Jack Lessenberry Essays and Interviews

Essay: Voting in Detroit - 11/2/06

Here’s how election nights in Michigan used to work in the old days. Most of the vote would come pouring in first from Detroit, which had machines and could count very quickly. Detroit was a big, brawling labor union town which delivered big majorities to the Democrats. Most of the rest of the state voted Republican. So the Detroit vote would come in, and then everyone waited to see if there were enough outstate Republican votes to overcome the big-city Democratic lead.

That’s changed a lot in recent years. Now Detroit is more Democratic than ever. But it is a lot smaller. And in recent times it hasn’t been reporting first, it has often reported last, for reasons unknown.

The city, indeed, no longer has the numbers it once did. In 1960, about 3.3 million Michiganders voted; about one out of every four of them lived in the city of Detroit. A similar number are expected to vote in Michigan next week. But the demographics have changed. 

This time, even if the most optimistic estimates come truep;, the total vote cast in Detroit will be less than ten percent of the statewide total; probably more like seven or eight percent.

Yet in a way it is as important as ever. That’s because it is so one-sided. In recent years, most Democrats have received close to unanimous support from the city. George W. Bush actually carried the rest of Michigan, twice. So did Dick Posthumus when he ran for governor four years ago.

But at the city line, things dramatically changed.  Al Gore and Jennifer Granholm each got 94 percent. John Kerry didn’t do as well. He got only 93 percent. But in all cases, it was more than enough to overcome the GOP lead.

But in some elections, the citizens had to wait well into the next day to find out how Detroit had voted, and to find out who won Michigan.

Janice Winfrey, Detroit’s new city clerk, has vowed to change all that.  She is a former math teacher with some background in administration. Last fall, she defeated a longtime incumbent city clerk.

That helped restore my faith in the system. Two years ago, I had received a letter in the mail from the previous Detroit City Clerk, urging me to vote in the 2004 presidential election. She sent me a letter that complained that I hadn’t voted in the city since 1988. Nothing wrong with the sentiment, but it was misplaced.

Yes, I hadn’t voted in Detroit. I have never voted in Detroit, because I don’t live there. I haven’t lived in Detroit since 1956, and I did not vote there then, because I was four years old.

Most baffling is that the letter was sent to my house. Which is in another city. How could she have expected me to vote legally in her city? Somehow I don’t think I’ll ever get an answer.

You just couldn’t make up some of this stuff.

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Interview: Janice Winfrey - 11/2/06

For years, elections in Detroit have been plagued with controversy and mechanical difficulties. Then last year, former math teacher Janice Winfrey defeated long-time incumbent city clerk Jackie Currie in a tremendous upset. Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry spoke with Janice Winfrey about the changes she’s been making.

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Interview: Mark Grebner - 11/1/06

Trying to figure out how people will vote on the various ballot proposals is sometimes trickier than polling for candidates.  That’s because many people don’t know how they are going to vote on them.  Mark Grebner is the president of the Practical Political Consulting and an Ingham County Commissioner.  Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry spoke with him.

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Essay: Curious Proposals - 11/1/06

The other day I talked to a prominent businessman about the proposals on Michigan’s ballot. This is a man who has been active in business and government in our state for many years.

When we came to the proposal on eminent domain, he told me he was against it. “The state has to have the right to take land for the public good, if a freeway or a new public building is needed,” he said.

“Well, this proposal wouldn’t change that,” I said. “It just says the state can’t force you to sell your land and give it to Wal-Mart, say.”

He thanked me. “I’m embarrassed,” he said. “I‘ve been setting up a new business and haven‘t really concentrated on these.”

When we hung up, I thought about what a farce the whole ballot proposal game has become. Most of the state‘s voters won‘t vote on these ballot proposals. Many of those who do will misunderstand them. Those who put these proposals on the ballot know that perfectly well. In fact, in many cases they want to fool the voters, as Mark Grebner, founder of the East Lansing base firm Practical Political Consulting, cheerfully confessed.

That’s why this morning I heard Kirk Gibson, a washed-up baseball player, urging voters to support dove hunting. The evildoers who would ban killing this bird of peace, he said, are actually secretly plotting to take away our right to do any hunting at all.

I turned the radio off at that point, but wouldn’t be surprised if he went on to say that the pro-Dove forces would next take all of our guns away, and then the legendary black helicopters would arrive to end the last vestiges of freedom in America.

That’s enough to make you want to knock off a couple doves on the way to the gym. Either that, or be secretly happy that Gibson is no longer coaching for the Detroit Tigers.

There’s something very wrong with packing a bunch of complex measures onto an already crowded state ballot and asking harried voters to decide whether to adopt them. That‘s no way to make responsible public policy. Consider this. Since the original Bill of Rights in 1791, there have been only 17 more amendments to the U.S. Constitution. The current Michigan Constitution was adopted in 1963, and has already been amended 27 times.

This year, there are three more proposed constitutional amendments. Pretty soon, there may be so many amendments that the entire document becomes unworkable, and many of the normal functions of the legislature will be paralyzed.

Here’s something else you may not know. Four years from now, the state’s voters will be asked to decide whether to have a new constitutional convention. I’ve always been against this idea before. Now, I am thinking the cart may be broken.

And it may be time to reinvent the wheel.          

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Essay: Curious Proposals - 11/1/06

The other day I talked to a prominent businessman about the proposals on Michigan’s ballot. This is a man who has been active in business and government in our state for many years.

When we came to the proposal on eminent domain, he told me he was against it. “The state has to have the right to take land for the public good, if a freeway or a new public building is needed,” he said.

“Well, this proposal wouldn’t change that,” I said. “It just says the state can’t force you to sell your land and give it to Wal-Mart, say.”

He thanked me. “I’m embarrassed,” he said. “I‘ve been setting up a new business and haven‘t really concentrated on these.”

When we hung up, I thought about what a farce the whole ballot proposal game has become. Most of the state‘s voters won‘t vote on these ballot proposals. Many of those who do will misunderstand them. Those who put these proposals on the ballot know that perfectly well. In fact, in many cases they want to fool the voters, as Mark Grebner, founder of the East Lansing base firm Practical Political Consulting, cheerfully confessed.

That’s why this morning I heard Kirk Gibson, a washed-up baseball player, urging voters to support dove hunting. The evildoers who would ban killing this bird of peace, he said, are actually secretly plotting to take away our right to do any hunting at all.

I turned the radio off at that point, but wouldn’t be surprised if he went on to say that the pro-Dove forces would next take all of our guns away, and then the legendary black helicopters would arrive to end the last vestiges of freedom in America.

That’s enough to make you want to knock off a couple doves on the way to the gym. Either that, or be secretly happy that Gibson is no longer coaching for the Detroit Tigers.

There’s something very wrong with packing a bunch of complex measures onto an already crowded state ballot and asking harried voters to decide whether to adopt them. That‘s no way to make responsible public policy. Consider this. Since the original Bill of Rights in 1791, there have been only 17 more amendments to the U.S. Constitution. The current Michigan Constitution was adopted in 1963, and has already been amended 27 times.

This year, there are three more proposed constitutional amendments. Pretty soon, there may be so many amendments that the entire document becomes unworkable, and many of the normal functions of the legislature will be paralyzed.

Here’s something else you may not know. Four years from now, the state’s voters will be asked to decide whether to have a new constitutional convention. I’ve always been against this idea before. Now, I am thinking the cart may be broken.

And it may be time to reinvent the wheel.          

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Essay: Electing the Supremes - 10/31/06

I have never been able to decide exactly how I feel about the way we choose judges in this state, which is by electing them. 

The average person doesn’t know what skills are needed on the bench. More importantly, most people don’t have the time needed to sort through the resumes and the qualifications of judicial candidates. A candidate for mayor can say, “vote for me and I’ll fix the streets.” Judicial candidates ethically can’t do that. So they are forced to use meaningless slogans like “Vote Jones for justice,” or “Judge White is just right.” 

Yet here’s the strongest argument for electing them: They may at some point be called on to judge … us. If I am going to be sent to the big house for a few years, I think my sentence should be passed by someone I had an opportunity to vote for – or against.

That seems more democratic than being sentenced by someone  appointed by a politician. If we have the right to face our accusers, we should also have a say in selecting those who might send us to jail.

But I can say that I totally oppose the way we select the justices for the Michigan Supreme Court, the highest court in our state.

Under the current rules, they are nominated by the political parties and are listed on the ballot as Republicans or Democrats.

That’s bad for a number of reasons. First of all, the Supreme Court is charged with supervising the entire state court system, as well as interpreting the laws in light of the Michigan Constitution.

Do you believe we should think in terms of partisan justice? I don’t, and I don’t think the framers of the current Michigan Constitution did either. But that document was written in 1961 and 1962, in an era before the country was as ideologically divided as it is now.

We now have a state supreme court that is more polarized than the U.S. Supreme Court – something that stands out constantly in their decisions and dissents. We have four partisan Republican justices and two Democrats. A seventh justice, Elizabeth Weaver, is also a Republican, but more independent.

And there is another problem. I also don’t think the framers realized that the political parties would use the state’s highest court as a retirement home for their washed-up politicians.

The Republicans put Robert Griffin on the state’s highest court after he was defeated for the U.S. Senate, and Jim Brickley after he lost a nomination for governor. Democrats did the same with Soapy Williams, after he lost a bid for the U.S. Senate, and with John Swainson, after he was defeated for re-election as governor.

We need two reforms. To start with, take the political party designation off judges’ names. And second, nominate only candidates who are judges, not politicians. If we are going to have a supreme court at all, we deserve to have one where justice really is supreme.

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Interview: John Lindstrom - 10/31/06

Election day is November 7th.  In addition to choosing politicians to represent us, we will also be electing a lot of judges, including two state supreme court justices.  Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry spoke with John Lindstrom of the Gongwer News Service.

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Essay: Voting in Detroit - 10/30/06

If you ever want proof that even the young Bobby Dylan was a true poet, listen to the song he wrote when civil rights leader Medgar Evers was ambushed and shot in the back on his front porch.

That was a huge event in the summer of 1963, a time when folk singers were in. Many wrote songs about the martyred Medgar Evers. Dylan did not. He wrote about the lower-class white man he presumed had killed him, a song he called “Only a Pawn in Their Game.” 

His song noted that no matter how badly the upper-classes exploited the poor whites, they could tell them “you’ve got more than the blacks, don’t complain.” And, Dylan might have added, when things went wrong, the poor whites could always blame the blacks for all their troubles, something very common since Reconstruction.

Today, our society may be less overtly racist. But it seems to me that we are worse than ever at refusing to take responsibility for our own actions.  I can say I am somewhat overweight, by the way, because restaurant portions are too large.

You really can’t blame me for eating too much and not exercising enough. You get the idea. So if I don’t get into the University of Michigan and some black kid does, it is clearly unfair. Especially if the other kid doesn’t have a better grade point than I do. (Never mind that he took a lot of physics courses in high school, and I took wood shop.)

Jennifer Gratz, the poster girl and titular leader of the forces seeking to outlaw affirmative action, strikes me as fairly typical of this kind of thinking. She was a fireman’s daughter, and a homecoming queen who had her heart set on the University of Michigan, but didn’t get immediately accepted. Some minority students did get in that year with slightly lower averages. Gratz never got over that.

She has been fighting affirmative action ever since. First she took it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, where she lost. Now, she is trying to outlaw affirmative action at the ballot box.

You certainly can’t say that she isn’t persistent. But ironically, she wasn’t persistent when it really mattered. Actually, she wasn’t rejected by the U of M. She was instead invited to put her name on a waiting list.

Everyone who was wait-listed and put their name on that year got in. There were, by the way, dozens of white students who had higher scores than Jennifer Gratz who also didn’t get accepted.

But she never put her name on the list. 

No, life isn’t fair.  If it were, there never would have been discrimination. If life was an equal playing field, Jennifer Gratz and I might both be dying of dysentery in the Central African Republic.

But I suspect a lot of people think the way she does. On election night, we’ll see if I am right.                                                                                                                                                                                          

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Interview: Michael Traugott - 10/30/06

Polls now show that the state is closely divided on Proposal 2, which would outlaw Affirmative Action for women and minorities in government hiring and university admissions. But otherwise reliable polls have sometimes been very unreliable in racially charged contests. University of Michigan Professor Michael Traugott has many years of experience in survey research.

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Essay: Helping Us Vote - 10/27/06

Here’s something to feel good about. Michigan has long had one of the cleanest and problem-free voting systems in the country.

And it’s getting even better. Everybody this fall will be voting on optical scan machines that leave an easily checked paper trail.

For all practical purposes, anyone in Michigan who wants an absentee ballot can get one. New equipment now makes it possible for virtually anyone, no matter how disabled, to preserve their privacy and vote by themselves, without any assistance.

And if you fall suddenly ill on Election Day, you can have somebody bring a ballot to the hospital.  That’s all good.

But here’s the distressing thing.  According to Chris Thomas, the state’s top election expert, less than half of Michigan’s registered voters are likely to vote in this election. That’s the case even though the state’s economy is universally agreed to be in deep crisis.

That’s the case even though control of Congress is at stake, and the ideological division between the parties is the greatest it has been since the New Deal. And that’s the case even though there are at least two major ballot proposals – affirmative action and education funding – which would have a major impact on our lives.

So if voters still aren’t sufficiently motivated to show up, do we really want to do much more to try and entice them?

Ideally, everyone should vote. But do we want people who are uninformed, ignorant, and who couldn’t care less deciding who should appoint our judges or how education should be funded? Someone close to me has a father who is gravely ill. Specialists are being consulted, but nobody is talking about giving the hospital custodial staff an equal vote on his treatment.

I have absolutely no problem with same-day registration. If you suddenly get interested in an election, I see no reason why you shouldn’t be allowed to cast your ballot.

On the other hand, I have some major problems with Oregon’s vote-by-mail system. I worry that it might enable a domineering spouse to forcibly dictate how their family members vote. I also worry that it might increase the potential for fraud.

What about early voting?  Part of me likes this idea a great deal. There are people who find it hard to get there on that particular day. Ironically, I have been one of them, especially when I was a reporter. Election Day was the hardest day for me to take time to stand in line.

Yet in a way, early voting is like opening your holiday presents early. And what if you vote Oct. 20 for Joe Blow, and then you learn on Oct. 30 that old Joe has been indicted for tax evasion?

You can’t take it back. I like my presents on Christmas, my World Series in October, and my elections the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. Standing in line never killed anyone, and I hope to see you at the polls.                                                 

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