription information, including a free trial, visit Gongwer online.