Holiday Letter from Legislators

by Tim Skubick
December 26, 2009

Okay, be honest. Everyone who enjoys receiving those gawdawful holiday letters in your holiday cards, raise your hands.

You know, the ones that begin, “As we look back at 2009, we can’t believe how many wonderful things have happened to us,” and then chronicle, ad nauseam, the litany of hip replacement operations, vacations, births, new cars and other irrelevant events you could care less about.

Fortunately, the Michigan Legislature doesn’t write one.

But if it did, it might go like this:

Greetings, taxpayers and fellow citizens:

As we look back at 2009, fond memories pour out as we complete another year of doing your business here in Lansing.

On the birth front, we welcomed 44 new members into our midst. Ah, what a lovely bunch of new House members who brought all sorts of new ideas for changing the culture in Lansing. We’re pleased to report they changed nothing, which is just the way we like it. God bless them, however, for trying.

On the cooperation front…well, let’s just skip that since we don’t want to say anything nasty about Speaker Andy Dillon, Senate GOP Leader Mike Bishop and What’s Her Name in the front office.

Then again, why not?

Mr. Dillon and Mr. Bishop made all of us happy by making a deal to balance the state budget without raising taxes. Never mind that your children may be forced to walk to school or take warm blankets to stay warm when schools can’t pay their heating bills. The Dillon-Bishop axis said they would do it, and $1.2 billion in state service cuts later, by golly they did.

Let’s here it for downsizing state government.

This last spring, all of us here were overjoyed to welcome some new residents to town. The Tea Party folks were so down to earth — sure some of their protest signs were misspelled (i.e. Don’t Tacks the Middle Class), but surely their hearts were in the right place as they blamed government for everything from providing essential services to bad-mouthing the Hockey Mom from Alaska.

The governor was a joy to work with…when we saw her. We thought for a time we might lose her, but alas, the president didn’t want her in Washington, either. Poor Lt. Gov. John Cherry. He was so hoping she might take a powder.

We actually passed some legislation, although it took us since 1987 to do it. No smoking in public places sorta seemed like the right thing to do, but we took 22 years to thoroughly research it before we did it. You just can’t rush into this stuff, and we’re sure the 66,000 citizens who died from second-hand smoke in the interim would understand that…if they were still alive.

So all in all, it was a good year. Only about 30 of us took a voluntary pay cut, which meant the other 118 House and Senate members had more money to pour back into our economy, which kept our record-setting unemployment rate from going even higher. Rejoice in that.
2010 promises to be even more fun, as it’s an election year and all of us who are not term-limited out of office want to reassure you that we will devote all our time, energy and money into our top objective of the new year: getting re-elected.

Warm Regards,

The Michigan Legislature

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)

Cherry Filter
Everybody said there was no way for John Engler to beat Gov. Jim Blanchard. Engler did.

Everybody said Dick Posthumus could never defeat Jennifer Granholm for governor. He lost by only four points after closing her double-digit lead. “One more week and more money, I would have won,” Posthumus reflects.

Everybody says John Cherry can’t win the governor’s seat next November. You would expect the GOP to say that, but there are plenty of Ds whispering that as well.

Cherryites must be clinging to the Engler come-from-behind win and the Posthumus almost win to get them through these tough times.

It seems that everything the Democratic frontrunner does is filtered through the “he can’t win” prism. So when he rearranged some members of his campaign staff the other day, pow! went the stories that Cherry was in trouble and the “shake-up” of his inner circle was exhibit A.

“It was not a shake-up,” Gov. Jennifer Granholm said, trying to put a finger in the he-can’t-win dyke. This was “movement” that was natural to a campaign.

A sanguine Mr. Cherry described the changes on his campaign roster as the normal ebb and flow of moving from an exploratory bid to an actual bid for governor.

“If this was being done next June, it would be a worry,” reflected Cherry stalwart Mark Gaffney, who runs the biggest labor union in the state. But it was in the dead of December, so not to worry.

It’s clear that Cherry’s campaign manager was asked to leave, even though his handlers downplayed it, noting that two of the GOP candidates for governor have shifted leadership as well.

And while this story may be a blip and quickly forgotten, it only served to feed the popular wisdom that Cherry has an uphill climb.

Maybe he should get a pep talk from Engler and Posthumus.

Naw, that won’t work. They’re Republicans.

Gov’s Grassroots
It is tough anytime of the year to grow grassroots, but especially so in the dead of winter. Ask the state’s chief gardener and chief executive Jennifer Granholm.

She tried. She really did. She got some school parents and administrators to flood the legislative halls. She visited every district that would let her in and tried to plant the seeds of local involvement. But when the final score was counted, it was gov’s grassroots nada.

Lawmakers made an 11th hour attempt to find more money for schools, but the effort failed as lawmakers went home for the holidays, leaving the school community to ponder how it will handle a $165 cut per pupil — and maybe even more in the new year.

Her problem was two-fold. Senate Republicans led by Sen. Mike Bishop would not budge from their pledge to write a budget without new revenue. And there was no blood in the streets due to the cuts.

The “blood” is just now beginning to flow, as one school district after another announces teacher and staff layoffs, the end of transportation, a cutback in athletics and the inevitable cuts in band and the arts.

Some schools will muddle through by dipping into their savings accounts, but that well will eventually go dry. Others will try their best to keep the cuts out of the classroom, but they’ve been doing that for years and that option becomes less likely as the cuts multiply with no end in sight.

Forty or so districts are now operating in the red, and that number will surely climb as some ask, “Where will this end…or will it?”

A frustrated governor was able to place on hold another $127 cut until at least January, but the way things are going, a big chunk of that will likely be taken away from the schools as well.

As for new revenue to restore some of the cuts? In the governor’s mind, hope springs eternal — but there are no signs of spring around here.

Explorer Virg
You’ve heard of exploratory surgery and exploratory expeditions, but what are exploratory committees all about?

In politics they are the vehicles to determine if a potential candidate can translate his passion and desire for this or that office into a bona fide effort that has some chance of being successful at nailing down this or that office.

Enter the Virg Bernero Exploratory Committee for Governor.

The recently re-elected mayor of Lansing has not even been sworn in for a second term and he has already set up a committee exploring a possible bid for the Democratic nomination for governor.

Talk about your high achiever.

This, however, will be a short-lived committee. It is being slapped together with one goal in mind: translate all Bernero’s nervous energy into convincing would-be supporters to do more than just talk about him for governor.

In other words, it is put up or shut up time for Mr. B.

It’s an easy test to score. It is one thing for supporters to whisper in your ear, “You should run for governor” as they slap him on the back. It is quite another for them to open their wallets and grease his palms with some lean green.

If at the end of next month there is no lean green, Bernero can bury this boomlet and contemplate what might have been.

However, if he magically taps into the anger of the electorate and cultivates the feeling he can actually win this thing, then he’s got something to build on.

Obviously, Bernero believes he can pull it off or he would not try.

That’s one and counting.