Jack Lessenberry Essays and Interviews

Essay: Surviving the Year - 12.24.10

It’s pretty fair to say it’s been a hard year for our state. But, Michigan Radio’s Political Analyst Jack Lessenberry says we do have a few things to celebrate…

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No doubt about it - it’s been a momentous and bruising year. But it could have been worse. Remember eleven years ago, when everybody was convinced the much-feared Y2K crisis would shut down America, or at least our nation’s computers?

On New Year’s Day, when the crisis failed to materialize, one Ohio newspaper ran this huge headline: We’re Still Here.

Well, this holiday season seems a bit like that. Okay, well, we’re still here. Too many of us still don’t have jobs, true.

There’s a fair share we could be gloomy about.

We don’t have a Michigan State Fair any more; we’ve lost the Michigan Promise Grant scholarship, and we are losing a seat in Congress. The Lions are still mostly losing, the Tigers are mediocre, the Red Wings are a little better, the Pistons, are really bad.

And of course, standards of taste prevent me from saying anything about Michigan football.

It was a trifle dismaying this week, when the U.S. Census bureau informed the nation that Michigan was the only state in the union to actually lose population during the last decade.

However, there are things to be happy about. Two years ago, we thought General Motors and Chrysler might be gone by now.

But they’ve reconstituted themselves; they are all still here and making money, and there are even cars people are excited about, like the Chevy Volt.

Whatever your politics, it’s been a disappointing few years. Our elected leaders in Lansing failed to get the job done, either in reinventing the economy or dealing with the deep-seated problems that give us huge deficits every year. However, things are about to change. We elected a new governor this year, a man few of us knew anything about a year ago. He doesn’t take office for another week yet, but there are reasons to be hopeful. Rick Snyder says he isn’t interested in the squabbles and pettiness of the past.

Someone close to him tells me he intends to focus like a laser beam on recharging and reinventing the economy.

No matter how successful he is, we need to remember we aren’t going to get back to prosperity and full employment overnight. What we are doing is getting ready to move beyond the shadows of the past. That’s happening in Detroit. The city finally seems to given up on the Kilpatricks.

Any chance of a comeback for the former mayor seems to have ended forever with the massive federal indictments filed this month; in August, voters told his mother they didn’t want her to be their congressman any longer. The city and the state seem to be moving into an era when we are looking for government by grownups.

Which isn’t all bad. There is bound to be some tough sledding ahead next year, but here’s a couple things to remember.

The days at least are now getting longer. Unemployment is beginning to fall. And Nevada, the state that grew the fastest in the last decade, now has a jobless rate higher than Michigan.

There are almost ten million of us still here, and some of the nicest scenery in the world. There are things to celebrate this holiday season. And Michigan is clearly not ready to roll over and die yet.

Essay: The Coming Drama - 12.22.10

The first census figures are in, and it’s clear that theses rows of numbers have set the stage for some very intense political melodrama to come. Michigan Radio’s Political Analyst Jack Lessenberry explains…

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Well, we finally have the official census figures, and for the first time in history, Michigan lost people in the course of a decade. Worse, we’ll have fewer members of Congress.

Over the last thirty years, we’ve lost five seats in the House of Representatives.

That’s equivalent to losing the voting power of the entire state of Connecticut. Put another way, we’re now back to having only one more representative than a century ago.

That means that we’ve lost virtually all the political clout we gained during the age of the automobile. True, that era’s last remaining titans are still in Washington -- the Levins, John Conyers, and of course John Dingell.

But they don’t have the power they did. For one thing, they are all Democrats, and the Dems are losing control of the House.

For another, the auto industry doesn’t have the clout it did, even as recently as the 1980s. Back then Dingell ran the House Energy and Commerce Committee with an iron hand, and managed to look out for both the industry and the auto workers union.

But Big John lost his committee chairmanship last year, and in January, his party won’t even control the committee. Back in Michigan, the census means several Democratic congressmen will be fighting for their political lives next year, when the legislature will be running a deadly game of musical chairs.

Michigan will lose a seat in Congress. Since we will have nine Republicans and six Democrats, you might think we’d give up a Republican seat. But you’d be wrong.

The redistricting plan will be written and passed by a solidly Republican legislature, signed by a Republican governor, and reviewed a GOP-controlled state supreme court.

While every district has to have the same number of people, they will draw the lines to produce as many GOP seats as possible, and that means eliminating at least one Democrat.

Most likely, they will combine the southeastern districts now held by Gary Peters and Sandy Levin, forcing them to run against each other in the 2012 primary, unless one steps down.

They could also put John Conyers and John Dingell into a seat where they have to run against each other.

Elsewhere, they will try to pack as many Democrats as possible into as few districts as possible, while strengthening Republican incumbents. This is a delicate process.

If they get too greedy and try to create too many GOP-leaning districts, they could leave some Republican incumbents, like Thaddeus McCotter or Mike Rogers, potentially vulnerable.

All this may lead to the retirement of some of our Congressional titans. John Dingell will be eighty-six before the next election. He might be able to perform one last service to his party by working out a deal to retire to save someone else‘s seat.

If Peters is thrown into a district with Levin, it might be well to reflect that while Sandy has had an amazing career, he will be eighty-one next time. Peters, fifty-three.

It might make sense for the older man to make a graceful exit. Watch for all this and more to play out over the next couple years. The census itself may not seem very sexy. But as a catalyst for political melodrama, nothing has it beat.

Essay: Time for Sanity - 12.21.10

The Detroit Water and Sewerage Department currently provides water to almost half the state’s population. Michigan Radio’s Political Analyst Jack Lessenberry thinks a regional authority is an idea whose time has come.

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One thing is for sure. If Michigan is going to get out of the hole it is in and lay the foundation for future prosperity, lots of us are going to have to move out of our economic and political comfort zones.

Unions are going to have to realize that employers and governments can’t afford the same kind of health care and defined-benefit pension plans as when we had full employment at high wages and the Big Three dominated the global automotive economy.

Chambers of Commerce are going to have to realize that there is more to attracting new jobs and business than low taxes.

And everybody is going to have to realize that without a modern, well-functioning infrastructure, we haven’t got a chance.

Which brings me to water. Specifically, the situation in southeast Michigan, where an entity called the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department, or DWSD for short, provides water to four million people -- almost half the state‘s population. The service area extends from the Flint area to Monroe to Ann Arbor.

The system, which is entirely owned and operated by the City of Detroit, also provides wastewater, or sewage services, to three million people. For years, the ownership and management of the water department has been increasingly controversial.

The authority is run by a seven-person board. The mayor of Detroit appoints three suburban representatives, but this seems to satisfy nobody. Those outside the city grumble that they have to buy water from Detroit without any real say in how prices are set or the authority is run. Meanwhile, Detroiters have angrily resisted any suggestion that they should share control of the water department.

There’s also been a nasty racial undercurrent to some of these arguments. Last week, the controversy erupted again when Victor Mercado, a former director of the water department, was indicted for allegedly steering contracts to a crony of Kwame Kilpatrick’s.

Now, a newly elected state representative named Kurt Heise, a Republican from Plymouth Township, says he will sponsor legislation to create a regional authority to run the district, which would eventually evolve into a regional public utility.

Detroiters are certain to oppose this idea -- but it makes perfect sense. Heise has a background in this area; he’s a former director of Wayne County’s Department of the Environment, a job similar to that of drain commissioner.

In the past, water takeover bills have been introduced that were clearly intended as a slap against Detroit. This doesn’t feel like that. “I want to make this a collaborative process,“ Heise says. He doesn’t propose taking ownership of the assets away from Detroit; he just wants the system run in a rational manner.

This really is an idea whose time as come. Though some Detroit politicians are already issuing knee-jerk responses, a regional authority might easily benefit the city too.

Back when he was running the system, Victor Mercado told me that there were some pipes and drains dating back at least to the 1870s, but there was no money to upgrade them.

This could, and should change that.

Clean, safe, reliable and relatively cheap water just might be our region and our state’s biggest asset. We’ve all got a vested interest in not screwing it up.

Essay: Early Warning - 12/20/10

By now, everyone knows all about the federal indictments of former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick. But Michigan Radio's Jack Lessenberry thinks they also indicate that none of this had to be.

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We are living in interesting times. Yesterday, the Detroit Lions won their second game in a row, and their first game on the road since what seems like soon after the Civil War.

This is being treated in some quarters as a miracle. However, I think it is directly attributable to actor Jeff Daniels. Last Friday, on the special call-in show Michigan Radio held to collect ideas about how to make our state a better place, the actor suggested we root for the Lions, which made me think he was perhaps auditioning for the role of St. Jude, patron saint of lost causes. Well, we better celebrate while we can. Tomorrow, we get the official U.S. census figures. They are not likely to mean good news for Michigan. We may lose another congressman, maybe even two.

But maybe that will take our minds off the continuing sordid adventures of former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick.

As all the world knows by now, he and a number of associates was hit with massive, multi-count federal indictments last week, most of them related to alleged corruption while he was mayor.

There is, however, something buried in the indictments that indicates we might not have had to go through most of this, if someone had been paying attention.

Flash back ten years, when Kilpatrick was a rising legislative star, only thirty but already minority floor leader. He managed to get the state to appropriate eight hundred thousand dollars for two non-profits he said would help children and senior citizens.

According to the indictment, most of this money disappeared into the pockets of Kilpatrick, his wife Carlita, and their friend Bobby Ferguson, best known for later pistol-whipping an employee.

Little or none got to the children or the seniors. However, the good news is that the state didn't lose all that money, only half. That's because they only gave him half of it to start.

To get the rest of the money, Kilpatrick was required to file periodic reports with Lansing as to how the money was spent.

Not surprisingly, he never did. Don Gilmer, who became state budget director the next year, told the Gongwer News Service last week that he had been suspicious. Soon after he became budget director, staffers told him they were getting no reports whatsoever into how the money was being used. Gilmer says he went directly to Kilpatrick.

He told him he needed a report on how the money was being spent. The state never got one, so Gilmer sensibly never released the second half of the grants. He said last week this staff thought much of the money was improperly going to Carlita Kilpatrick.

But here is what nobody's asking: Why, then, didn't someone order an investigation? Why didn't Gilmer ask the Speaker of the House, or the attorney general's office to look into this?

At least he might have tipped off a reporter. But no, everyone just dropped the ball, or figured it was somebody else's responsibility.

But if someone had investigated then, we might have been spared the later scandal, the spectacle, and saved millions of dollars and a chunk of Detroit's reputation. There's a moral to this story:

Little problems have a way of becoming huge if not dealt with early on. Maybe someday, we'll figure that out.

Essay: Beyond Kwame - 12-16.10

A federal grand jury indicted former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and several associates on numerous corruption charges yesterday. Michigan Radio’s Political Analyst Jack Lessenberry thinks the problem goes far beyond him.

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You might say that the charges filed yesterday against former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, his father and three associates were the least surprising federal indictments in history.

That is, until you read them, and see how extensive and blatant the culture of corruption allegedly was around the once-promising young politician, who is already sitting in jail, thanks to earlier felony convictions and probation violations.

Naturally, I need to add that everyone is legally innocent until proven guilty, something that will be up to a jury, unless the defendants enter a plea. And juries can surprise you. Many people thought Attorney Geoffrey Fieger was finished when he was indicted three years ago on federal campaign finance violations.

But in the end, he was acquitted. It’s a little harder to imagine that happening here. And it is a bit disheartening to realize that this means that the whole sordid Kilpatrick saga is going to go on for months or even years, as this whole process winds its way through the courts. My biggest sympathies go out to Detroit Mayor Dave Bing, who is fighting hard to get his city beyond this.

What I am now about to say isn‘t politically correct, but the truth is that there are a lot of people, from Grand Rapids to Grosse Pointe, who are thinking, well, what do you expect?

That’s Detroit. That’s the black political culture. Sometimes it get put in even cruder terms. But the problem is that more and more, this isn’t any subculture, it is the culture. The story that fascinated me this week wasn’t Kwame Kilpatrick, but William Hamman.

Hamman was a doctor and medical researcher who specialized in training other doctors how to respond to medical emergencies.

He was director of a medical simulation and research program at William Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak. He was awarded millions in research grants. He also got huge consulting fees and salaries from Western Michigan University as well as the hospital system.

There was only one thing wrong.

He wasn’t a doctor at all, or a researcher. He didn’t have any degrees. For years, nobody checked, until finally, one day last summer, somebody did. Later, they said Hamman was “really bright” and a good communicator. Which is what they said about Kilpatrick.

Last weekend, I went to commencement at Wayne State University, and saw a student I know go up with her cap and gown, be presented as a graduate, and get photographed with the university president. She is also really bright and a good communicator … and a sophomore who has flunked out and who improperly applied for graduation. I can do something about this.

But I can’t stop her from putting that picture on a website and passing herself off as a graduate. And clearly, there are too few background checks any more.

Once upon a time, the American dream was to work your fingers to the bone to accomplish something and be somebody. These days, too many of us seem to want to skip the step where you actually work hard and honestly to get there.

And that worries me far more than a bunch of new indictments against a sleazy ex-politician who is already sitting in jail.

Essay: Build the Bridge - 12.15.10

An early winter storm has closed Port Huron’s Blue Water Bridge and caused miles-long backups at the Ambassador Bridge. Michigan Radio’s Political Analyst Jack Lessenberry thinks its clear that we need another kind of backup.

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As I write this, the Blue Water Bridge between Port Huron and Sarnia remains closed to commercial truck traffic because of weather conditions. This has already had an effect on the economy.

General Motors has had to temporarily close its Flint Truck Assembly plant because of a lack of parts. Trucks are being diverted to Detroit’s Ambassador Bridge, but that’s snarling up the highways.

Yesterday afternoon, there were reports that trucks waiting to use the Ambassador Bridge were backed up for miles on I-75, stacked up on the overpass over the smoky and smelly Rouge.

This couldn’t be helped. The eighty-year-old, privately owned Ambassador was the only alternative. Technically, that bridge is not supposed to allow trucks carrying hazardous materials to cross.

But Ambassador Bridge management said they were waving that rule for the duration of the emergency. Given the situation, it is hard to to see what else they could do. For there simply is no backup.

After this, it ought to be very clear that we need another bridge, right now. The bad weather that closed the Blue Water Bridge wasn’t a one-time anomaly. This is what happens in winter in Canada, a lot.

Truck traffic is going to steadily get heavier and heavier, too. According to the Journal of Commerce Online, truck traffic over the Ambassador Bridge is up 18 percent this year. Traffic over the Blue Water Bridge is up 9 percent. It’s up more than ten percent in Buffalo.

Everyone knows we need a new bridge, and right now, there’s a shovel-ready project ready to go: The Detroit International River Crossing bridge, which would be built about two miles south of the Ambassador Bridge. As I’ve noted many times before, virtually everyone wants this backup span except two groups of people.

The Moroun family, who own the Ambassador Bridge, and don’t want anyone infringing on their monopoly, and the leadership of the Michigan state senate, many of whose members have taken Moroun money in the form of campaign or other contributions.

Earlier this month, Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop once again refused to allow a vote on a new bridge.

Some members questioned whether a new bridge is really necessary. Others said if a new bridge is to be built, let Moroun build another private one with his money, as he has indicated he wants to do.

But Canada has flatly said that’s something it will not allow, because of reasons involving highway congestion and environmental factors. Already, people on both sides of the border, including State Representative Rashida Tlaib, have complained about truck exhaust.

Canada wants the DRIC bridge, and that nation’s transportation minister went to Lansing this week to again reaffirm that Canada will cover Michigan’s costs of building the bridge.

Michigan‘s Legislature is back in session today to clean up a bunch of mainly procedural issues. Many of the lawmakers resent being there, and want to start their holiday.

Yet as futile as what I am about to say may be, this would be a golden opportunity to hear the wakeup call this storm has sent, and authorize moving forward on a new bridge.

Otherwise, eventually, our economy is going to suffer. And Michigan’s had enough of that in the last ten years to last a lifetime.

Essay: Fixing Our Courts - 12.14.10

There’s been increasing concern about the reputation of the judicial system in this state. Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry says some very high-powered judges are trying to do something about it.

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Marilyn Kelly, who is now Chief Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court, has given her life to Michigan’s legal system.

Now in her last term on the bench, she doesn’t like a lot of what she has been seeing lately. Besides deciding cases, Michigan’s Supreme Court is charged with overseeing all the other courts.

And she fears that the public is losing respect for the judiciary, in part because of the way judges are chosen. Especially higher-level judges, those who sit on appellate and supreme courts.

“In this last year millions were spent to tear down candidates for the judiciary, to portray them as unfit for office,” she told me yesterday afternoon. “Much of this money is unaccounted for -- nobody knows who gave it. That has to have a negative effect,” on how judges are seen by the public, she added. No kidding.

This has been bothering her for some time, and she’s not alone. Justice Kelly is a Democrat, but one very distinguished Republican jurist agrees with her: Retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman ever to sit on the nation’s highest court. “People see judges running for election and begin to think of them as just politicians in robes,“ Justice O’Connor said in a letter released today. Worse, judicial candidates have to raise campaign funds, as she observed, “most often from the lawyers and litigants who then appear before the judges.”

She added, with admirable self-restraint, “that certainly presents a challenge to your judiciary in this state.”

Well, at last someone is trying to do something about it. Chief Justice Kelly and a senior federal appeallate judge, James Ryan, have put together a Michigan Judicial Selection Task Force.

They’ve gotten Justice O’Connor to serve as honorary chair -- and have recruited two dozen of Michigan’s most distinguished citizens to serve on it, most, but not all of whom are lawyers.

They intend to hold hearings, Justice Kelly told me, some possibly public, others not, and then produce a report by the end of next year. After that, they don’t intend to just let it sit on a shelf.

“We’ll have to see what we come up with,‘ Justice Kelly told me, “but I anticipate that some of what we recommend may require amending the state constitution. We may be able to accomplish other things through legislation.”

The recommendations may not all be unanimous. “I imagine we’ll strive for consensus, but there’s nothing wrong with a good solid minority report,” she said. “Really, when you test ideas against each other it tends to make them stronger and better,” she said.

Rich Robinson, who runs the non-partisan, non-profit Michigan Campaign Finance Network, is an enthusiastic supporter of their idea He told me last night that more than $9.5 million was spent on judicial races in Michigan this year. Most of it, anonymously.

“Imagine if airlines sponsored anonymous ads saying their competitors are unsafe. It would destroy an industry in no time,” Robinson said. Justices Kelly, Ryan and O’Connor don’t want that happening to our legal system. Which is why they’re establishing the task force. I think we’re going to learn some very interesting things about justice in Michigan.

And in the end, maybe even make it a little better.

Essay: The Cost of the Governor's Spouse - 12.13.10

On New Year's Day, Michigan will no longer have a First Gentleman, but a First Lady. Michigan Radio's Political Analyst Jack Lessenberry wants to know if it makes sense to have gubernatorial spouses cost the state money.

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I don’t know very much about Governor-elect Rick Snyder’s wife, other than that her name is Sue. And that’s just fine with me.

That’s not because I have anything against Mrs. Snyder.

From what I’ve read, she is a pleasant woman who has had three children with Michigan’s soon-to-be chief executive, and who was the first to suggest that her husband ought to run for governor.

I wish her the best. But her husband is the politician, not her. She didn’t run for office. The voters did not elect Sue Snyder to anything. She has a right to privacy.

But by the same token, I don‘t think the deficit-ridden citizens of Michigan ought to pay for her to have a staff of assistants. Now, I can see having someone to help Sue Snyder answer her mail. And I can see her having an assistant, maybe a driver, if she represents her husband at some state function.

However, our governors aren’t royalty.

We treat the spouse of the President of the United States as something more than a normal civilian, because in our system the President is both head of government, like the prime minister in Great Britain, and head of state, like a Queen or King.

But our nation has no hereditary aristocracy, and the wife or husband of a state governor isn’t nobility.

This was brought to my attention, by the way, three years ago by Leon Drolet. He‘s the man who drives around pulling a pink fiberglass pig, to symbolize the high cost of government. Three years ago, he reported on his blog that the governor’s spouse, who we call the First Gentleman, had a state-paid staff of three assistants, one of whom he said got a six-figure salary.

However, Drolet was unable to find out exactly what the total cost to the taxpayers was. That’s because, he was told, the Governor’s office is exempt from having to tell us.

Under our Freedom of Information Act, citizens have the right to request any government documents and report on them, and on what any level of government is doing, which only a few small exceptions. But in Michigan, the governor’s office, the legislature and the Supreme Court are exempt from FOIA.

Mr. Drolet wrote to the governor, asking that she disclose the cost of the First Gentleman’s staff. He seems never to have gotten an answer. Now, Drolet is a Republican. I am sure he didn‘t mind trying to embarrass a governor who is a Democrat. But that doesn’t mean his broader point is wrong. Two or three years ago, the First Gentleman came to have lunch with me in Ann Arbor.

Dan Mulhern had a driver who was being paid by the state. Now -- isn’t this a bit silly? The governor perhaps needs a driver, so she can transact state business while she drives.

But the governor’s husband? There’s an absurdity factor here. Frankly, I hope Sue Snyder forgoes the trappings of mock nobility, and does not keep a taxpayer-funded office in the capital.

If she does that, we might not think of her as Michigan’s designated “first lady.“ But she will have set an example as a classy grownup with a sense of proportion. Which we may need, even more.

Essay: Rays of Hope 12.10.10

Many people have been disillusioned by our political polarization and lack of cooperation. But Michigan Radio’s Political Analyst Jack Lessenberry sees some hope in those still too young to vote.

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We‘re in the middle of the holiday season, and in many ways, these aren’t terribly festive or inspiring times. We haven’t shaken off the effects of the Great Recession. Most of us know people who are out of work, in a time when there are too few jobs to be had.

We haven’t seen a lot of cooperation or willingness to work together from either our state or national governments. However, I was inspired by something this week. The American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan ran a high school essay contest.

Students were asked to read Emma Lazarus’s poem on the Statue of Liberty, the one that includes the famous line, “give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to break free.”

Then, they were to write about how their experiences as a part of this melting pot had defined their American identity.

The contest was sponsored by a friend of Rabbi Sherwin Wine, a humanist and community leader in the Detroit area who was tragically killed in a car accident in Morocco three years ago.

I was a friend of the rabbi, and since I supposedly know something about writing, I was asked to be the final judge. Frankly, I wasn’t too optimistic. This is a busy time of year, and for many students, reading and writing aren’t top priorities.

But I have to say, I was blown away. The ACLU asked me to pick the best two. But four were so good I insisted they honor all their authors. When I judged them, I didn’t know who the writers were. But when I met the students, I had a pleasant surprise.

The winners included a girl of Irish ancestry named Oona, and an African-American star basketball player. Plus a Muslim girl from Pakistan who intends to become a brain surgeon, and a Hindu girl who wants to be an attorney fighting for civil rights.

That young woman wrote “My differences have not made me feel like I don’t belong to this nation -- they have made me feel like an important addition to this melting pot. I think my differences make me feel even more American than I would feel if I were not an immigrant.”

Her Pakistani counterpart wrote about third grade classmates who told her September 11 “was caused by your kind.” Gradually, she realized that she could still be a proud and open Muslim because this was America: “Islam has made me who I am today, and the Bill of Rights helps protect that identity.”

The African-American young man wrote candidly that he still lives in a nation where all is still far from equal -- but added “my American identity is diverse, frustrated, proud -- and still evolving.

The most lyrical essay was that of the girl named Oona, who attends a high school with students whose native languages include Chinese, Arabic, Japanese and German.

She wrote: “We are America’s melting pot, the true national treasure. Who would have supposed this “wretched refuse would become the ones who would shape our past and dictate our future?”

“But they have.” This nation will belong to her generation before long. And I think that they just may do a better job with it than those of us who came before.

Essay: Michigan Power - 12.9.10

The Republican takeover of the U.S. House of Representatives means two Michigan Congressmen will be newly powerful for the first time. Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry is thinking about that.

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Who are Michigan’s most powerful people in Washington? For decades, the same names have come to mind. First, Dearborn’s John Dingell, the longest-serving congressman in history.

For many years, Dingell was either the chair, or ranking Democrat, on the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee. Then come the Levins. Younger brother Carl is chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Older brother Sandy this year became the chair of the House Ways and Means Committee.

Then there is John Conyers, who has chaired the House Judiciary Committee for the last four years. These men are icons.

But they are aging icons, and when the Republicans take over the House next month, Conyers, Dingell and Sandy Levin will lose power and status, because they will be in the minority.

But Michigan will have two newly powerful representatives in key positions, men who are far less well known statewide -- but whom we ought to get to know better.

They are Congressman Dave Camp of Midland, who is about to replace Sandy Levin as chair of Ways and Means, and his fellow Republican Fred Upton, who will chair the Energy and Technology Committee. They are different from the leaders we’re used to in a number of ways. They are Republicans, of course.

And they’re from outstate Michigan, rather than the Detroit area. Upton’s from St. Joseph in the southwest corner; Camp from Midland, whose district sprawls across the middle of the lower peninsula. Both men are far more conservative than the Levins and Dingells, though Upton has had problems with fellow Republicans who have worried that he isn’t conservative enough.

And they are much younger. Both Camp and Upton are fifty-seven. If that doesn’t exactly sound like a youth movement, consider that they are easily young enough to be Dingell, Conyers or Dale Kildee’s sons.

Put another way, Camp and Upton might easily still be in Congress fifteen years from now. The Democratic leaders we’ve grown up with aren’t going to be.

Dave Camp, the new head of Energy, has been more of a workhorse than a show horse since arriving in Washington twenty years ago. He’s a social conservative, but has also worked hard to make it easier to adopt children from other nations, and has a reputation for helping put together compromises behind the scenes.

He also pushed though a bill to protect Michigan’s lighthouses. Fred Upton, like his district, isn’t quite as conservative as Camp; he has been a supporter of embryonic stem cell research, for example. He also has been a moderate on issues like climate change and has favored limiting automatic weapons.

But he may owe his energy chairmanship to this year’s oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. The man who would have been chair, Joe Barton, shot himself in the foot by bizarrely apologizing to British Petroleum because they were being criticized over the oil spill.

The Rush Limbaughs and Glenn Becks don’t like Upton, but he doesn’t seem troubled by that. It may be a while before we know much about what either man may be able to do for Michigan or the nation. But we do know this: They are going to be worth watching in the months and years ahead.