Game Face for State of the State

by Tim Skubick
January 29, 2010

It would be a hoot if the governor began her final State of the State message thusly:

Good evening. Mr. Speaker, Mr. Majority Leader, members of the House and Senate. I am not going to introduce any common citizens in the audience tonight. It’s a burned-out gimmick. And speaking of burned out, aren’t we all? Frankly, the state of our state tonight is rotten. There is nothing we can do about it, so let’s go get a beer and watch the Wings lose another one. Good night and God bless you.

Alas, it is not like Jennifer Mulhern Granholm to toss in the towel on anything.

During her last seven messages, the governor has always tiptoed around the obvious. In her first speech in 2003, she noted: “I submit to you that while the state of our budget is weak, the state of our Michigan spirit is strong.”

Ever try to make a House payment with “spirit?”

At least by the time she rolled around to her next-to-last SOS, a harsh reality took hold: “I will not sugarcoat the severity of the crisis we face. This past year has been brutal…things are likely to get worse before they get better.”

But in vintage Granholm fashion she added, “Things will get better.” Just not on my watch, she should have added.

There is no question that when this governor first took the oath of office on that bitterly cold New Year’s day in 2003, she had no idea the bitterly cold economy would haunt her during her entire eight-year run.

Had she known that, would she have run for governor in the first place? Any normal soul would have said, “Heck no.”

She says, “Yes, because we made a difference. Things would have been worse (vis-à-vis budget cuts) had I not been governor.”

This was not the legacy she wanted.

So we come to the last speech and here’s what she’s fighting: (1) Not enough federal stimulus money to avoid more massive service cuts; (2) No consensus with her arch nemesis, GOP leader Mike Bishop, on new revenue; (3) The relationship between House Speaker Andy Dillon and Bishop is in minus numbers; (4) Getting elected is job one for most everyone in town; and (5) She’s a lame duck with little leverage to get anything out of anybody.

Yet with that stark reality, she will walk down that center aisle of the House with her game face on, a resolve not to give in, and hope against hope that somehow she can make a difference.

She can, but she needs the bipartisan cooperation she has preached about over the last seven years. To be sure, it has been there — but it has not been the norm. Partisan bickering has dominated the headlines. And the Rs and Ds tend to frame every issue first in terms of the next election rather than how it impacts the citizens of this state. In a word, it is bass-ackwards, and everyone knows it. But still nothing is done about it.

Citizens are at fault, too. Last year this governor launched a mighty, yet belated, campaign to mobilize the citizens to pressure Republicans to cough up new revenue to save a variety of critical state programs. The overall public response was a collective yawn.

The governor has one last shot to wake everyone up with her speech. If she fails to get things done this year, her legacy will look even shabbier than it does now.

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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Repealing Prop “A” Appealing
The 44 members of the freshman class in the Michigan House finally got an assignment from the Speaker of the House they can get their teeth into, and some fear they may be biting off more than they can chew.

Speaker Andy Dillon wants a report on how we should fund our schools. One of the items on the table, but not endorsed yet, is the total repeal of Proposal A.

Prop A, you’ll remember, moved school financing from the property tax to the sales tax. Gov. Jennifer Granholm came into office suggesting the proposal needed some tweaking. She lost her tweakers and never did it. Now the freshmen may pick up where the governor left off.

Rep. Lesia Liss (D-Warren) startled everyone in the joint the other night at an education town hall meeting in which 800 parents showed up.

“We are looking at repealing Proposal A,” she blurted out during the Q and A. And she was uplifted when the audience applauded the suggestion.

Let’s just say that back home on the ranch in this town, the applause was not so spontaneous.

Charlie Owen, who works for independent business owners, is well aware that his clients may get hit with a new tax to fund the schools if Prop A goes bye-bye. Paint him worried.

Rep. Tim Melton (D-Pontiac) says the idea “makes me a little nervous.” He wonders how his constituents will respond to overturning what the voters mandated in 1994, and the cost of same. Paint him reluctant.

Liss reports there’s a 50-50 chance this idea will move, and she is hopeful, if it does, that the Rs will join the Ds to pass a new sales tax on services to raise the dough for schools. Liss says she is “pretty sure” there will be bipartisan support. Paint her encouraged.

And come to find out, she may be right. Rep. Bill Rogers (R-Brighton), who co-chairs the freshman caucus with Liss, is open to the sales tax if government reforms come first.

Hold onto your hats, because this one could be a dandy of a debate if they attempt to undo what former Gov. John Engler did with Prop A. Nobody has had the guts to do that before. Paint him vexed.

Independent Schwarz
There’s no way to prove this, but if moderate Republican John Schwarz had run against Democrat Jennifer Granholm in 2002, she might not be finishing two terms in office this year.

The former Battle Creek state senator and ex-congressman was moderate in his dealings with both political parties, he had experience that was well beyond that of then-Attorney General Granholm and, if given the chance, the voters might have gotten beyond her charisma to see a guy who had the right resume to be governor — with no need for on-the-job training that she obviously required.

But Dick Posthumus won the GOP nomination, and now Schwarz is left to flirt once more with running for governor, but as an independent candidate.

He’s been there before, lots of times.

“The climate for an independent is about as good as it’s ever going to be,” he correctly surmises, as voter anger and dissatisfaction with Republicans and Democrats is off the charts.

That’s why Schwarz reveals, “I think about it every other day. Persons have asked me to consider it, and we talk about it, yes.”

“Money is the question,” he again correctly deduces.

Ross Perot had money, ran as an independent for president, got 19 percent of the vote and helped elect Bill Clinton president the first time.

Former wrestler Jessie Ventura got himself elected governor in Minnesota, and he was as independent as you can get.

In other words, it can happen. But Schwarz needs guys like Phil Power, who talks a good game about changing the culture in Lansing, to open his checkbook to launch such a bid.

Time is running out. Schwarz is not getting any younger, but his ideals and approach to government are not outdated and could have appeal to an electorate that wants a government that works for them and not the two political parties.

But Schwarz is still a realist and says there’s only about a 50-50 chance his flirtation with an independent candidacy will turn into something more than just that.