Jack Lessenberry Essays and Interviews

Essay: Power Source - 5/16/2008

Here’s what the majority Democrats had to say when they passed this energy bill package last month.

“The Michigan House of Representatives today passed a comprehensive, long-term energy plan that will create thousands of jobs now for Michigan workers, keep electricity affordable for consumers and businesses, and ensure that our state has the safe, reliable power supply necessary to achieve major economic growth.”

Welcome to the wonderful world of doublespeak, Funny, but the House Democrats seem to have failed to mention that they also agreed to change the rate structure so that residential customers will pay a whole lot more and businesses a whole lot less.

True, this bill does set targets for renewable energy. But when I read the bills, I was unable to figure out just what penalty the utilities will have to pay if they don’t meet the renewable energy targets.

When I talked to the governor’s special energy advisor about this, I got a lot of doubletalk. And I came away utterly convinced that if any penalties are assessed, the utilities will cheerfully be able to pass them on to the consumers. They will also be allowed to propose rate increases that will automatically take effect if the state public service commission doesn’t stop them within a certain time period.

However, it gets worse.

These bills are now before the state senate, which, unlike the House, is still controlled by the Republicans. I have a hunch that they will fight to make any renewable energy targets strictly voluntary.

And you just know how fast these big utilities will move to spend money to make any change that they don’t have to make. Especially now that these bills also newly enshrine the CMS Energy and DTE Energy’s near-monopoly status.

What these bills are really designed to do is please the big two utilities, while maybe, at best, giving them a gentle nudge in the renewable energy direction. I’ll bet they drag their feet.

What is needed is a bill with teeth. Set a schedule for realistic renewal energy targets, and prescribe a system of rewards for making them and penalties for missing them. The penalties need to be real, and not something that can be passed on to consumers.

Something, say, requiring state government to open the field up to new competitors hungry enough to get it done. We also need to be honest. The governor has talked about renewable energy creating 19,000 jobs in the near future.

Skip Pruss, her energy advisor, talked as if most of these jobs would be created in tool-and-die shops. He sees an avalanche of orders for windmill parts from other states hot to get in on the renewable energy craze.

Call me a cynic, but I’m not convinced.

If we want renewable energy, we need to push for it. But not via a bunch of bills basically designed to create a safe monopoly for two energy companies who are still going to build coal-fired plants.

We can do better. Starting by insisting that our politicians be more honest.

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Interview: Skip Pruss - 5/16/2008

Governor Jennifer Granholm is a big proponent of renewable energy. A package of bills now before the state Senate would require that power producers obtain at least ten percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2015. Skip Pruss is the governor’s special advisor on alternative energy and the environment. Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry spoke with him about the energy legislation.

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Essay: Finally, A Solution

Last week, Michigan Democrats finally came up with a sensible solution to the mess they made of their entire presidential process.

As sensible, that is, as could be managed at this late date.

Under this proposal Hillary Clinton would get 69 delegates, Barack Obama 59. The remaining 29 so-called super delegates could vote however they wanted to. The state party will take this to the Democratic National Committee May 31. If the national leaders approve the plan, Michigan will get to go to the convention after all.

There is still one hitch: After that plan was announced, a Clinton spokesman rejected it. Three weeks ago, that would have prevented this plan from even receiving a hearing. But there is a growing sense that it is time to get on the right bus.

Most of Michigan’s top Democrats – Governor Jennifer Granholm, Senator Debbie Stabenow, Congressman John Dingell – got on the wrong, or at least losing, one. They gambled on what they saw as a sure thing and endorsed Clinton very early. Now, it looks more and more like they will have to make nice with a nominee they did their best to defeat.

Think of it: Michigan has managed to achieve the dubious distinction of being the only state in the nation where nobody was allowed to cast even a write-in primary vote for the man who now seems the almost certain nominee. This week, as a matter of fact, is the first time that Obama set foot in our state since last summer.

Like other candidates not named Clinton, he took his name off the ballot in Michigan, after the national Democratic Party said the primary was illegitimate and wouldn’t count. But later, when it was clear that each side would need every last delegate, the Clinton position was that the primary should count – though that wasn’t what she said in January. Her forces insisted on dividing the delegates according to the popular vote, in which, in a very tiny turnout, Clinton got 55 percent and uncommitted got 40 percent. But the Obama forces said no way. They said the only split they would accept was an even one.

For a long time, it has looked like this meant Michigan was going to be shut out of the action. But after Obama did so well on May 6, they came up with a face-saving compromise that split the difference, and doesn’t materially change the dynamics of the race.

By the way, two final things should be said about the January 15 primary. Clinton did indeed win it. But the vast majority of Democrats also didn’t bother to vote, because they thought it wouldn’t count.

My guess is that this will go through and Michigan will get to go to the convention. But there’s something I hope nobody forgets. Michigan Democrats tried to break the rules this year. Thanks to their stupidity and stubbornness, they thereby made themselves – and our state – virtually irrelevant in the most exciting nomination battle anyone can remember.

Let’s hope they remember that, next time.

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Interview: Mark Brewer - 5/15/08

Michigan Democrats have been struggling for months to come up with some way to have a delegation seated at the Democratic National Convention in August.  Last week they came up with a solution they will present to the national party on May 31st.  But will it fly?  Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry put the question to Mark Brewer.  He’s chair of the Michigan Democratic Party. 

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Essay: Nightmare Scenario - 5/14/2008

Imagine this: It is mid-October and the electoral math is starting to gel. Barack Obama and John McCain are locked in a close race.

Most of the states are breaking along familiar lines, but the economy has given the Democrats a boost in a few formerly red states. But to seal the deal, Obama needs to carry Michigan.

That hasn’t been a problem for a Democrat in recent years, so long as they get a big turnout in Detroit, and stay competitive in the suburbs. But this year, Detroit means Kwame Kilpatrick.

Polls show the mayor has a near-universal negative rating in the suburbs. Republicans have been working the Kwame issue as hard as possible, crafting appeals that range from the sublime to the openly racist. The Internet is flooded with cleverly altered pictures that seem to show Obama and Kilpatrick together, wearing dashikis.

“Soul Brothers,“ one caption reads. Posters appear: “If you like having a black mayor, you’ll love having a black President.”

Naturally, the Republicans deny responsibility for them, but they are having an effect. Then, his trial approaching, an increasingly desperate Mayor wants to meet with the Democratic presidential candidate. Obama would rather appear holding a chunk of raw plutonium. But there is a veiled threat behind that request.

Meet with me, or the turnout in Detroit may not be as large as you need or want. Obama knows that without Michigan, he may not be able to win the presidency. He also knows that he can kiss white votes good-bye, in Michigan and maybe elsewhere, if he is seen as being in bed with Detroit’s indicted mayor. What can he do?

What can he possibly do?

***

That scenario, or a similar one, has been flickering through the minds of Democratic strategists for weeks. Some are now urging Gov. Jennifer Granholm to do the right thing, and remove the mayor.

She has the legal right to do so. As they see it, that would be a win-win situation for virtually everybody. The city could get back to something like normalcy, and go back to trying to compete for new jobs and convention business in this difficult economic environment.

The former mayor could concentrate full-time on trying to defend himself. And the city would have a mayor people, including a candidate for president, would cheerfully be willing to be seen with.

That all sounds lovely. Except, it is very unlikely to happen.

And it probably shouldn’t happen. Not yet, anyway. Kwame Kilpatrick has, by any measure, disgraced and damaged his city.

But unless its citizens or its council remove him, he is entitled to his day in court, even if he thereby proves further that he cares about nothing and no one except himself. For the governor to remove him arbitrarily would set a very bad example for the future.

This state and its largest city have endured a lot, including fires, riots, and invasions. We’ll survive this too, in the end. But it would be nice if sometimes, it was just a little bit easier.

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Interview: Bill Rustem - 5/14/2008

Yesterday, Detroit City Council voted to do three things…to censure Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, to ask the governor to remove him, and to start a process to remove him themselves. We wondered if anything like this has ever happened in Michigan’s history. And could it conceivable happen in other cities in the state. To find out Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry called Bill Rustem. He’s the head of Public Sector Consultants.

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Essay: Population Trends - 5/13/2008

There are probably a few heroic women, born towards the end of the baby boom, who will have another child. But not many; the youngest of them are now 44. To be sure, a few male boomers will go on getting into difficulty with women of succeeding generations.

But for all intents and purposes, my generation is done having children. The great demographic pig-in-the-python has moved on to running for president and worrying about Social Security. Those of us who are white weren‘t much on breeding anyway.

We had fewer babies than most other generations, with the result that while there are still 75 million of us in this country, there are only about 40 million or so members of Generation X.

I hope President Obama or Clinton pushes through a Constitutional Amendment both doubling and protecting our Social Security and Medicare before the younger generations replace us in Congress. John McCain is too old to be a boomer, and as a mere former POW, can have no idea how hard our lives could be.

Seriously, though - population trends have fluctuated greatly throughout history. There are relatively few native-born members of John McCain’s generation, kids born between 1930 and 1945.

They came into a world in the grip of our nation’s worst economic depression, followed by the world’s most terrible war.

First daddy had too little money, and then he was gone for four years. Now, once again, we seem to be barely replacing ourselves, especially in Michigan. But I am not all that worried about the numbers themselves. True, there is reason to be concerned about the steep drop in the number of very young children in Michigan.

Frankly, they aren’t here because the jobs aren’t here. If we employed their parents, they would come. I haven’t looked up statistics for Detroit in 1930, but I’ll bet the demographics are way out of whack. It was a good old medium-sized town in 1900, with about 285,000 people - a little smaller than Toledo today. Then the auto factories arrived. Thirty years later, the Motor City had more than six times as many people - well over a million and a half.

That’s not because the population took fertility drugs. It is because people poured in from the rural South and Eastern Europe. They wanted good jobs working in the plants.

Those jobs are disappearing now, and people by the hundred thousands have been drifting away. That’s left us with empty buildings and too many sprawling and now unnecessary schools.

There’s no doubt that we need to get our groove back. Some would say we do that by slashing tax rates to the bone to lure businesses in. That might have worked in 1908.

Worked to attract unskilled laborers, that is. The high-tech, highly skilled jobs of the future will be created by people who demand a decent infrastructure. We have to spend the money to build it, before they will come. Henry Ford knew that.

I wish those running our state today knew it too.

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