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: 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: State of the State - 5/9/2008

When I read Charlie Ballard’s state of the state survey this morning, a few things never mentioned in it popped into my mind.

First of all, it seems clear that anyone who wants to win Michigan this fall better stop talking about silly side issues, and start addressing our state and our nation’s serious economic problems.

So far the Democratic candidates have spent a lot of time squabbling about who was most against Iraq. Meanwhile, we’ve paid vast attention to a retired preacher whose words have since been repudiated by the candidate who used to go to his church.

Ballard’s survey, which is one of the most accurate in opinion polling, indicates what voters think of those issues. The answer is: Not much. Only seven out of every thousand feel that foreign policy is a top issue in this campaign.

And only two in every thousand think that race relations and diversity should be on the front burner. What about the so-called ‘moral issues” that seem to surface every election season?

Well, they are of concern to precisely one half of one percent of Michigan’s population. We are facing tough economic times this year, and our hearts are in our wallets.

Two thirds of us think the top issues are either jobs or the economy. When you throw in taxes and budget issues, that rises to about eighty percent of us.

When you look at these numbers, it is hard to see how any Democratic candidate for president could possibly fail to win Michigan this fall. A solid majority think George W. Bush has done a poor job.

They don’t much like Jennifer Granholm either, but she isn’t running. What they really worry about, however, could be best summed up by the title of Charlie Ballard’s last book:

Michigan’s Economic Future.

Four out of seven of us say we are worse off than a year ago. Less than one in every four of us thinks we are in better shape. We still are hopeful about the future.

Americans are traditionally the most optimistic people on the planet. But we aren’t starry-eyed. Forty-four percent of us think we’ll be better off this time next year. Thirty-five percent say worse off. And that’s the most pessimistic they’ve been since this survey was started. Voters are going to be looking for a president who can help us get out of this pothole, and avoid bigger ones.

Twenty-eight years ago, I covered another presidential campaign that looked like it would end in a dead heat. Then the candidates had a single debate. “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?” the challenger asked, “Is it easier for you to go and buy things in the stores?”

Days later, the man who said those words carried 44 states, including Michigan. Today, we once again know the answer to those questions.

For the rest of this year, voters are going to be looking for someone who can make them feel better off four years from now.

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Interview: Charles Ballard - 5/9/2008

The results of Michigan’s annual State of the State Survey were released today. The survey asked Michigan residents about their economic situation and what issues they thought were most important. Charles Ballard is a Professor of Economics at Michigan State University. He is also the director of the State of the State Survey. Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry spoke with him.

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Essay: Political Privacy - 4/28/2008

When it comes to government, I normally think the more openness we have the better. I think the Freedom of Information Act, both on the federal and state levels, may have been the best thing to happen to democracy since the Bill of Rights.

But openness has its limits, and everybody has a zone of privacy that any free society is obligated to respect. And whatever your politics, one of the most sacrosanct of these has always been the voting booth. Democracy requires a secret ballot.

Nobody has the right to put a camera under the curtain. In Michigan, we take that even more seriously than most other states. We don’t even have party registration.

If any one tells you they are a registered Republican or Democrat, they really aren’t. When I walk out of a voting booth in August, nobody will have the right to know who I voted for.

And I am also allowed to keep secret whether I voted in the Democratic or Republican Primaries. That’s how it’s been here forever, giving voters a maximum of privacy and freedom.

And I’ll bet that’s how a majority of us like it.

This time, however, the politicians attempted to hijack the process. Anyone who wanted to vote in this year’s presidential primary not only had to declare a party. They had to do so with the expectation that their name and how they voted would be turned over to both major political parties, to use in whatever way they wished.

In other words, they could plaster on a billboard that “Mrs. Millicuddy voted in the Republican primary,” if they wanted to.

Right from the start, I thought that was outrageous. Now as you know, I don’t mind hanging my opinions out for everybody to see.

But not everyone is like that – nor should they be required to be. I personally know three people who didn’t vote in the primary because they didn’t want anyone to know what party they were voting for. I think that was one factor in why the turnout was so low.

What’s even more outrageous is why the parties did this. They wanted to get lists of people they could hit up for contributions.

When I found out that the law said the parties could have copies of these lists and nobody else could, I was first outraged.

But then I was reassured, because I knew that meant the law was almost certain to be declared unconstitutional. And it was.

So since collecting these lists was illegal, it stands to reason that they should not be public information. That means they should be destroyed, or at the very least, sealed until we are all dead, in case they prove of interest to future historians.

However, if it helps, I will offer a compromise.

You can have my voting record. You’ll find I voted in the Republican primary, and everyone is welcome to hit me with their best fund-raising junk mail anytime.

My garbage can, by the way, is very close to the street.

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Interview: Mark Grebner - 4/28/2008

The lists of who chose a Democratic or Republican ballot in the January 15th presidential primary were supposed to be turned over only to the state’s political parties. But a federal judge ruled that that law was unconstitutional. Now, political consultant Mark Grebner wants access to those lists… and has filed a Freedom of Information Act request asking for them. But, Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land denied the request. Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry spoke with Mark Grebner.

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Essay: Democratic Dithering - 4/24/2008

I’ve known Joel Ferguson for years, and I can tell you he is a brilliant guy. He is a self-made multi-millionaire developer who put himself through college working on the line at Oldsmobile.

While he has held elected office, including several stints as a Michigan State University trustee, he has been more important as a major player behind the scenes. Old-timers still remember his brilliant coup in 1988, when he organized a stealth campaign to bus voters to that year’s mostly ignored Michigan Democratic caucuses.

The result was a stunning and totally unexpected victory for Jesse Jackson, humiliating the party leadership.

So when Ferguson talks, it is a good idea to listen. Though he is often working a number of angles, his argument about the superdelegates makes a lot of sense. They were supposed to be seated automatically, regardless of whether the party selected the rest of their delegates in a primary, a caucus, or a marzipan contest.

His argument about the elected delegates is a lot weaker, however, and he knows it. First of all, if Michigan’s elected delegates are seated, it will make a mockery of the whole rules process.

If they get away with having a primary three weeks before the rules said they could, what’s to prevent some other state from having its 2012 primary in December 2011? Or December 2009, for that matter?

But I am glad he has filed this challenge, because it illustrates what some of us have known all along. If both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are still standing when the primaries end in June, this will go to the Democratic National convention in Denver.

The convention will decide in the last week of August whether to seat Michigan and Florida, and their decision will determine the nominee. If they are seated, Clinton likely wins. If not, Obama does.

And taking it to Denver might not be a bad thing. Nothing wrong with a little democracy in action – as long as neither side feels robbed.

But what continues to amaze me is the absolute boneheaded stupidity of the Michigan Democratic Party. Last weekend, local democrats met in district conventions to pick some of the delegates elected in January, in case they ever get seated.

Based on the way the vote broke down, Clinton won 47, and the leadership let her camp pick all those folks.

The uncommitted slate won 36 delegates, and the Obama people logically thought they should get to name those, since he is the only remaining candidate left.

But the party bureaucrats only let them pick half of those, and shoved their own people into the remaining slots. They took the selection of another 45 delegates away from the people entirely.

They will be picked by the state central committee of party insiders. As the Free Press’s Brian Dickerson observed, what a wonderful way to alienate the new voters the Obama campaign has brought into the Democratic Party. That seems crazy, until you realize that for apparatchiks, the process isn’t really about winning. It is about control.

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Interview: Joel Ferguson - 4/24/2008

The Democratic National Committee is still refusing to seat Michigan’s democratic delegates. The committee says Michigan broke party rules when it moved the state’s primary to January 15th. Joel Ferguson thinks the committee’s decision is illegal and is challenging them with breaking their own rules. He’s a superdelegate and a member of the DNC. Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry spoke with him.

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Essay: Unemployment Benefits - 4/18/2008

For the last six weeks, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have been desperately bashing each other over what seem to be progressively more silly non-issues. The latest of these features Clinton’s claim that Obama had somehow insulted working-class America, when he said it wasn’t surprising that they were getting “bitter” about the frustrating economic conditions.

The tempest that followed totally puzzled me. Virtually all the working-class and even middle-class people I know ARE somewhat bitter about the economy, even if they haven’t lost their job.

So what’s to like about $3.50 a gallon gas, and not being able to sell your house if your life depended on it?

But the Clintons and the media acted as if Obama had embraced al-Qaeda.

But the voters seem to have more sense than the pundits. Yesterday, a new Zogby poll in Pennsylvania showed that 60 percent of the voters agreed with Obama. They are bitter! Things aren’t good. And though Democrats have been slipping in the polls lately, in Pennsylvania, both contenders still lead John McCain.

And that may give you some insight into why normally party-line Republicans like Thaddeus McCotter have parted company with the Bush Administration on the unemployment bill.

Some of this happens in every administration. Presidents progressively lose power and influence, as the clock counts down in the last months of their final term. But this is a special case.

George W. Bush and his policies have been intensely unpopular for some time, and the country is now headed into a recession. This fact is going to be the single greatest economic hurdle John McCain has to overcome if he is going to be elected.

Six months from now, there are going to be two nominees, and if the race comes down to a referendum on the economy, the Democratic presidential nominee will win, whoever it is.

Michigan rejected President Bush four years ago, largely for economic reasons, and things were a lot better then. Thaddeus McCotter knows this, and he knows he is not invulnerable.

This fall, he has to run for a fourth term. He is the youngest and least-well-known Republican congressman in the state. He will be favored to win, but as the Almanac of American Politics notes, he could be vulnerable to a well-funded, top-tier Democratic opponent.

He was lucky two years ago; his opponent had almost no money, and unlike some other challengers. didn’t seem to work very hard. But McCotter got only 54 percent, his lowest showing ever.

That doesn’t mean that McCotter isn’t sincere about wanting to help unemployed workers. But as the entertaining and colorful Speaker of the House Tip O‘Neill used to say, all politics is local.

And this fall, smart local politics are going to mean opposing the Bush Administration’s economic policies. If the President vetoes extending unemployment compensation, you can bet you’ll see it on YouTube and TV commercials, right up till election day.

And the Democrats are counting on those images driving any memory of the Reverend Wright videos right off the charts.

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Interview: Thaddeus McCotter - 4/18/2008

A new bipartisan bill in the U.S. House of Representatives would help people out of work. Thaddeus McCotter, a Congressman from Livonia, co-sponsored the bill. Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry spoke with about how it would help Michigan.

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