Is that all there is?

I suppose we can put this in the “Laugh or Cry?” box, but earlier this month Rep. Tom Hooker (R-Byron Center) announced his priorities for the upcoming legislative session. Ban Planned Parenthood.

“One of the things that I was very focused on was our taxpayers paying for Planned Parenthood clinics around the state of Michigan. I believe that my constituents are not happy that their tax dollars are going for that organization. At least, the majority of my constituents aren’t. I’m a pro-life social conservative. I don’t believe we’re going to have success as a state financially until we get our social issues in line. Obviously, if we’re killing babies we’re not going to be blessed as a state fiscally.”

We can admire a man of principles, but this does come up short, given  a state that needs to rebuild its roads, or a state government planning substantial reform of its schools.

On one level, this set of priorities suggests a confusion of campaigning and governing. Thus, issues that motivate voting come to the top of legislative issues. Practically, what Rep. Hooker has done is  to declare himself a reliable vote for the Republican majority. Now while that will please the people of his district, the decision nonetheless robs the people of Byron Center of input. By putting passion before politics, he has opened a gap between the people of his district and Lansing.

While everyone wants a team player, we also want a player who will participate, help shape the policies and legislation of the state. The people even of an archly conservative district deserve a legislator who puts Michigan first.

And here our representative is a sign of the current move of anti-politics. Rather than being concerned with the common good, politics is reduced to a matter of personal conviction. It’s theatre. The point of politics is not to go and vote one’s convictions, but to go and with others plot a better path for the State. The preference for moral stances, good as they may be, is a sort of anti-politics, even the denial of the political solution itself.

 

Filed under: Michigan, Republican Folly, Byron Center, Planned Parenthood, Tom Hooker

Showdown in the Motor CIty

While I’m here doing schoolwork and chores, Democrats from across the state are meeting (and voting at this hour)  to elect a chair. And by all accounts, the battle should be a doozy. Certainly the campaign has been intense with both incumbent Mark Brewer and challenger Lon Johnson sending out numerous pleas, as well as motivating their forces. This has already been covered on numerous blogs and posts, perhaps most consistently at Michigan Liberal.

While the battle has been fierce, the issue is finally less about the individuals than the shape of the Party. The painful truth of 2012 is the political weakness, first with the  defeat of Prop 2 and then the lame duck enacting of RTW and other questionable legislation.  The tools to challenge or impede this were noticeably missing. Add to it the  resignation of Supreme Court Justice Diane Hathaway (and her subsequent conviction), and we have a Party that for all its national strength has not found the a way to translate that into state-wide leadership.

The failure is strategic. it does not rest on the shoulders of a single individual, nor can one blame the UAW, that favorite whipping boy of so many. The problems are more structural in nature, something that Johnson caught sight of in his interview on Eclectablog:

This is a very different state structure-wise than any other state that I’ve worked in and I’ve worked in a lot of ‘em.

In what way? What do you mean by that? How is it different?
Institutions play a larger role, without a doubt.

You’re talking unions, in general?
I’m talking unions. I’m talking other groups. We have a respect for institutions. I think our party does and our party activists, not only do they play a larger role, but we see the value in institutions because there is a great value in them. We are a better party because of it.

What has certainly happened is that the balancing and politics of various institutional forms has handicapped the ability of the Dems to field strong state-wide candidates. Without strong leadership on top, it makes the electoral challenge of turning out low-information voters. And this is the strategic question at its core: how do Dems as a whole combine to think in terms of winning the off-year.

On this strategic question, neither the incumbent nor the challenger have suggested any real solutions.

From the Brewer camp has come an emphasis on redistricting as the culprit. Redesigned seats could give one or more congressional seats and perhaps a majority in the State House, but this would do nothing about the core failing in terms of winning state-wide, or of better mobilizing generally in off-years.

For Johnson, the focus has been on the adoption of campaign techniques from OFA, and in particular on the focus on expanding the base to the young, minority, women and low-income. In one sense this is the future, particularly the social media aspects of the outreach. Nonetheless, if the institutional silos remain, the problem of actually mounting winning statewide offices will still be significant.

No matter who wins in this hour, one fact will be true: Michigan Democrats cannot go on as they have.

Update

When it came time, Mark Brewer withdrew his name, leaving only Lon Johnson. The strategic questions remain.

 

Filed under: Democratic Party, Lon Johnson, Mark Brewer, OFA, Redistricting, Right to work, UAW

Pure Folly

On one level, you couldn’t really blame them. It seemed like such a natural: a chance to do the victory lap and reinforce the Michigan brand.

So they put it up for all to see, there in the Wall Street Journal: Pure Michigan, now RTW.

And really, who can blame them? The Pure Michigan campaign has created a solid brand for the State. Why not use it, then, to piggyback an emotional punch to the political? As brand experts have been pulling out their hair in protest, such a move lacks strategic and economic sense. It is sloppy and it puts Michigan’s second industry, tourism, at risk.

On one hand the cost of the ad, the brag of  $144,000 is more a vanity than a pitch and so unlikely to generate much business. Certainly the numbers look that way. By its own accounting, the Pure Michigan has generated a billion in new business. In contrast, what does the direct RTW pitch get its backers?  Perhaps not a lot, if we look at Indiana, certainly not anything on the order of the billion dollar revenue. To the extent that such a stunt jeopardizes the larger, successful campaign, it can hardly be called wise.

But are things really in that sort of danger?

In making Right to Work a business calling card it brands the state as surely as the tourism campaign. As with all partisanship, this political edginess gets in the way of the State’s competition for tourist dollars. It’s a conundrum, the more successful the State is in establishing this partisan identity  the more it risks alienating a portion of the market. Some will find the right wing turn sufficiently distasteful and so spend those dollars elsewhere. This degrading represents a real business risk.

Now this risk will ease over time, but not entirely. Had MEDC kept the campaign separate, it could negotiate the partisan blowback with continuing with tourism advertising. After all it works with the white sands of Alabama and Texas. And here is  the real problem with the RTW/Pure Michigan play: it creates a disincentive with the audience while at the same time robbing the tourism bureau of one of its tools.

Finally, if RTW is the game-changer they claim, that it changes the “product” so to speak, then it would be far better to craft a distinctive advertising message of its own. Here the ad reveals the ambiguity Lansing. Is this really a game changer, per the advocates? Or something like business as usual? How big is the rift? That Lansing and MEDC would turn to the Pure Michigan theme suggests a viewpoint that believes this will not be a move of continuity rather than disruption. It is a view of hope and unwarranted optimism.

Filed under: Economy, Michigan, MEDC, Michigan, Pure Michigan, Right to work, tourism, Union

Opportunity Knocked

In one sense, it was the least surprising news of the day.

Speaker of the House, Rep. John Boehner removed West Michigan’s own Justin Amash from membership on the House Budget committee. The move represents a lost opportunity to both Amash and the West Michigan community.

The business of crafting budgets is a function of power. Amash had the opportunity to serve on perhaps the singularly most important committee in the House. His initial position was a testimony to his promise, but it was a promise that does come at a cost, the surrender of ideals for the messier work of governance. A deal must be done, and really, there’s no sense in giving a dissenter, even an up-and-coming member the megaphone. Especially if the same person is being trumpeted as the true heir of the libertarian wing of the GOP.

And while Amash’s idealism served an important role in his first term, rallying young Republicans and serving as a foil to the President, that day is over. His is the prophet’s reward: the wilderness.

Unfortunately in this journey to the wilderness, he takes the region with him. The gift of the seat on the Budget committee was a gift to W Michigan and its civic leadership; the idealistic stances of Amash that prevented him from taking up the work of governance may have kept him pure, but the deprived this community of opportunity. And that’s to every one’s loss.

 

Filed under: National, Justin Amash

Whitmer was right

Sunday’s editorial in The Press began well enough, unpacking the proposed structural changes to the States public schools. Even from the cursory comments, it is clear these will be substantive. Then in something of a Parthian shot, the editorial turned to the Democratic response, noting

Democrats already are attacking the plan, with Senate Minority Leader Gretchen Whitmer, D-East Lansing, calling it a “voucher plan that would end public schools as we know them.”

But for too many Michigan students, the public schools they know are failing them.

The difficulty is that the last and righteous statement, that we are failing our students now, does not negate Whitmer’s substantive point.

If this reform is about traditional public school districts, how they are funded, which students they should accept, then how is Sen Whitmer wrong saying that it “will end public schools as we know them?”  Substantively, her concern is correct: the Governor is looking at a plan that will in fact alter the public schools substantially. With the opt-out provisions, it becomes a program of a two tier system. Forest Hills and Rockford get one kind of (traditional) plan, Kentwood and Northview something quite different.

As the recent discussions around the closing of Creston revealed, the schools can not simply be disaggregated into a collection of individuals or families (the anytime anyplace fallacy), but also function as important pieces of our social and economic fabric, linchpins for neighborhoods and communities.

The consideration of this social dimension will be one if not the central battleground on this so-called school reform proposal. The underlying question is to whom do the schools belong: are they merely to be considered as a instrument of the State, a deliverer of (social) services? or as expressions of particular communities and so accountable to those communities? This is the heart of the conflict.

Filed under: Education Policy, Creston High School, Dave Murray, Education, Gretchen Whitmer, School Reform

Code Breaking?

It sounds so innocent. Even noble. In today’s editorial from the  Grand Rapids Press, Dave Murray writes

(Governor Rick Snyder) also believes that the quality of a child’s education shouldn’t be determined by his or her ZIP code.

Embracing an “any time, any place, any way and any pace” philosophy, the plan removes district “ownership” of a student, allowing them to take a course, some courses or all their courses from any districts. That includes the growing use of online courses.

With a bill of 300 pages there are bound to be some issues as well a host of potentially unintended consequences, with none bigger, perhaps than the illusion that this is somehow going to crack the zip code.

Still, one does not dismiss the matter of online education. The emergence of MOOCs suggests the way that higher education and likely secondary education will be substantially transformed. But if this is the way, then the questions of accountability and outcomes necessarily follow.

But that’s only a start. Just as critical would be the deal breakers.

Deal breaker 1. Zip Code.  Schools can opt out of the program. In fact with this option, zip code would still determine who gets what kind of education. A set of elite suburban districts would keep their programs while everyone else is in the other pool. Non-participation and presumably continued funding allows such districts to effectively to go their separate way. Zip code becomes destiny. And an unhappy one at that.

Deal breaker 2. Funding. If education follows the student, this puts an emphasis on equal funding. Leave aside whether such a measure violates Prop A, in the context of the present Legislature, equal funding almost certainly means less funding.

Deal breaker 3. Local Control. If funding flows with the student, local communities surrender most effective control of their school, how then do they escape being creatures of Lansing rather than of  local voters? Where local voters and communities lose the ability to meaningfully supervise their schools, local democracy of the right and left loses out.

Deal breaker 4. (Non) Transparency. Lastly,  the proposed expansion of educational services, raises the question of what reporting mechanisms are to be installed. This is both a matter of fiscal control, but also of educational priorities, too. Without transparency we end up with self-dealing. Or the too-easy settling for low expectations. Both would set our State back.

The deep irony of this bill (at least for conservatives) is how it would impose the very sort of educational structures they so often rail against: control from Lansing, funding from Lansing, and the local community shut out. Before they get too giddy with their electoral powerWould lack of transparency be a deal breaker?

Finally, the question that should be asked is how these efforts will produce the educated workforce Michigan needs in the next decade. The Press’s proper role is to ask such questions in order to clarify the legislation and to lay the proper foundation for reform and vibrant local schools.

Filed under: Horace Mann, Michigan, Dave Murray, Education, MOOC, Rick Snyder

What’s that in Bing’s eye?

Bing Goei’s announcement the other day that he would have a write in campaign for the 76th state house seat, the one fouled by Roy Schmidt, is certainly a move that challenges wisdom.

Perhaps his business is doing really, really well and he has money to cast around. Perhaps it really is a matter of pique.Or perhaps he has something else in mind.

Formally, it is hard to see how the race makes any electoral sense. With a strong Dem already on the field, there is little room to go and pick up the disaffected centrists. To do so, Goei would have to campaign against Brinks, and to date, there is little of that on the field. On the right of Schmidt (and Goei) is Keith Allard, who has been running a verbally aggressive campaign, staking out claims for right to life, fiscal conservatism, and actively drawing contrasts with both Schmidt and Brinks.

But if Goei cannot pick up the center and the right wing is covered, what’s left? Even assuming a total Schmidt collapse, there are not enough votes out there to make it work, all the more with the state and region sliding to the D side at the national level.

The motivation, apparently is the same as that of Schmidt (originally): the mayor’s office. And here, Goei’s campaign is anything but quixotic. The independent write-in campaign symbolically detaches him from the GOP (even if we all know where he stands), and gives him the the independent creds necessary for a non-partisan race.  Plus – provided that I’ve read the  law right –  money raised for the statehouse run can be transferred to another political campaign.

So for now, Goei rebuilds networks, gains visibility, raises money — all tools that can really help in a run for the Mayor’s office. His may not be on Lansing at all, but on Ottawa Avenue.

Filed under: Elections, Uncategorized, Bing Goei, Grand Rapids, MI-76, Roy Schmidt

The dog that didn’t bark

A short note about last week’s Policy Forum: unlike four years ago, Right to Work was not on the table.

Perhaps we will put it down to the shift of the economy. In a seemingly prosperous time, RtW seemed like a natural; in these grimmer times, less so. But also, we may think of it as another indication of a walking back from GOP extremism. Granted, this is not something to hold one’s breath over, but that other items should take priority suggests that attendees were in fact thinking strategically.

After all, were there one measure to block the growth of W Michigan it would be that of RtW.

Still local businessmen have had a hankering for it, like some long-lost high school love. But examined closely, and the difficulties arise; this is no beauty. In fact, it is a recipe for more of the same, as Peter Secchia notes,

“A lot of companies don’t come here because they perceive Michigan as a rustbelt of union activity and that isn’t the case anymore,”

What he sees is a W Michigan that continues with the same old manufacturing base. More of the same, only better. But it is difficult to see how the future belongs to the older economy.While manufacturing will continue to play a major role in the economy, the real growth will lie elsewhere, that’s why the Chamber’s Jared Rodriguez rightly cited the need for talent retention.

Two items are at stake for West Michigan’s future. Will the region be prepared to participate in a new and transformed economy — this is where talent retention and education play such a critical role. And second, what will be the brand, the image the region brings to the world. A community that steadfastly clings to the old ways is far less likely to be seen on the cutting edge. And that’s the real danger of RtW — it’s not its impact on business recruitment, or even in its ability to hold down wages (dubious as that is) — it is simply that declares fealty to an older way of business (the Way We’ve Always Done It, actually in W Michigan).

A successful push for RtW would certainly make the region “safer” for current small businesses, but it would also leave them out of the competition for the real economic growth of the 21st Century.

So for once, they chose well. Our region’s growth depends on the motivation and participation of all its stakeholders; cooperation  is far better than that of needless wrangling. Far better.

 

 

Filed under: Economy, Jared Rodriquez, Peter Secchia, Right to work, West Michigan Regional Policy Conference

The price of the Switch

That seems to be the sense of the Schmidt text messages released this past week. Two items stand out as worthy of comment:

First there was the Lisa Posthumus Lyons urging Roy to get extra protection on the day of his switch. A touching, no doubt heart-felt comment, looking out for his safety. But tucked into that was a set of assumptions, not least was that people would be that upset at Roy. And why should that  be, but for the manner not the fact of his switch. Lyons and the party establishment were fundamentally on the side of gamesmanship of the switch — the same gamesmanship that drove Bing Goei crazy (and why, one should note, a Goei write-in is not likely to get much support from the GOP establishment). Were Lyons a better friend, she would have told Roy to switch earlier, not later.

A second pillow secret that comes up is that of the motive: Roy’s desire to run against Mayor Heartwell. The underlying strategy seems to be that by switching, Schmidt ingratiates himself to the monied powers in Ada, Cascade and Caledonia. Thus we end up with the sad spectacle of a man who had built a long-standing relationship with the unions in the City, particularly or fire and police, now seeking support from those interests who are actually aligned against those same unions. The fundamental position that Schmidt had relative to the Mayor was to stand up for the police and fire against proposed cutbacks from City Hall. Instead, by making the implicit play to the anti-union crowd, he basically took the side of City Hall, invalidating his basic working stiff creds.

Hardly the stuff for success.

In terms of city politics, the switch makes even less sense for the mayor’s race. The nature of the east-west split in the City is that politics of the SE side, shaped by Dutch Calvinism, wants to focus on principles. It’s not accident that all the challengers to Schmidt (Brinks, Goei, Allard) come from these neighborhoods.

 

Filed under: Republican Folly, Bing Goei, George Heartwell, Keith Allard, Lisa Posthumus Lyons, Roy Schmidt, Winnie Brinks

Goei, Goei, gone?

An interesting phone survey landed yesterday, asking about the 76th: Democrat-turned-Republican? Winnie? Allard? Write in for Bing Goei?

Bing Goei? From comments at MLive, it sounds as if he has made noises about running as a write-in alternative.While no news announcement has been made, the phone poll certainly suggests that some one is considering his (re)entry as possible and perhaps even probable. Did Bing get enough votes to jump in? Time will tell.

But then again, time’s fleeting. The window to enter, to run a real write-in campaign is rather narrow. The longer Goei postpones his decision, the harder it will be to gain any traction other than that of the base. And conservative as the 76th is drawn, the base is not big enough to win.

Still one can understand the temptation, what with the prospect of charges against our Democrat-turned-Republican (and now friend of the Hiring Class), there does seem to be some room over on the conservative side for a write-in. Or there would be were it not for Keith Allard. Allard has shown that he has a fair amount of political guts, first showing up as an “appointee of Governor Granholm” in the initial WZZM story, and even into the primary not citing any of his pro-life creds, even if one might infer it from his graduation from Catholic Central. In the last weeks, his stand has turned progressively to the right, running Facebook ads that proclaim him as a fiscal conservative and pro-life.

So, for the record, Bing has a job cut out for him. Allard seizes the right leaving Bing with the establishment GOP. Split vote. As infuriating as the election rigging shenanigans are, there does not seem to be any room for a moderate Republican.

Filed under: Elections, Bing Goei, Keith Allard, MI-76, Roy Schmidt