Columns

Tim Skubick

Governor’s Missed Opportunity

January 27, 2012

My oh my, the boo-birds were out in force taking pot shots at the governor for a rather lackluster performance last week during his second State of the State missive.

He was off his game, but he confirmed again that he is not a career politician and oratory is not his strong suit. Forever the CPA, even he confided before the address, “I’m going to be boring.” And now he is thinking about scrapping the speech altogether for next year.

Even though he had a bunch of flubs, like suggesting that Dan Musser was 125 years old, when in reality his Grand Hotel is that age, you did not hire Mr. Snyder to be a great speech maker.

“You hired me to be governor,” he is fond of saying, and most folks could give two hoots about his struggles to be an inspiring public speaker. Hey, he gives one major speech a year, so it’s not the end of the world.

What is more troubling was his lack of candor in the address on what he proposes for the new year.

Governors get one shot a year to talk directly to the citizenry, unfiltered by the media (at least during the speech), and Mr. Snyder failed to fulfill his duty to talk straight. For a moment there it seemed like he had retrogressed into his campaign mode, where he rarely talked about specific stances on issues.

Rather, he glossed over them with vague generalities such as, “I’m for education.” Who the heck isn’t?

And there he was on the issue of including insurance coverage for autistic children. It’s a contentious issue, as business doesn’t want to foot the cost, and parents with those special-needs kids are left holding the bag.

So what did the governor provide on that? “Let’s address that important topic.”

Ugh.

Or how about his $1.4 billion plan to fix Michigan’s sagging, World War II-era rotting road system? He timidly suggests lawmakers “hold hearings on bills that will give Michigan a transportation system for the 21st century.”

Don’t kid yourself. The governor knows where he wants to go on this, which includes increases in your car registration fees. But rather than level with motorists on that, he called for hearings.

In his defense, he explains he does not want to endorse this plan or that just yet because it would “galvanize” the opposition from the opening bell.

His buddies in the business community, after lapping up a nifty $1.8 billion tax cut last year, were back at the head of the line asking for more tax relief, via the personal property tax, and there’s the governor right with them. However, to grant that additional relief the governor would have to take $800 million away from local government. Rather than lay out a way to do it, he offered only this: “We need a long-term solution.”

Even though he is still somewhat of a rookie governor, it’s a time-honored tradition that governors propose (hopefully with specifics) and then lawmakers dispose. There was no meat on his proposals in that speech.

Now his defenders will rightfully suggest that he will provide the details in his budget next month — but there won’t be a statewide TV audience when he does it.

So in this respect, the consummate non-career politician is acting just like previous career-politician governors. They never delivered any tough medicine when everyone was looking; they did it when the public was not.

It’s a mighty stretch to describe that as bold leadership.

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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Schuette Shoots for Surplus
There must be something in the water they drink in the Attorney General’s Office, because it turns the occupant into a finely tuned headline-gathering machine. Current occupant Bill Schuette has picked up right where Attorneys General Jennifer Granholm and Frank Kelley left off.

Whether it’s promoting the notion that he alone is standing at the mouth of Lake Michigan to battle the Asian Carp from invading our waterways, or battling those medical marijuana shops that popped up all over the state, Bill Schuette is on duty — and this time it’s to fight…what else?…crime, of course.

Mr. Crime-Fighter wants to swipe $140 million of the state’s $500 million surplus to hire 1,000 new cops. And funny thing, the law enforcement community showed up in force the other day to provide the human backdrop for his big announcement. Why not? They would share most of the largess.

Mr. Schuette waxed on, as the phalanx of TV cameras recorded his every word, suggesting that if Michigan was ever going to enjoy an economic recovery, it would first need to make itself a state safe.

Hand it to the Billster, it was a great pitch and a great performance — but it did not open to rave reviews across the street, where lawmakers will decide the plan’s fate.

“I don’t want to give the money to anybody,” the crusty and stingy chair of the House budget committee said in rebuttal to the Schuette sound bites. “I’m willing to talk to him about it,” countered the equally unenthusiastic chair of the Senate budget panel. So put Rep. Chuck Moss and Sen. Roger Kahn down as “maybes” leaning toward a “no.”

Those two guys control the purse strings, and they note that Mr. Schuette is not the only one standing in line for a surplus hit.

“Do we want a thousand teachers? Or a thousand inspectors for nursing homes?…We can’t afford all the good things that everybody wants,” Mr. Moss concluded. Mr. Kahn would only describe his position as “not a complete rejection.”

So despite the masterful media manipulation of the issue, what are Mr. Schuette’s chances of landing the cash?

Don’t count on another glitzy news conference if the answer is a big fat N-O.

Lansing Casino a Big Gamble
If you are a betting person, don’t bet on this.

The angriest mayor in American is no longer angry. Instead, Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero is geeked about building a new casino right in the heart of the capital city. After a lengthy, yet constructive, year of chats with the Native American tribe from the U.P., his honor is sitting on a whopping $250 million potential investment.

And sitting is where he could stay.

Bernero talks in terms of one to two years. Somebody who has actually negotiated these kinds of compacts says five years is more likely, and most of that time will not be spent on the construction site but in the courts.

Moments after the mayor boldly declared, “Lansing will have a casino. It’s only a question of where and when,” the press releases from all of the opponents flooded in.

Leading the charge were the owners of the tribal casinos in Gun Lake and Battle Creek. In fact, they had a barrister in the audience to gain quick access to the news media that were there to cover the Virg.

The good folks in Mt. Pleasant who run Soaring Eagle are not eager to have competition in Lansing, and they vowed to haul Mr. Bernero and company into the courts to duke it out. And the three casinos in Detroit will join in.

The federal government also has to sign off.

Lawmakers have a voice in all this…and none of them bothered to show up for the big announcement.

And then there is the governor, who has said he’s not a big fan of economic expansion that includes more slot machines and roulette wheels. Besides, the state stands to lose $22 million in cold hard cash if the Lansing casino is actually built.

“There will be some bumps in the road,” confided the tribal chair, in what clearly wins the understatement of the year award.

So all you grannies out there ready to drop your hard-earned nickles into a Lansing slot machine, don’t hold your breath.

Columns

Tim Skubick

Relentless Positive Action vs. Right to Work

January 20, 2012

We have never seen a clash of letters such as this. The governor’s RPA (Relentless Positive Action) is on a collision course with House GOP efforts on RTW (Right to Work). It has all the makings of a certified train wreck, as Mr. Snyder sees very little positive action in his party’s relentless pursuit of this goal.

Recall that candidate and now-governor Rick Snyder has warned that opening up this can of worms will pit business against organized labor, and the resulting battle won’t do much to advance his Michigan reinvention agenda. In fact, it could halt it just as he is gaining some momentum.

Yet, despite all his public protestations thinly disguised in his standard line about “this not being on his agenda,” the House GOP guys, led by the speaker himself, slog forward into a “conversation” about cutting into the heart and soul of the labor movement.

And as the House Democratic leader noted the other day, he’s ready to have that conversation. Oh yeah. Rep. Rick Hammel hopes it will drive those 400,000 Democrats who didn’t vote for Virg Bernero for governor to get off their duffs and vote against the GOP “anti-union” agenda this November.

So why are some Republicans taking the risk and ignoring their governor’s pleas to leave this alone? Because they can’t help it. Now that they have hefty majorities in both the House and Senate, some believe it will help to cement their own re-elections with conservative voters back home. Plus they’ve been itching for years to do it.

But here’s the rub. Even if the House manages to pass this thing, Senate GOP leader Randy Richardville sends unmistakable signals that he wants no part of this puppy, and he asserts there aren’t the votes in his caucus to do it.

That poses a huge dilemma for House Speaker Jase Bolger and minions. Do they want to force their members to walk the plank when the bill has little chance of passing, knowing that the Democrats will use that vote to unseat those folks later this year?

That conundrum has given rise to a new wrinkle, i.e. the possibility of a statewide petition drive to take it out of the legislative arena and let the voters decide all this.

Businesses have the resources and could gather the signatures, but Rob Fowler, who runs the Small Business Association of Michigan, calls that strategy a “disaster.” He knows it will drive more Democrats to the polls.

Rep. Mike Shirkey (R-Clark Lake) is the most vocal cheerleader for RTW. He’s not ready to chuck a legislative battle, but he confides he has thought about the petition drive, too.

Turns out that neighboring Indiana may have a huge influence on what transpires here. After flirting with running for president and telling his followers he wanted nothing to do with that issue, Gov. Mitch Daniels has pulled a Mitt Romney and changed his position. And most believe that before March, the Indiana legislature will pass Right to Work, which could, in turn, add more fuel to those fires back here.

The Michigan Chamber of Commerce is monitoring all this but has no formal position on the issue. Hard to believe, but true. CEO Rick Studley is aware of the impending dust-up with labor, but the chamber has never backed away from that in the past, and one gets the sense that if Indiana goes first, Mr. Studley and friends won’t be far behind.

So grab a seat to see who wins this battle of the letters. The smart money is going with RPA.

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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Missed Opportunity
Close but no cigar. No, scratch that. Not even close.

Gov. Rick Snyder had a rare opportunity to lower the anxiety level in the City of Detroit concerning an Emergency Manager…and he whiffed during his State of the State Address.

Everybody knows, including the governor, that in many segments of that community the angst is palpable. Residents don’t want the state to send in somebody who will fire their elected officials and run the city like a dictator. Whether that dictator is benevolent or not, many don’t want it, and they want the governor to keep his GOP nose out it.

Mr. Snyder, being who he is, is not about to ignore the challenge, but he had a chance, with a statewide TV audience tuned in, to look directly into the camera and talk to the residents of Detroit. He could have said something like:

“I know you are worried about someone coming in to run your city, and I’m worried, too. I don’t want to appoint an EM and I fully understand why you don’t want me to do it. And I won’t if at all humanly possible. That’s why I urge you to tell your mayor and City Council they need to make some tough decisions. They didn’t create this mess, but they have the power, right here and right now, to fix it once and for all. And I promise you tonight I will do everything I can to help you save your city — which is our city, too. There is too much at risk for all of us if we fail.”

He didn’t even come close. Sure, he talked about supporting the city, but the support he is offering, many don’t want.

So you are left to ponder why he squandered the opportunity. Wasn’t there somebody in the inner circle with enough political savvy to help this non-career politician get this one right?

Actually, he is smart enough to have figured it out on his own. But he didn’t.

Points off.

Columns

Tim Skubick

Gov. Snyder’s
Biggest Challenge

January 13, 2012

Governors like to control their own destiny. They are control freaks in the most benign sense of the word, in that they don’t like tackling unanticipated issues. In a perfect world, surprises would not happen.

But in the real world stuff does happen. Previous governors dealt with the statewide chemical contamination of the food chain, the loss of a major GM plant to Texas, the recall of two Democratic state senators and two auto companies on the precipice of bankruptcy.

Take this to the bank — Bill Milliken, John Engler, Jim Blanchard and Jennifer Granholm in their worst nightmares never anticipated all that. How they grappled and adlibbed their way through those issues challenged their leadership abilities and contributed to their long-term legacy.

The current occupant of that office breezed through his first year, but stands right now embroiled in his biggest challenge to date: saving the City of Detroit. The outcome is in doubt. And for you outstaters who could give a hoot, take heed. If Detroit ends up in the dumper, your local economy will suffer, too.

None of this was a surprise to Gov. Rick Snyder, who campaigned on a platform that included helping Motown get back on its feet. But not even he could have anticipated how bad it would get.

Much of what he has done to date has not played well in Detroit, where city officials have been shoving this financial mess under the rug for years in a classic example of an approach-avoidance attitude. With the City now faced with payless paydays, the governor has evoked the Emergency Manager law that he hatched with lawmakers last year. While the unions cried “union busting,” the governor’s message was that he was trying to save union jobs by attempting to keep our urban centers from drowning in red ink.

So when the governor ordered a financial review of the city books recently, the first step in the EM process, there was pushback that caught the governor by surprise. Instead of welcoming him with open arms, Mayor Dave Bing, the City Council and other city officials basically told the governor to get lost.

El governor was blindsided and confesses, “No one likes to be surprised.” He concedes his relationship with the folks down there is a little “rocky,” but he promises to help, not criticize, and to support, not point fingers.

And when others suggest that his actions are “igniting tensions,” he notes that persons who talk about igniting tensions are actually igniting tensions, too.

His next move, to appoint a 10-person review team, got better marks. He demonstrated his grasp of the issue by appointing leaders with strong roots in the community; persons with instant credibility and a desire to clean up this mess once and for all.

Grudgingly, even some of the governor’s critics had to concede he made the right choices.

This governor realizes that the city does not want interference from Lansing, as he recalls that a former GOP governor wiped out the Detroit school board, and the bad blood from that is still on the ground.

Yet, the always upbeat Mr. Snyder reflects, “Just because it happened once before, is it all the same or is there an opportunity to work together?”

In Flint, where an EM is on the job, the governor actually attended a town hall meeting and came away with good vibes.

Let him try that in Detroit and see what he gets.

Regardless of what he does on other issues in this new year, the “Detroit problem” will continue to be the elephant in the room, and how he herds that elephant will either be his Waterloo or his finest hour.

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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Free What?
Wow. No, make that double wow.

Senate Democrats, who sort of muddled along with only 12 votes last year, were not players in any real sense of the word.

But what did they drink on New Year’s Eve? Because here they are in 2012 with a proposal that could be a game changer when it comes to keeping and attracting young persons in this state.

Try this on for size: Free college tuition for a two- or four-year education.

For years it’s the Republicans who have owned the “Be Bold” mantra in this town, but suddenly the Senate Ds have swiped it.

Of course, this plan may never see the light of day, because the GOP does not want to hand the Dems a major victory. But the Republicans would be wise not to reject this out of hand.

Senator Gretchen Whitmer, the Senate Democratic leader, has smartly figured out a way to pay for all this, which costs a nifty $1.8 billion. She would eliminate some tax loopholes at a savings to the state, she would tax Internet sales, and she’d shave lucrative state contracts with private vendors to the tune of 6 percent per deal. Presto-chango, she’s at $1.8 billion.

Now, even though tons of kids have left their parents behind by shuffling off to other states, and even though many out-of-state kids think twice about coming here, free tuition might change the attitudes.

Make that would change attitudes, which is why Ms. Whitmer and company are suddenly relevant.

Since the governor found $1.8 billion in tax breaks for his buddies in the corporate world last year, and since he has talked about keeping kids here, why not embrace this?

The Democrats would toss at the governor his favorite statement: “It’s the right thing to do.” Let’s see if he does it.

(Thanks to our pals at MIRS for breaking this story.)

Let’s Have Some Suds
What the heck happened to the “beer” question in the GOP race for the White House? The remaining crop of candidates has answered everything under the sun, but so far nobody has asked the voters, “With whom would you love to have a beer?”

It most certainly would not be Mitt Romney, his critics contend.

Despite his central-casting presidential good looks and his finely coiffed head of hair, he hardly seems warm and fuzzy, and based on his most recent flub on the campaign trail, you could not describe him as “one of us.”

During a town hall meeting somebody asked the former Michigan resident how he would resolve the worries of the middle-class stuck in the vortex of a lousy economy.

“Yeah,” he began his fateful response, “I’m worried about my investments, too.”

His what? The woman who asked the question retorted she had no “investments” to fret about. Oops.

It was like when former President Herbert Walker Bush was surprised to find a new-fangled scanning system at the checkout aisle in a grocery store. He’d been so out of touch, he didn’t know they existed.

This Romney miscue is hardly fatal, but it does feed into the storyline that this “rich” guy has not shared in the common man’s and woman’s challenges to keep bread on the table. And if voters are looking for somebody in the White House they can relate to, the millionaire Mr. Romney won’t be at the top of the list.

Hence, he’d be the least likely guy to chug a beer with you…maybe a Manhattan, but certainly not a Stroh’s. (Yeah, they don’t brew that anymore.)

Columns

Tim Skubick

Relentless Positive Comments

January 6, 2012

It was a simple question. Yeah, it was loaded, but simple nonetheless.

“Have you ever voted for a Democrat?”

Republican Governor Rick Snyder grinned. Diving for the high grass, he demurred, hiding behind the notion that when he steps into the voting booth, what goes on in there is his business and not the media’s.

He’s dead right, of course, but that doesn’t make for good political fodder. You could imagine the headlines: Republican Snyder Cuddles Up to Democrats. Which is precisely why he didn’t answer that loaded question or a host of others during a recent one-hour Michigan Public TV broadcast.

What about immigration?

“That’s a federal issue.”

Comment on the president’s role in “saving” GM and Chrysler?

He reflects that it is also a federal question, although he does sheepishly concur that the plight of the auto industry is sort of a Michigan issue.

What about all those right-wing lawmakers who want to dabble in social wedge issues, such as gay marriage, abortion, right-to-work and a list that goes on as long as your arm?

He won’t comment or denounce them for getting in the way of his agenda. He defends their right to go there and will not make one dissenting remark aimed at getting them to back off.

All this is typical Snyder stuff and it is not going to change. Just ask any member of the Capitol press corps about covering this guy and how tough it is to get straight answers to time-honored political questions. It’s like pulling teeth when the patient won’t open his mouth.

Every once in awhile he does slip. Like when he suggested that Detroit City Council members should have seriously considered taking a 30 percent cut in their office budgets to help deal with the fiscal crisis in Motown. But he quickly recovered by saying it was not his job to be critical — only supportive to help the city get back on its feet (even though there are many in Detroit who have told him to get lost).

A more traditional and combative governor might have returned the volley with a headline-producing, in-your-face response. Not this guy.

“I know that can be annoying at some point,” he says, stating the obvious and adding that it is not his job to feed the political punditry machine.

“You hired me to be governor,” he says for the millionth time, and he means it.

Whereas other career politicians turned governor love to parry and thrust about the issue of the day, former CEO and highly driven Gov. Snyder finds no joy in that at all. In fact, he sees it as a pain in the behind — but he phrases it differently.

“It’s a distraction…it generates extraneous discussion that doesn’t bring jobs back to Michigan.”

There, in one capsule, you have the essence of the Snyder philosophy of how to run the state. He will not do it by running his mouth.

And much to the chagrin of the news media, he is onto something. If you take the pulse of the citizenry, that’s part of the reason they elected him. Given a choice between the Angriest Mayor in America — who was a one-man, machine-gun political quote machine, which the media adored — and the one tough nerd who never said anything bad about anybody, voters picked the latter and not the former.

Hey, it works for him. For the political press, not so much.

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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Generation Gap on Tolerance
The generation gap between old folks and young kids has never been wider. Technology is the culprit. We are increasingly divided along the lines of who texts and who doesn’t.

But another gap has appeared, one based on philosophy. More specifically, regarding tolerance of those who are “different” than us. The gay rights issue is exhibit A.

The kids wonder why the older generation spends so much time worrying about that. The “worry” has translated into a variety of ballot proposals seeking to ban “gay marriage,” with the accompanying rhetoric that failing to do so will destroy traditional marriages.

The kids go, “What?” The research on this gap is pretty clear and it has unmistakable implications for turning our state around.

Everyone from the governor on down admits that young entrepreneurs are the ones who can help turn the state around if we can only lure them here long enough to do it. As Detroit Free Press editor Ron Dzwonkowski recently penned, Michigan is getting grayer by the minute, and unless there is an infusion of new, young and more tolerant blood, we are pretty much doomed.

Many young persons are attracted to communities where persons of all ways of life are welcome without disdain, without critical comment and without berating them for being different.

Researcher Lou Glazer has documented these “live and let live” attitudes, yet his data had no impact on Gov. Snyder, who recently signed legislation to ban some live-in partners from collecting health care benefits from the state.

That’s been the cause célèbre of some legislative Republicans for years, and the governor sided with them while demonstrating a little hypocrisy of his own.

He believes it’s okay for universities to provide these benefits, but everyone else in the real world should not have them.

What’s the difference? That’s what the young kid from Ohio, who contemplates moving to Michigan, must be thinking.

Columns



Tim Skubick

Avoiding the Spotlight

December 30, 2011

(Note: Now online, see WKAR-HD/23’s Evening with the Governor 2012 in advance of its January 6 broadcast. Michigan Governor Rick Snyder and First Lady Sue Snyder reflect on their new life in the fast lane, after an historic first year in office. The couple sat down with Senior Capitol Correspondent Tim Skubick on December 19 for an exclusive, in-depth interview, exploring the highs and lows of running the state while simultaneously trying to keep life “normal” for their three children. Watch.)

If the first lady of Michigan walked into the room would you recognize Sue Snyder? Of course you wouldn’t, and she’d be happy you didn’t.

Lots of folks ask, “who is the real Rick Snyder?” But the lack of insight into his bride is monumental, because she avoids the spotlight at all cost and is not a made-for-TV first lady.

Turns out she is more content being First Mom to their three children.

In her first broadcast sit-down interview along with her husband the other day, Mrs. Snyder confesses how her life has changed now that hubby is running the state. While he does that, she is the glue that holds the family together.

“That’s the way people talk about me,” she reveals. “I’m always taking care of everyone; doing things for everyone else. I think I learned that with my mom.”

It was a lesson that was foisted upon the young and unsuspecting Sue Kerr of Dearborn at the tender age of seven. Her mom was sick, first with MS, then breast and bone cancer, and by age 28 her mom was gone.

On top of that, her dad worked long hours, and so care-giving became her calling card. And how ironic that she would marry a guy who was equally driven to work long hours.

“I am highly driven,” asserts the governor during the one-hour broadcast, and she says part of her job is to get him to slow down, especially when he is sick, which he was twice this past year.

“He may complain like all guys do about being sick” — and he and she both start to laugh — “but he still goes on. He just continues at the same pace” while she tries to rein him in for his own good and hers.

Her great sense of humor threads its way through the exchange, with this gem never uttered from the lips of a previous first lady. When asked how she handled his illnesses, she blurted out, “Well you know that men are big babies.”

Her laughing spouse prefers the term “high maintenance,” but either way it was a classic line and so Sue Snyder.

But while she takes good care of the family, she has zero desire to play political advisor ala former First Gentleman Dan Mulhern, who was always at the ready to comment on and defend spouse Gov. Jennifer Granholm.

“Oh, Lord, no,” Mrs. Snyder blurted out when asked about being the gov’s sounding board. “That is not my place.”

Interestingly, the very apolitical first lady was the one who got him into this job in the first place. He was coming home griping about the mess at the state Capitol, so at dinner one night she finally confronted the elephant in the room.

“I said if you know all those things, why don’t you run for governor?”

He did.

So are there days when she wishes they had gone to a movie instead? Sometimes, but she and the kids are clearly on board with his mission to reinvent the state — and when he gave his first State of the State Address last January, there she was in the front row.

“I can’t believe we’re here,” she said, recalling the warm memory. “I was just so proud. I say that every day to him, every day how proud I am of him.”

You can see why he loves her, and she him.

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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Second in Command
Every governor has one. Somebody to trust, someone who is loyal, someone who will do the dirty work and heavy lifting to get stuff done, and someone who won’t be a yes man or woman.

Gov. William Milliken had his Jerry Miller. Gov. Jim Blanchard had his Rick Cole. Gov. John Engler had Gov. John Engler. Gov. Jennifer Granholm had Lt. Gov. John Cherry. And Gov. Rick Snyder has his Brian Calley, the lieutenant governor.

Mr. Calley and Mr. Snyder are a matched set. The former one-term House member was picked by candidate Snyder because the Ann Arbor business guy knew nothing about Lansing. He was smart enough to know that and took steps to remedy it.

Mr. Calley stepped in and took each assignment and worked long hours to carry the water for the boss, and it mostly worked. Interviewed the other day at wkar.org, he noted that he was a Right to Work supporter when he resided in the Michigan House, but now that the boss says, “this is not on my agenda,” turns out it is no longer on Calley’s.

In fact, he feels this one will get nowhere fast. “Just because we have a Republican majority, it does not mean there is a Republican majority for Right to Work,” he reflects.

That doesn’t mean the ultra-right wingers will pack it in. Nope. They will push next year to pass this thing, but Mr. Calley figures it will never get to the governor’s desk. The governor is hoping his Man Friday, is right.

Of course, no lieutenant governor ever grows up wanting to be the second in command, so it seemed only logical to quiz Mr. Calley about his long-term agenda. Do you want to be governor was the pointed question.

And the pointed rejoinder?

“I want to be the senior Capitol correspondent, so look out!”

Duly noted.

Schuette on Duty
If you love the political game, ya gotta love Bill Schuette, cause he plays it like a finely tuned violin.

Now, not everybody loves the tune he plays, but give him credit. He is a student of this stuff, and he dances around issues with the best of them.

Like the other day at his year-in-review roundtable (done at an actual roundtable). Capitol correspondents noted that the GOP attorney general and the GOP governor are at huge odds over Obamacare.

Mr. Schuette, like his predecessors Mike Cox, Jennifer Granholm and Frank Kelley, has a knack for picking issues that produce a windfall of media coverage.

So one of the first things Mr. Schuette did when he took office was renew his office’s legal challenge to Obamacare. Now he is challenging Gov. Snyder, too.

The governor wants lawmakers to act on his version of Obamacare right now. But the A.G. opines, “There is no rush on the health care exchange.”

Reporters love it when they can drive a wedge between members of the same party, so Mr. Schuette was asked about this major disagreement with the Boss. Without missing a beat he brushed it off with, “We agree on 95 percent of the issues. We are good friends.”

So much for the wedgy.

Or how about the A.G.’s lackluster record on blocking those pesky Asian Carp from invading the Great Lakes?

He’s staged plenty of news conferences and fired off a ream of news releases, but nothing’s been accomplished. When confronted with the stark reality, he did some fancy footwork but never confessed to his goose egg of a record.

And in the presidential contest he backs Mitt Romney, the guy who bet $10,000 during a debate recently. But Schuette is no big shooter himself, at least when it comes to gambling. He says, “I’ll bet you 10 bucks” Romney beats President Obama.

Cheap skate.

Columns

Tim Skubick

Why Snyder’s Bridge
Went Nowhere

December 23, 2011

When they close the book on the first year of the Snyder administration, his inability to build a bridge between Detroit and Windsor will emerge as his biggest failure — because Republicans stiffed him.

It must have been frustrating. Coming from the private sector, where critical decisions are based on data, his job creation data were drowned out by the more vocal opposition from the owners of the Ambassador Bridge who did not want the competition of a second span.

In hindsight, the beast was doomed from the outset. The governor basically blind-sided the GOP legislative leaders. Instead of telling them well in advance that he would endorse the bridge, they got notice only shortly before his State of the State message.

It may have been a rookie mistake, but it was bad form nonetheless. Even worse, the bridge was the top priority for House Democrats.

It was Mr. Snyder being Mr. Snyder. He approaches the legislative world saying, “this is not about Rs and Ds.” Unfortunately, he’s the only one in town practicing that mantra.

He should have know this puppy was in trouble when those same GOP leaders prevailed on him to sit on the bridge until lawmakers got the budget out of the way. The governor agreed, but by the time it came time to move on the bridge, the GOP opposition was firm as cement.

Making matters worse, Lt. Governor Brian Calley, without prompting from the Capitol press corps, announced that if lawmakers failed to provide the votes, there were other ways to build the bridge without a legislative vote.

It was a great little story, but only managed to make the concrete harder. As a result, the lawmakers did not have to put up a yes vote, because the governor didn’t really need them. In addition, it did not buy him any good will, since lawmakers hate to be ignored.

During all this, the aforementioned Ambassador Bridge guys poured thousands of dollars into campaign coffers of the very lawmakers who might vote on the project, while pumping even more into TV commercials denouncing the bridge project.

The governor’s response? There was none. He conceded the TV air war to the “enemy.” Even though he feebly lamented that the ads were misleading, he did nothing about it. At that point, however, it would have been useless. The die was cast.

And when the showdown came, the gov’s guys made another blunder. They walked into the Senate committee room with a new draft of the bill, which the committee chair had never seen.

It was an affront to Sen. Mike Kowall (R-Oakland County) who, instead of voting on the bill, abruptly adjourned the meeting, leaving a messy omelet on the collective face of the Snyder administration.

Finally, when everyone did show up for a vote, there weren’t enough yes votes to move it to the floor. The governor had two GOP votes but needed four, and while he could have received two Democratic votes to get the job done, he whiffed on that, too.

It was one blunder after another and, shamelessly rejected by his own party, the governor had nothing to do but concede it was not a good day and it was time to cool off.

That’s about the only thing he got right in the protracted and ill-fated bridge debacle.

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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GOP Grinches Steal Gov’s Christmas
The governor is not getting everything he wanted for Christmas, and the Grinches who made that possible are from his own party. Bah humbug!

First, Republican lawmakers stiffed their governor on the bridge between Detroit and Windsor, and now House Republicans refuse to cough up votes for Mr. Snyder’s health care market place legislation.

Those House lawmakers believe his idea moves the state closer to “Obamacare,” which many Rs are loathe to support. But, ironically, the governor and Senate Republicans have a different take.

They have told the House that if it does not act on the governor’s blueprint, inaction will lead to Obamacare being imposed on the state anyway.

One guy whose temperature is going up is Sen. Jim Marleau (R-Oakland County). This mild-mannered and affable guy is frustrated with his so-called friends in the House who won’t get in line.

“I’m sick and tired of them calling it [Obamacare]…This is Michigan care,” and some two million folks are waiting to use it. “The time is now, not later,” he adds for emphasis as his pulse goes up another notch.

Forget it, retort two Oakland County Rs. Rep. Marty Knollenberg wants to wait for the U.S. Supreme Court to rule on the national health care law sometime after next June. Rep. Chuck Moss concurs, complaining that this “sets us irrevocably down the path to Obamacare and our guys aren’t for it…Why do we want to be the first people to buy a ticket on this boat, which may turn out to be the Titanic.”

Even GOP Speaker of the House Jase Bolger has turned a deaf ear to his governor, and the two have reportedly had more than a few words on this one.

So if the governor is not getting these items under his tree, he is getting something else: A tough lesson on how lawmakers can control their governor — and not the other way around.

Are You Sitting Down?
In the cosmic scheme of things, this was not earth shattering for the general population, but it should have moved the needle for Michigan’s first nerd governor. After all, what were the chances that a conservative and a liberal would pen the same story line on the same day in separate columns?

Their combined message was that it was time for Gov. Rick Snyder to man-up and confront the far-right wing of his party before that wing besmudges his grand plans to reinvent Michigan.

Detroit Free Press opinion writer Stephen Henderson noted that it was time for the governor to start opposing the “radical agenda” that the right-wingers are pushing onto his more moderate-leaning agenda.

This governor has never confronted this head-on, choosing instead to trot out his time-worn line about none of this stuff is “on his agenda” — which is code for, “I don’t want to deal with it because it is counter-productive,” but he’s never been that blunt.

It’s not his style, but Henderson warns the governor that he needs to go there. Mr. H. labels it “ideological meddling” and adds, “It’s time for Snyder to draw the line between what legislative foolishness he will indulge and what Michigan can’t countenance going forward.”

Which is just a fancy way of saying, “Governor, tell them to knock it off.”

While you might expect that kind of free advice from the Freep, to find it in The Detroit News, on the same day, was downright freaky.

Nolan Finley, no slouch when it comes to being a little off to the right, was more verbose than his left-leaning counterpart. He talks about how the GOP needs to stay away from “social meddling,” plus “voters did not give Republicans a mandate to drag the state to the far right on contentious social issues.”

Holy cow!

And this piece de resistance: “Republicans in this state must establish themselves as the party of progress and prosperity, and not of puritanism and prejudice.”

If these guys are right, the real Gov. Rick Snyder will have to stand up at some point and embrace who he really is, either that or try to be who the other side wants him to be.

It’s dicey either way.

Columns

Tim Skubick

Batting Zero
on Bipartisanship

December 16, 2011

As this hectic and successful first year in office comes to an end, you won’t see Gov. Rick Snyder taking any personal victory laps. Nope. Not this governor.

He is not a hog when it comes to sharing the spotlight with legislators. Well…not all legislators. You see, if there is a goose egg on the new governor’s year-end scorecard, it is the lack of bipartisan cooperation with you know who.

Despite his upbeat rhetoric as a candidate and his pledge to work with Democrats as governor, there has been painfully little of that this year.

At the outset the Democratic leaders were eager to get into the governor’s office to begin this new era of bipartisanship. But it was months before they got in, and when they did, they didn’t like what they saw.

• The pension tax on seniors; a non-starter for the Ds.
• The Emergency Manager law, even though it was drafted by a former Democratic speaker of the House, did not open to rave reviews either.
• Then there was the budget with its massive slashing of education in order to fund a hefty $1.8 billion tax cut for business, with no guarantee that it would create one stinking job. The Democrats had little input and therefore voted no.

And to prove the point that they were abandoned in the legislative process, they report that out of the 230 bills passed so far this year, Democrats sponsored a grand total of five.

All that despite the fact that the year began on an upbeat note for the Democrats. The governor used his State of the State Address to embrace the top priority for the Democrats in 2011, i.e. the building of the bridge between Detroit and Windsor.

As Mr. Snyder embraced the notion in front of all the lawmakers, those Democrats leaped to their feet in wild applause — and the picture is still frozen in everyone’s mind of the Republicans sitting on their collective behinds and hands wondering to themselves, is this our governor?

Well, we all know now that there was no chance for the governor to work a deal with the Democrats, because his own party stiffed him on the issue by refusing to move it for a vote.

There was a perfect opportunity for the governor to work his bipartisan magic, because all he needed to do was convince two Democrats on the Senate committee to vote the measure to the floor. He did not and they did not, and the bridge sits in limbo as a result of that failure.

Some Democrats are scratching their heads wondering what went wrong this year, given the fact that the governor has surrounded himself with seasoned inside players who understand the importance of working with the other side.

“I want to like him,” reflected one Democratic source who is still waiting for that reach across the isle.

One Democrat who did reach got rebuffed. Sen. Gretchen Whitmer, the Senate Democratic leader, wanted the governor to modify some of his cuts in the K-12 budget, and she thought she had a deal. But the governor reneged, she says. He denies her assertion, but the episode did little to foster a close working relationship between the two.

As 2011 rolls into 2012, the Ds are still prepared to work with him, especially as more conservative Republicans move on their own to push items the governor may not like.

Mr. Snyder can improve on that goose egg, but the Ds are left wondering: will he?

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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Wait Is Over
Sometimes the impossible takes a little longer. Just ask former Gov. John Engler, who 16 years ago pleaded with lawmakers to lift the 150-school cap on charter schools.

Even though the aforementioned crusty and crafty GOP governor usually had his way with legislators, the education lobby stiffed poor ol’ Mr. Governor and he left office empty handed.

This week a GOP-controlled legislature under a governor who is neither crusty nor crafty finally finished the job.

By a narrow 58-49 margin, with lots of angst in the GOP ranks, the House adopted a phase in of more charters beginning with 300, then 500 and then sky’s the limit.

It was just one more insult to the Michigan Education Association and its colleagues, who have sustained hit after hit from the Rs in the House and Senate this year. What’s one more lump of coal?

For a time there were 20 Republicans who refused to join the charter crusade. Some had great public schools and did not want a charter siphoning off all those good students. Others argued for more quality controls to make sure the charters did offer a better education. And when all else failed, Democrats argued companies that run these schools are more interested in profits than teaching kids.

But in the end the GOP House leadership prevailed by twisting enough arms to pass the thing, even though a handful of Rs still voted no.

The opponents did carve out one minor victory. The new law will be delayed for another year or so instead of going on the books right now.

After waiting 16 years to get this, the charter gang can hang on for one more.

Last Laugh
Organized labor may get the last laugh as it attempts to undo one of the governor’s crowning achievements of the year, the Emergency Manager law. Or maybe not.

The unions have joined forces with those who believe the EM law is about as undemocratic as it gets; it allows the state to send in a financial czar to run a city that is headed for the financial cliff. That czar can stamp a null and void on union contracts, which would explain why the labor guys launched a petition drive to end the law.

And it looks like that will happen. Sometime early next year the Forward Michigan coalition will file, it hopes, upwards of 250,000 petition signatures When those names are certified by the state, the governor’s EM law goes on hold until November 2012. At that time Michigan voters will decide whether to kill the thing.

“I’m willing to predict success,” asserts Brandon Jessup, who is running the petition drive. The savvy young Democrat announced that on December 17 there would be signature-gathering rallies in 13 cities, aimed at reaching that quarter of a million mark.

It’s actually a fairly impressive number given they are not paying for the names, which is the normal drill for such drives.

So that is that. Well, not quite.

GOP lawmakers and the governor are positioning a new EM law that would take effect if and when the current one is on hold. In other words, lawmakers may get the last laugh and not the unions.

“Shame on them,” laments Mr. Jessup.

The Rs could care less, because they contend they are doing this to keep cities such as Detroit from going into bankruptcy. To which Mr. J. asserted on Public Television’s Off the Record, they are really doing it to bust the unions.

Columns



Tim Skubick

Test Your
Political News IQ

December 9, 2011

Men are smarter than women.

Well, there goes half of the readership looking for some day-old fish to wrap up in this column.

Hold on. Everyone knows that women are more intelligent than men, but in this one public affairs quiz it is the other way around. On every question men scored higher than the females. Which is strange, since women tend to be more involved politically and vote in larger numbers than their male counterparts.

Before you read on, take the quiz by going to PewResearchCenterInteractive and click on the News IQ Quiz of 13 questions, then return after you are finished.

I’ll wait.

So how did you do? Ashamed? If you are like most, you should be.

Yeah, some of the stuff was pretty easy. 74 percent of the participants knew the elephant was the GOP symbol, but when you break it down by party, 87 percent of the Republicans got it right but only 69 percent of the Democrats were correct. What’s the old saying…Know Thy Enemy?

Turns out the easiest question was identifying Brazil on a map, with 77 percent getting it right.

The real toughies included knowing the new head of Great Britain. Sixty-two percent got David Cameron wrong. Fifty-eight percent did not recognize Israel on a map and 57 percent did not know the GOP controls one house of Congress.

Okay, you can kinda understand the Cameron results. He is new to the job, and unless you watch C-Span you are not likely to see his mug anywhere on the tube.

But there is no excuse for being unable to identify Israel, one of our strongest allies. It’s on the evening news regularly and ground zero for all things Middle Eastern.

As for 43 percent of you not knowing that the GOP controls one house of Congress, points off. But then, many voters are not sure where Congress is located, let alone who is running the joint.

You’d be shocked by the number of well-meaning folks who ask, “What’s it like covering the Congress?” And then they sheepishly slither away when told that Congress is not in Lansing. Really gang, it is not.

These lousy scores are nothing knew. It’s generally felt that most citizens could name Justin Verlander as the MVP of baseball, but three out of 10 did not recognize the guy responsible for your lousy 401(k), i.e. Ben Bernanke, who runs the Federal Reserve.

The PEW survey also validates a few more stereotypes. Those with a college degree knew more than those with some college or only a high school diploma. The higher educated got more questions correct in every category.

Older folks, those over 50, also scored higher than other age groups.

The young voters did better than the seniors on the Cameron, Brazil and Sona Sotomayor questions, but those 18-29 missed 10 of the 13 questions to secure their position as the least informed and supposedly least motivated to know anything about politics and public affairs.

They did do well on recognizing Steve Jobs, but one would expect that, right?

Eight percent of the respondents had a perfect score, with the average being about 9 correct and four wrong.

But if you took the quiz, give yourself three extra points for being interested enough to do it — and if you plodded through this column, add another 10 for not having a life.

Now go to your room and study.

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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Like Father Like Son
If they had a list for the best soundbite producer in this town, Detroit Senator Coleman Young, Jr. would be on it and darn near the top. Yeah…that Coleman Young Jr, the son of the former Detroit mayor by the same name.

Seems the junior Young is not too pleased with Gov. Rick Snyder these days, and with the governor down at 20 percent in the polls, Mr. Young apparently has a ton of company.
Mr. Snyder, of course, has set into motion a review of the finances in Detroit, which could lead to the imposition of an outside finance czar to run the city. The governor steadfastly asserts that he does not want to go there.

Enter Senator Young. “I don’t believe him,” he begins his blunt and pithy soundbite assault on the whole Emergency Manager concept — or “Economic Dictator,” as he puts it.

“It’s an affront to our city,” he says as he warms to the subject, and “violates our constitutional rights” to boot. He believes the move to have outside forces take over the city has been the subject of “a lot of discussion” for years and now it’s coming to fruition.

The Democratic senator believes an EM would hold a “fire-sale where everything must go,” including Belle Isle, city parks, City Airport, a golf course and who knows what all. “They will come in and rape, pillage and rob” the city, he asserts.

He hopes the current leadership in Motown, which some believe is a misnomer, will get this ironed out before the governor lowers the boom. But remember the governor contends there’s no boom, unless he is forced to use it.

Tell that to the offspring of the former soundbite genius of years ago, Coleman Young Senior.

What’s the saying…“Lke father, like son?”

Columns

Tim Skubick

Learning About Democracy First-Hand

December 2, 2011

Algebra II. Algebra II.

Given all the hoopla accorded that course by the educational aristocracy, you would think it is the silver bullet to solve all our education challenges.

Phooey. The last guy to successfully use a silver bullet was the Lone Ranger.

Instead of mandating that, they ought to be mandating social study courses for every school kid.

Be honest. When was the last time you were confronted with a complex math problem at work (engineers excluded)? But when is the last time you voted? And did you cast an intelligent vote based on some data other than a political campaign ad?

Let’s be candid. The citizen electorate today is uninformed, unmotivated, uninterested and turned-off by political discourse.

Now, if you are reading this column you are unique and probably don’t need a lecture on why it is important for young persons to get involved in politics. Sadly, many high school kids could care less.

In reality, making the democracy work is more important than knowing how to solve a story problem. The democracy only works when all of the participants are intellectually engaged.

When lawmakers debated the rewrite of the high school graduation requirements, they concluded social studies was not that important. Of course, the last thing politician wants is an informed electorate that might bounce them from office.

Nobody made the case for mandatory government courses. Hence, those who teach it are second-class instructors from the get-go, but many are not tossing in the towel. Many are trying to get the kids involved — and it’s working.

A middle school teacher learned that a $1,500-per-person fundraiser was being staged in her backyard featuring Gov. Snyder…the same guy who sliced and diced the K-12 budget so he could fund a whopping business tax cut.

The teacher asked her students if they wanted to protest the event after school. Parents were advised of this voluntary event and many signed off.

So off the students went and strategically placed themselves at the only entrance into the building. As the well-heeled crowd arrived, they were greeted with protest signs.

What did the kids learn? You have a voice and only you can use it. You don’t have to accept the status quo and can do something about it. You may still lose if you protest, but you lose even more if you don’t.

And here is the most telling lesson. Not one of the attendees bothered to stop and talk to the students. And the governor did not come out and talk to them either.

What a teaching moment that might have been. Alas, the children, the future of our country that all the politicians love to wax on about, were ignored — as in stiffed!

The kids in Melvindale had better luck. For the past 15 years it has been illegal for anyone under the age of 18 to carry an electronic device without a note from mommy and a sales receipt. In other words, all of the high school kids should have been in prison.

A middle school instructor got her class involved with a video PSA on the importance of those devices, they lobbied the local government and, much to their surprise, the ordinance was repealed.

Turns out one student’s mom was on the city council, which provided another valuable lesson about democracy: it’s not what you know but who you know.

They don’t teach that in Algebra II.

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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Bully for Them
It took over 30 legislative years to pass property tax relief and 17 years to lift the cap on charter schools, which should happen soon. So waiting 13 years to adopt an anti-bullying policy seems like an overnight success. But was it?

Sure, the legislature finally passed a law that forces schools to draft an anti-bullying policy within six months, but the critics contend it won’t do much.

“We have failed the children of Michigan,” lamented the Senate Democrat who’s been trying since 2005 to get this job done. Sen. Glenn Anderson (D-Westland) wanted to force schools to report their bullying cases to the state to determine if the law was working. Senate Republicans killed it.

Sen. Anderson tried to install a cyber-bullying provision to cut into the Internet abuse that goes on. Senate Republicans shot that down, fearing it would make the bill unconstitutional.

Ironically, the Senate GOP sponsor said he would have supported the reporting requirement, but he feared inserting that would slow down the process of getting the law on the books.

All this from a GOP-led Senate that left town for a two-week hunting break hours before the House finalized its version of the bill. Off to the woods they went, leaving behind more students to be bullied.

Bully for the senators who obviously have their priorities straight. Even the Senate Democratic leader confided, “It is not perfect,” but a step in the right direction.

So the governor will sign this. Everyone will take a bow as they’ll all boast about trying to protect those kids who are afraid to go to school or open an email for fear the bully is lurking to attack them once more.

Here’s hoping it works.

Columns

Tim Skubick

Measuring the
Recall Fallout

November 24, 2011

The Michigan Education Association got a GOP lawmaker booted out of office earlier this month, but Paul Scott would still have the title Representative in front of his name had the union followed the initial advice of a national and well-respected polling firm.

“The recall is a high bar that voters here are not ready to embrace…hold off on a recall now as the appetite is not there….” That was the poignant recommendation from the guys who helped Bill Clinton put the title President in front of his name — the Greenberg Quilan Rosner polling firm.

The MEA rejected the advice and Mr. Scott is now looking for work. But so what?

First, if you support Gov. Rick Snyder, you should be concerned. This was as much a referendum on his policies as it was on Mr. Scott himself.

The Greenberg firm did suggest that if the recall went forward, the recallers should join the governor and Scott at the hip — and the MEA did. Most of the advertising featured a picture of the governor and the GOP lawmaker, and all of Mr. Snyder’s policies were laid before the angry voters: how he raised the first-ever pension tax on seniors, cut education spending by a billion smackers, and passed a law making it easier for the state to take over local governments.

To his credit, the governor got his hands dirty and spent some of his own political capital to save Mr. Scott. That may have made the election closer — the margin was 200 votes — but it was still a loss for the governor.

Second, the special interest groups supporting Mr. Scott may have overplayed their hand with too much of an effort to save the second-term House member. One voter wrote that the six to seven robo calls she got per day from Scott backers was annoying and forced her to vote even though she did not like recalls to begin with.

In the legislature, the MEA does not gain anything except the possibility that some Republicans who will have a close election next year might think twice before they support what remains on the governor’s agenda. But it could also work the other way and Republicans could try to get even with the MEA by piling on more perceived anti-teacher legislation.

For the governor, what happened on November 8 has little if anything to do with his own re-election in three years. By the time that rolls around, no one will remember the recall, and who knows what the political climate will be then.

One thing for sure, there will be a push in the legislature to revamp the recall laws. The legislature, since 1983, has been held hostage to the notion that if lawmakers do something like raise taxes, they could be ousted from office.

It happened in 1983, and every lawmaker since then has been gun-shy about recalls. But there is a bipartisan movement afoot to change the law.

Currently, if you don’t like the color of a lawmaker’s hair, you could recall him or her for that. Rep. Rick Hammel, the House Democratic leader, does not like the fact that any allegations raised in a recall do not have to be true and no one is forced to prove them.

Consequently, this may be the most constructive result to emerge from the recall of Mr. Scott, who, by the way, will probably run for this same seat again in another year.

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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Gov. to Ignore Lawmakers?
Gov. Rick Snyder has reason to be thankful for lots of stuff. The rag-tag recallers didn’t lay a glove on him. He got a bunch of stuff checked off his Reinvent Michigan checklist, and last week the Supremes said he could legally collect pension money from seniors starting next year.

But one huge item will be missing from his festive table: the Detroit-Windsor bridge, which turned out to be a turkey of an issue. (Sorry, couldn’t resist.)

Try as he could, he could not convince enough members of his own party to win one for the Nerd. He got stiffed in the Senate and the issue never came up in the GOP House, where opposition was just as strong if not stronger.

Alas, one thing we have learned about this new governor is that he does not like to lose, and for every plan A tucked in his vest pocket is a plan B just in case the first one goes in the dumpster.

Stand by for Bridge Plan B: an end-run around the legislature, whereby the governor gets the bridge without a legislative vote.

Who predicts such a move?

Try the GOP speaker of the Michigan House for openers. There is a “very good likelihood he will show us a plan” that leaves lawmakers out of the equation, hints Rep. Jase Bolger.

Never mind that lawmakers get paid to make these tough decisions, and keep in mind that the speaker has shared his thoughts on the end-run. Nonetheless, there is nothing short of court action that can stop the governor from ignoring lawmakers and doing it sans them.

With Mr. Bolger saying it “doesn’t make any sense” for the House to revisit the bridge bill, and with the Senate GOP leader declaring it off the table, the next move is up to Mr. S.

Nobody knows when he will pull this trigger, but if you are a bridge backer, be thankful you have a creative governor who knows how to get what he wants.

Detroit Needs Lansing: Oh-Oh!
The mayor of Detroit needs help from Lansing to keep his city from going in the dumper. That puts Gov. Rick Snyder right where all of his predecessors have been over the last 40 years.

Helping Detroit is not a new legislative theme, but this latest overture seems to have more urgency. Mayor Dave Bing claims his cashflow problem will only get worse…but the problem could be solved if the state coughs up $220 million in back revenue sharing payments.

The immediate response from the governor was no response. That was on purpose, because the chance of that $220 mil going to Detroit is, at this read, highly unlikely — and there was no useful purpose in the governor declaring that in his news release. Everybody knows it.

Anybody who has been in this town for more than five minutes knows that the days of bailing Detroit out are long gone. Years ago, Gov. Milliken forged a deal with Mayor Coleman Young. The Detroit Equity Package funneled state dollars into a variety of city services that were shared by folks all around the state.

After Mr. Milliken left office, Republicans systematically dismantled the program. Now, Republicans control both the House and Senate, and if the vote on that $220 million were held today, it would go down in flames.

Lawmakers are likely to tell the mayor, if he bothers to show up around here with his hand out, that the city must do some self-help before it has even a hope of state help. The governor did not want to say that either.

The ace the mayor has is this: if the state stiffs the city and the city goes under, Mr. Bing can blame the governor and Lansing.

And you can bet the fingers up here will be pointing at the mayor for failing to do his job.

Nobody wants Detroit in the tank. The question is, who will step up to make sure that does not happen?