Gretchen Whitmer will take office on New Year’s Day, having pledged to fix the “damn roads,” as she has said, and improve education. She will have Democratic colleagues in the two other main statewide posts, Attorney General and Secretary of State.
That’s something the last Democratic governor never had. But her party failed to win either house of the legislature, though they made gains in both. So there’s a big question as to how she expects to get things done and her agenda passed.
The governor-elect says her many years in the legislature taught her how to work constructively with members of the opposition party, meaning the Republicans.
But we’ll just have to wait and see. There’s also a ticking time bomb in that a road repair budget that was passed some time ago is scheduled to soon start carving $600 million a year out of the cash-strapped general fund.
That would seem to hint at further cuts to things like education and child care, which is the opposite of what Whitmer wants. You can probably expect some major battles ahead.
How they will turn out, none can say. But here’s something we do know. The next time the state senate is up for election, in 2022, it will be a very different ballgame, thanks in large part to the passage of Proposal 2, the anti-gerrymandering amendment.
Every state has to draw new district lines based on population shifts every ten years. The U.S. Census will count all of us a year from April. Lansing will get the results towards the end of 2020 or the beginning of 2021, and then, a whole new set of boundaries for legislative and congressional seats will have to be drawn in time for the 2022 elections.
But this time, instead of the legislature doing it, a new bipartisan and nonpartisan panel of four Republicans, four Democrats and five independents will draw the new lines. That should lead to fairer and more sensible districts, made up of people who have things in common.
Had districts like that been in place yesterday, Democrats probably would have taken both houses of the legislature yesterday. Instead, now we will see whether Governor Whitmer can give us bipartisanship, or whether we are doomed to Granholm-era gridlock.
I have a hunch that Whitmer may actually be more successful. First, we need to see what happens in what may well be a frenetic lame-duck session between now and the end of the year.
Republicans will attempt to pass all sorts of bills before they lose the pen of a friendly governor who they can count on to sign them. Governor Rick Snyder is going to be trying to cement his deal with Enbridge to put Line 5 the oil-carrying pipeline under the Straits of Mackinac, in a concrete tunnel, ownership of which would then be turned over to the Mackinac Bridge Authority, many of whose members don’t want anything to do with it.
They also know that Attorney General-elect Dana Nessel, whose manner is often not conciliatory, will try to do anything in her power to shut down Line 5 the day she takes office. You can expect big-time fireworks indeed.
There is some good news in that turnout was considerably higher in Michigan this year, despite the rain. People genuinely care about their government, it seems.
Now, we will find out if the new government they elected cares about them –and if has the ability to improve their lives and get things done.
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