Jack Lessenberry Essays and Interviews

Essay: Juvenile Justice - 1/31/08

There’s a reason I didn’t murder my parents when I was a teenager: There were no firearms in the house.  Now I am not an especially violent person. Today, there are even a few politicians I wouldn‘t want to kill. Nor was my home life abusive. But forty years ago I experienced all the raging hormones and feelings of frustration that pretty much every adolescent faces.

Eventually I sorted all this out, as most people do, and developed some perspective. But I wouldn‘t want to be judged forever by the way I was at fifteen, and I doubt that you would either.

Except that there are hundreds of people in Michigan prisons who made a horrible mistake that meant they will be judged forever by what they did as an adolescent. They killed someone. Today, they are locked up forever, without possibility of parole.

Some of them, maybe most of them, should be confined for the rest of their lives. But we need to change the way we think about prisons. We need to change our mentality, partly because we simply can’t afford to do anything else. We have more people in prison than does any of our surrounding states. We spend more money on prisons, both absolutely and per prisoner, than any nearby state.

And it’s killing us. We spend more on prisons than on higher education, and once again, the state is having trouble paying its bills. Even if that weren’t the case, there is something just plain wrong about decreeing that a teenager has to spend the rest of their life in a cage with no possibility of parole.

Paul Condino, a lawyer himself, points out that we are the only nation in the so-called civilized world that allows states to lock juveniles up and throw the key away. He doesn’t want to put young killers on the street. He just wants to keep society’s options open. He thinks they should get a hearing after a decade.

He also wants to end the practice of sentencing them to life without any possibility of parole. That takes any power away from officials in the future, who will have to deal with these prisoners thirty years from now. Responsibility without power makes no sense.

Sadly, even if Condino’s bills pass the full house, I doubt they have any chance in the Senate. The Republicans want to look like the tough law and order party in this election year, and Majority Leader Mike Bishop has rejected meaningful prison reform, even when pressed by other Republicans to do so.

Gov. Jennifer Granholm has sent mixed messages, letting Jack Kevorkian out but denying clemency to some battered women who probably never should have been jailed in the first place.

In a state drowning in politics, it’s nice to see someone trying to do the right thing. Maybe some day we’ll all grow up. In the meantime, let’s hope Paul Condino gets further with his cause than I think he will.      

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Interview: Paul Condino - 1/31/08

When a child commits murder, should we lock them up, and prevent anyone from ever reconsidering their sentence? That’s the case in Michigan now. More than 300 inmates convicted of crimes before age 18 are serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole. State Representative Paul Condino of Southfield chairs the state house Judiciary Committee.  And he thinks people who make a mistake as children deserve a second look when they are adults. Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry spoke with him.

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Essay: State of the State - 1/30/08

The governor’s speech struck me as being vintage Jennifer Granholm, containing a mixture of both those elements that draw voters to her, and those that make you roll your eyes.

Here’s something she does understand perhaps better than anyone else in the Capitol last night. Most Michiganders hold the governor and the legislature in low regard these days.

And not without reason. Last year the whole lot of them worked hard at convincing us they were petty, nasty and incompetent. The squalid mess ended with the lawmakers finally agreeing at the last moment to balance the budget by taxing people like fortune tellers.

But just before that tax went into effect they suddenly reversed themselves and ratcheted up the business tax instead.

They all looked like pouting children. The atmosphere was so bad that it was treated as a great breakthrough when earlier this month the governor and the legislative leaders finally agreed to get together for dinner.

You would have thought Nixon was going back to China. What Jennifer Granholm knows and Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop still doesn’t completely get is that our lawmakers have to improve their image with the voters.

One poll late last year found that eighty-three percent of the people think the legislature is doing a terrible job, and her numbers weren‘t much better. That‘s not the kind of legacy she wants to leave.

She really does want to be what George W. Bush said he was going to be, a uniter, not a divider. Last night’s speech made it clear what she wants to do with her last three years.

As she sees it, Michigan’s economy needs major renovation and reinvention. She wants to put together a bipartisan consensus to do the things necessary to bring the right kind of new jobs here.

That’s where she’s coming from with her two major incentives: the Michigan Job Creation Tax Credit and the Michigan Invests! Fund. Those are ideas that could easily have come from a Republican governor. Smart Republicans also should support her idea for a Michigan economic stimulus package.

Frankly, her idea about how to stimulate the economy by spending a billion dollars improving our infrastructure makes far more sense and will create more jobs than President Bush’s stimulus package.

On the other hand, while investing in alternative energy is certainly necessary, the governor managed to sound like Melanie at a 1970 Earth Day rally. “Wind. Water, Woods. Wind Farms. The working men and women of Michigan.”

Still, she launched a lot of good ideas. But here’s the big problem. The state house of representatives. Their seats are all up for election this fall. Republicans desperately want to seize control. Will they be more interested in narrow partisan advantage, or in the future of our state? It won’t be long before we start to find out.

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Interview: Charles Ballard - 1/30/08

Governor Jennifer Granholm gave a mostly upbeat State of the State address last night. She offered a number of proposals to create jobs and spur the economy. But are they realistic? Charles Ballard is a professor of economics at Michigan State. He specializes in Michigan’s economy. Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry spoke with him.

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Essay: State of the State - 1/29/08

There’s been a lot of curious talk about the governor‘s state of the state speech tonight. Specifically, a lot of the speculation has been that she would use this speech to define her legacy.

That puzzled me because normally, before proclaiming a legacy, you have to accomplish something. Soapy Williams built the Mackinac Bridge. George Romney got the present Michigan Constitution adopted and modernized state government.

Jim Blanchard started the plan whereby parents could prepay their kids’ college education. John Engler radically changed the way in which public schools are financed. But Jennifer Granholm’s major claim to fame is the same as it was on Jan. 2, 2003.

Namely, that she is the first woman governor. Yet there is no set of policies or programs associated with her more than five years in office. That’s not to say that nothing good or significant has happened while she has been in office.

Tougher but necessary new high school graduation standards have been adopted. Last year, a new business tax was put together and passed. Most people thought it was a considerable improvement over the old Single Business Tax. That is, they thought so at least until a hefty surcharge was added to the tax at the last minute.

But what has been lacking for the last five years is an agenda, a vision, and a driving will to make things happen.

Coupled, that is, with the political smarts to get things done. What we’ve had for most of the time is sort of an odd-jobs governor.

She’s run to this country to snag a few jobs here and gone to that country to recruit an employer there. She’s fought, mainly unsuccessfully, to keep companies in the state. She has battled, with mixed success, with Republicans in the legislature.

Now Michigan has just come through a bruising year in which taxes were raised in a way that totally pleased nobody. We are still losing jobs and population. We have the highest unemployment rate in the nation, and it is expected to go higher.

None of this is especially Jennifer Granholm’s fault. Her opponents in the legislature haven’t articulated any vision or ideas at all, except for mindlessly repeating “no new taxes.”

As a devout Roman Catholic, the governor is perhaps aware of this line from Proverbs 29, Verse 18: “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” You don’t even have to be a Christian to know that is true. Michigan badly needs a vision these days.

We also need some suggestion of a road map for how to get there. Finally, we need someone who will show us the way and then give us a good shove to get us moving.

That’s what I wish Governor Jennifer Granholm would do tonight. She has two more state of the state speeches to make after this one. She has almost three more years left on her term.

Do the right thing, governor. The question of your legacy will take care of itself.

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Interview: James Blanchard - 1/29/08

Governor Jennifer Granholm gives her sixth State of the State address tonight, after a tough year in which the legislature fought bitterly. So, what should she be seeking to do with her speech this evening? James Blanchard gave eight State of the State speeches when he was governor. Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry spoke with him.

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Essay: The Latest Scandal - 1/28/08

The revelations about the Detroit mayor’s text messages are routinely being described as a “sex scandal.” In fact, the scandal is really not about sex at all. Yes, there was illicit sex involved. That makes it juicier. But it also confuses the issue.

What Kwame Kilpatrick does sexually, on his own time, isn’t anybody’s business except his and his family‘s. Yes, he is a public figure, but even public figures ought to be allowed some privacy.

Two years ago, he was re-elected in a tremendous upset. There was a clear backlash among voters turned off by what they saw as inappropriate prying into the young mayor’s private life.

But what’s happening now is not about sex, but about perjury on the witness stand. That‘s a felony, which the mayor, who has a law degree, ought to know. His defenders are saying, so what.

He lied about sex. Bill Clinton lied about sex. Men lie about sex. You want to bring down Detroit for that?

Again, this is not about lying about sex. What this is about is deliberately setting out to destroy the careers of two police officers for doing their job. If these text messages are genuine, and there is no indication that they are not, this is what happened.

Kwame Kilpatrick and Christine Beatty, his chief of staff and secret lover, conspired to fire Gary Brown, a deputy police chief who was investigating the mayor’s conduct. They fired him, then lied about it. Brown and another officer who had lost his job over this filed a civil lawsuit. The normal thing to do is settle such suits out of court, for a fraction of what the plaintiffs are asking.

The mayor wouldn’t do that. He fought it in court. Both he and Christine Beatty denied that they fired the policemen, and indignantly denied that they were having an affair.

The jurors found the mayor totally unbelievable. So much so they not only gave the policemen all the money they were seeking, and added interest. The cash-poor, largely impoverished city of Detroit had to pay nine million dollars for the mayor‘s clumsy cover-up.

You can make the case that Kwame Kilpatrick stole that money from the city just as completely as if he had invested it in Krugerrands.

There will now be at least one formal investigation. What happens after that isn‘t clear. What is clear is that Kilpatrick and the city will be entirely consumed with this as long as he remains mayor.

What matters in the end is not him. What matters is a city, where there are children without enough to eat living in houses where there is no money for heat.

We don’t think much about Oliver Cromwell today. But today I can’t help but remember what Cromwell said once to another group of politicians who had outstayed their welcome.

“You have sat here too long for any good you have been doing lately. Depart, I say and let us have done with you.

“In the name of God, go.”

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Interview: Nolan Finley - 1/28/08

By now it seems that everyone has heard about the scandal involving Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick.  Recovered text messages appear to show that the Mayor lied under oath about an affair with his chief of staff… and about firing a police officer who was investigating him.  The state has been abuzz with the news, but could it impact Detroit economically? Nolan Finley is the editorial page editor of the Detroit News.  Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry spoke with him.

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Essay: Sovereign Deed - 1/25/08

Based on the founder’s past track record, there is ample reason to wonder whether Sovereign Deed will ever live up to its promises to build a vast disaster response operation to look after rich people.

Published reports indicate that Barrett Moore was once convicted of deceptively obtaining more than $300,000 in connection with a used car business in Australia. He served prison time for that. Other ventures he founded have gone bankrupt. There have stories alleging that he misrepresented his military background.

In a later venture he was CEO of a private military contracting firm called Triple Canopy, which did business in Iraq. The internet newspaper Michigan Messenger reported that the board of directors fired Moore and charged him with fraud.

That case was later settled out of court. Whatever the facts are, it might seem that a little bit of due diligence was in order before the state fell all over itself to give Sovereign Deed special tax breaks.

But prudence and caution never seemed to enter the heads of Michigan lawmakers. Last year, Democratic State Representative Gary McDowell and Republican State Senator Jason Allen got together.

They drafted a bill to grant Sovereign Deed sweetheart tax abatements. Lansing was a place last year where Democrats and Republicans normally weren’t even talking to each other.

But the lawmakers stopped their trench warfare long enough to unanimously approve Sovereign Deed’s tax abatements, which were then signed by a beaming Governor Granholm.

Well, I shouldn’t have been surprised. These folks are risking destroying a species of trout for a hundred temporary jobs produced by a controversial Upper Peninsula sulfide mine.

Believe me, I know how badly Michigan needs jobs. But what really bothers me is that this is a business that should be highly repugnant to all Americans, especially those who claim to represent the poorer and the downtrodden, namely, the Democrats.

Sovereign Deed’s entire premise is this: In the event of a disaster, some lives are worth more than others, so we are here to save the truly deserving: The rich. This is a company founded on the principle of billionaires first, poor women and children last. It wants people to think that our government is incompetent to save us, and that they need to buy protection. What I worry about is that if we encourage businesses like Sovereign Deed, their advertising slogan will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. If well-off people buy their own services, that will give Congress every incentive to reduce disaster funding for the rest of us.

I can think of nothing more un-American. A few years ago, there was a character on the television series the West Wing who finds out he will be whisked off to a secure bunker if there ever is a nuclear war.

When he finds out his secretary isn’t on the evacuation list, he gets visibly upset and can’t sleep. Today, I suppose he would just l smile, and slip her a number for Sovereign Deed.

So here’s a memo to all concerned:

Just what were you thinking?

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Interview: Anne Stanton - 1/25/08

Northern Michigan needs jobs, and there was great excitement last year when a new disaster services company called Sovereign Deed announced that it wanted to build a vast headquarters in the small town of Pellston, creating hundreds of jobs. But then questions surfaced about both the company and the services it would provide. Anne Stanton has been writing about Sovereign Deed for Northern Express. Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry spoke with her.

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