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: 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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Interview: Bruce Dale - 5/12/2008

As gas prices continue to rise, alternative fuels have become more popular. One of the more talked-about alternative fuels is corn-based ethanol. Bruce Dale is a distinguished professor of chemical engineering at Michigan State University. Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry spoke with him about the future of alternative fuels.

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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: Repellent Ruling - 5/8/2008

Since the 1960s, conservatives have been whining about liberal judges who they say, “legislate from the bench.“ That is to say, judges who make up new laws on their own, and then pretend what they want is somehow implied in or required by the constitution.

My liberal friends won’t like what I am about to say, but that is  in some cases an intellectually valid argument. I am totally in favor of what is called a woman’s right to choose. 

But I think it is really a stretch to find that the Constitution requires the complex trimester ruling of Roe vs.  Wade.

However, if any of the so-called strict constitutionalists support what the Michigan Supreme Court did yesterday, they are utter hypocrites. Yesterday, in a completely partisan ruling, our elected high court ruled that no unit of government could provide health benefits to same-sex couples.

Regardless of how you feel about that, here’s the complete text of the Michigan Constitutional Amendment their ruling was based on, an amendment passed in 2004.

To secure and preserve the benefits of marriage for our society and for future generations of children, the union of one man and one woman in marriage shall be the only agreement recognized as a marriage or similar union for any purpose.

Not exactly a literary masterpiece, but its meaning is clear enough; it says marriage can involve only a man and a woman.

But it says nothing whatsoever about health care.

As I understand the logic of it, what the court did yesterday was imply that units of government, including state universities, cannot extend any health care benefits to anyone who is not married to one of their employees.

Logically, then, my seven-year-old goddaughter should lose her  health care. Her father works for the State of Michigan, and he is only her father, not her husband. You would say that is absurd.

And you would be right. But so is denying domestic partner benefits based on this amendment.  Sometimes judges who are struggling to interpret the Constitution go back and read ancient documents and letters to try and discern what may have been the founding fathers’ original intent in framing some passage.

Well, in this case we only have to go back four years. Those campaigning for this amendment told audiences, over and over again, that all it was meant to do was ban gay marriage, that it wouldn’t touch anyone’s benefits.

They may have been lying, but that is what they said.

The root of the problem is that a flaw in our state constitution has given us a Supreme Court that is largely a collection of partisan hacks. They issued a ruling on our presidential primary earlier this year that was so blatantly unconstitutional a federal judge threw it out as soon as it landed on her desk. But unless we change the system or elect better judges, we can expect more of the same.

So, dear voters, I guess that leaves it up to you.

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Interview: Jay Kaplan - 5/8/2008

Yesterday, the Michigan Supreme Court ruled that no public employer in the state is allowed to provide health care benefits to same sex couples. In a straight party-line decision, the Republican majority said that the ban was required by a 2004 constitutional amendment that prohibited gay marriage in the state. Jay Kaplan is an attorney for the ACLU of Michigan. He has been working on the case. Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry spoke to him.

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Essay: Ousting the Mayor - 5/6/2008

Almost nobody familiar with the horrendous mess in Detroit thinks the mayor ought to stay in office. The ranks of his defenders have shrunken to paid stooges like Sharon McPhail, who used to refer to Kwame Kilpatrick as a “thug” before he put her on the payroll.

But the report saying that city council has the right to oust him is extremely unlikely to produce that result. Thanks to the city’s vague and poorly written charter, Kwame Kilpatrick could apparently appeal any vote to remove him in court, and delay it for months.

That would not only further paralyze city government, it might even run the risk of creating sympathy for the self-indulgent man in the mayor’s office. But should the mayor lose his job?

Well, let’s look at the basic facts. We know the mayor fired a deputy police chief because he was doing his job, investigating alleged wrongdoing. Two other good cops were also tossed over the side. What specifically the mayor was worried they would find out isn’t clear, but he was clearly having an affair with his chief of staff. He lied under oath about that, by the way.

He also lied about firing the police officers.

The officers then sued him and the city, and won. And when the mayor found out the attorney for the cops had the goods on him, in the form of the infamous text messages, he urged city council to give them $8.4 million dollars – more than the actual verdict.

He did that in a failed attempt to prevent city council - or anyone else - from knowing what had really happened.

That’s the scandal in a nutshell. New York Governor Eliot Spitzer quit his job after merely being accused of using his own money to visit a prostitute. Detroit’s mayor would have been gone months ago if he had any regard for the city he has embarrassed and looted. One thing that is clear, is that he’ll have to resign if convicted of a felony.

He’s been charged with multiple felonies by the Wayne County Prosecutor. At this point, it probably makes more sense for the criminal process to play itself out before the council gets involved.

However, attorney Bill Goodman’s report illustrates that Detroit not only needs a new mayor, it badly needs a new charter.

The way in which a mayor can be removed needs to be clear. Additionally, the way Detroit elects a city council needs to be changed. Currently, they are all elected at large.

That means they are mainly elected on name recognition. So Detroit has a council that includes two relatives of a famous judge, the lead singer from Martha and the Vandellas, a former failed congresswoman, and the bizarre wife of a current congressman.

And under the current charter, the mayor has so much power that a council member is powerless to get a street light fixed.

Nobody likes a disaster, but they do sometimes present an opportunity to rebuild. If Detroit doesn’t hear opportunity knocking this time, I don’t know if it ever will.

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Interview: Larry Dubin - 5/6/2008

According to a report released yesterday by the Detroit City Council’s attorney, the council has the authority to remove Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick from office. Larry Dubin is a Professor of Law at the University of Detroit Mercy. Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry spoke with him about the report and what happens next.

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