Not-So-Special Interests

by Tim Skubick
December 18, 2009

Special interest politics in this town ain’t what it used to be. Years ago the Michigan Manufacturers Association ran the joint. Years go when the UAW tossed its weight around, stuff got done.

Nowadays, special interests are more likely to be stymied.

Item: The Michigan Chamber of Commerce calls for more revenue for the highway infrastructure. It gets nothing.

Item: The speaker of the House drafts a far-reaching health care plan affecting every union worker in the state, and organized labor has to beg to get into the room after the plan is hatched without union input.

Item: The Michigan Education Association, after years of successfully killing legislative efforts to “reform” its insurance arm, finally gets tossed under the bus by Democrats who cuddle up to conservative Republicans to do it.

Item: A massive protest years ago by local government resulted in the restoration of revenue sharing grants. Those same grants have been cut to smithereens ever since.

To be fair, these groups may eventually get part of what they want. But the point is, none of this stuff is automatic anymore. The culture in Lansing no longer allows the special interests to shout “jump” and lawmakers to respond “how high?”

Que pasa?

For one thing, party discipline and loyalty have changed. Lawmakers are still beholden to the special interests that provide the largesse for them to run for office, but once in office the quid pro quo sometimes breaks down.

For another thing, legislative leaders, especially in the House it seems, no longer have the authority to impose their will on their caucuses without encountering some pushback from this faction or that.

Term limits explain part of this cultural shift. When a House speaker or an outside group had a long-term relationship with a legislator, it might be tough to get his or her vote, but in the end, if the speaker or group really needed the vote, it would be there.

Speaker Andy Dillon recently needed votes on the doctor’s tax and he eventually got them. But when the dust settled it was the speaker who lost his credibility. He forced many of his members to walk the plank on a tax increase that died in the state Senate. Now those House members have a tax-hike vote on their record that opponents will use against them next year.

While the special interests are not as powerful as they were, that’s a good thing. Total control by one group or another is not healthy for the democracy. No single group should always get its way. Lawmakers should be free at all times to vote their conscience.

But here’s one thing that is unhealthy. Compromise has become a four-letter word in this town. Actually, it is the very essence of our democracy, and special interest groups and lawmakers ought to embrace a little give and take.

More often than not, adhering to the political party agenda trumps doing what is best for those folks who sent lawmakers to Lansing in the first place.

The best recent example: the governor requesting a Senate GOP compromise on school funding. The Senate would not budge. Politically, the GOP gets high marks. Policy-wise it is quite another story.

Without give and take you get stalemate, gridlock and partisan politics to the worst degree. In the end, the real losers are all of us.

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.

Tim Skubick Extra Extra… (A weekly bonus only for Dome readers)

And in this Corner…
If the Granholm inner circle had an “enemies list,” a la the Nixon White House years ago, one name would most certainly be near the top: Rep. Rick Jones, a former gunslinger/sheriff turned GOP lawmaker from Charlotte. Jones continues to shoot from the lip, and the Granholm crowd is not amused every time it gets winged.

Jones has made a career out of lambasting the new State Police headquarters in downtown Lansing, but now he is on the prowl to eliminate what’s left of the First Gentleman’s office.

It’s an office that started out with three employees, but to save money it is down to one. Jones wants to make it none — and he said so in a widely circulated press release the other day. It immediately captured the imagination of the media, in that it was a simple-minded idea that even non-political reporters could comprehend.

No one bothered to ask what impact shuttering the office would have on the state’s ballooning $1.8-billion deficit. Apparently that was irrelevant in the Jones vs. Dan Mulhern saga, which Mulhern made even worse by acknowledging the attack.

During a contentious exchange on the Frank Beckmann broadcast on WJR radio last week, Jones and Mulhern went back and forth. An exasperated First Gentleman sounded more like First Prosecutor as he challenged Jones, “Don’t you start lying. I never made a penny from the state, and unless you want to see me in court, you watch what you are saying.”

Jones loved it.

Not only did Jones, the consummate publicity seeker, get a pop from his original press release, but now Mulhern was helping Jones get another one.

Mulhern is a good guy, is dedicated to turning the state around and has his heart in the right place. But he should remove the number 760 from his radio dial or at least stuff something in his ears when the conservative radio bunch go after him. He can never change any of those listeners’ minds, and by taking the bait he merely reinforces the anti-Granholm attitude that exists in right-wing radio land.

Absolute Power ReDo
In this age of term limits, lawmakers have a rotten record on long-term planning.

So a pat on the head is warranted regarding some forward thinking now unfolding in the Michigan Senate.

A tip of the hat to Senators Kahn, Pappageorge, Richardville and Jansen. When the dust clears next year, they will be the only four GOP senators standing after term limits wipe out the rest of the Republican Senate contingency. Thirty senators, including Democrats, and their expertise will be out the door. Incredible.

The gang of four some six months ago decided to talk about how the Senate should be run, especially in terms of leadership and the power now held by the majority leader.

While the talks are still a “work in progress,” they are considering removing some of that absolute authority and “spreading it around” to another senator or senators.

The Senate leader has unprecedented power to select committee chairs, committee members, which senators get how many staffers, who gets what to spend, how many can go on junkets…and that’s just the tip of the power iceberg.

The current concentration of authority in one person brings to mind the old adage “power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

The current thinking of this long-range planning group is that maybe money and budget issues would be handled by one lawmaker and the policy issues by another.

In addition, a source indicates the group wants to avoid another political bloodbath like the one that occurred the last time the GOP selected a new leader.

Oakland County Senator Mike Bishop emerged the victor, but the battle scars still fester three years after the fact.

Part of the reason for a deeper look at this power arrangement is the performance and problems of Mr. Bishop, whose tenure has caused consternation inside and outside of the GOP caucus from time to time. Each leader over the years has suffered with that.

Whatever the outcome, congrats to all four senators for having the good sense to at least have this long-term discussion.