Well, it’s the start of another week, and we have been getting a dose of freakish, bizarre winter weather across this state, from record snow in Marquette to the so-called bomb cyclone that pummeled southeastern Michigan.
Anyone who thinks spring is just around the corner probably lives in South Carolina. So how about some good news for a change?
Here it is: I suddenly realized that we may now have more reason to be optimistic about leadership in this state than at any time in many decades. And here’s why.
Yesterday, I was talking about how Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel defied the odds to win election to that office last year, and has shown herself since to be an energetic crusader for what she felt was in the public interest.
That’s all true – but what is even better is that she is not alone. The situation is slightly similar to the long-ago world of 1962, when a 37-year-old Frank Kelley was appointed attorney general by a 36-year old governor, John Swainson, who he had known since law school.
Kelley, who I later came to know extremely well, said those were heady times – it was a young man’s era, and a time when great things and sweeping change seemed possible in this state, even though Republicans, then as now, controlled the legislature .
That was in part because the nation also had a new young President, John F. Kennedy who was daring all America to reach out for a New Frontier.
It was indeed an exciting time. But it was cut tragically short in both Michigan and the entire nation. Michigan governors only served two-year-terms back then, and Swainson was defeated later that year by Republican George Romney.
Frank Kelley carried on the best he could to represent the interests of the people, starting environmental and consumer protection departments. But it would be twenty years before he again served with a Democratic governor. Michigan’s secretary of state back then, James Hare, hadn’t been much of a reformer, and was not eager to work with those who were.
Today, however, things are in a sense even more exciting in Michigan. The state’s three top leaders are experienced and highly educated women, all Democrats, all attorneys, all under 50, who so far seem to work well together as a team. Governor Gretchen Whitmer seems more than happy to call on Nessel for legal advice, and former Wayne State Law School Dean Jocelyn Benson is very likely the most qualified person to ever hold that job.
Naturally, they may well disagree on some issues eventually, but they seem to be colleagues, not rivals. True, they don’t have a supportive administration in Washington.
Chances are, doing the right thing will be easier for all of them if President Trump doesn’t notice. Republicans do still control both houses of Michigan’s legislature, and that is already presenting Whitmer, Nessel and Benson with some problems.
But there’s a very good change we may see more bipartisanship, for several reasons. First of all, outrageous partisan gerrymandering is about to end. Most state senators are first termers, who are likely to have to run for reelection in much more evenly divided districts next time.
House members have one more election under the old rules – unless the courts force their districts to be redrawn before next year. But in any event, Republican incumbents may be in peril because of the expected larger turn out in a presidential election year.
And some of the worst obstructionists in the legislature are gone, especially former State Senate Majority Leader Arlan Meekhof, who made no secret of his contempt for the public’s right to know or the idea that we should make it easier to vote.
This is our best chance in years to bring our state into the 21st century. We can’t afford to screw it up.
