Jack Lessenberry from Michigan Radio

Like most people, I haven't paid a lot of attention to Brian Calley, Michigan's lieutenant governor. Generally speaking, there's a quiet understanding that lieutenant governors are standby equipment whose job is to stay out of the limelight. They break ties on important legislation before the senate, represent the governor at all sorts of second-tier functions, and preside over the state when the governor is off on trade missions. Calley, who is 39 but looks younger, is even more invisible than most. Pretty much his only noticeable contribution over the last five years has been to successfully push insurance companies to cover children's autism spectrum disorder expenses; Calley has a daughter with autism. There has been speculation that Calley himself may run for governor in two years, though many think he'd have a hard time winning the nomination. Unfortunately, on Thursday the lieutenant governor gave an interview to the Gongwer news service which suggests he has no real grasp of the fundamental premise of American government. Calley set out to defend Donald Trump, who next month will officially become the Republican Party's nominee for President. That in itself is somewhat controversial, since many responsible Republicans, including Michigan's governor and both surviving former GOP presidents are neither endorsing nor defending Trump. Calley, however, is all in. Early in the interview, he made the hilarious assertion that the national media has "not been subjecting Hillary Clinton to the same type of scrutiny" as they have been Donald Trump. There probably have never been two more investigated candidates for any office than Bill and Hillary Clinton. The national media were running intensive investigations of them before Calley was fifteen years old. That's just politics, however, and whining about the media picking on his candidate could be chalked up as traditional hyperbole. Except for something else our lieutenant governor said: "The next president will decide whether our Bill of Rights remains as it has been understood to be all this time," Calley told a reporter. Well, sorry, but an answer like that should cause you to flunk high school civics. The President, whoever he or she is, doesn't decide what the Bill of Rights means. That's would make this country a dictatorship. The Bill of Rights is just that – permanent guaranteed rights subject to legal interpretation only by the United States Supreme Court. That's the nature of constitutional government. Now, there is something different about Donald Trump, something pointed out by National Public Radio's Bob Garfield. He is not a traditional candidate in that he proudly flaunts his ignorance of how government works. Various analyses have shown that the vast majority of his statements are lies. He has demonstrated his contempt for the First Amendment by banning some news organizations from his rallies, and threatening to "open up the libel laws" so he could sue people he doesn't like. Garfield, the co-host of NPR's program On the Media, has argued that failing to expose the nature of this candidate and his campaign is serious journalistic malpractice. That was the view of Edward R. Murrow, who refused to go along with merely presenting the lies and smears of Senator Joe McCarthy as unchallenged fact. He knew that journalism is more than stenography, and essential for preserving democracy. That's something our lieutenant governor needs to learn. Jack Lessenberry is Michigan Radio's political analyst. Views expressed in his essays are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Michigan Radio, its management or the station licensee, The University of Michigan.

They said goodbye to Gordie Howe yesterday, after funeral ceremonies that seemed more appropriate for a former head of state than a hockey player. Howe was more than a mere athlete, of course; he was a touchstone; a link to our history. He was a memory of consistency and class, of a time when players stayed with one team most or all of their careers, before steroid scandals and when Detroit was one of the largest and richest cities in the world. Part of all this was baby boomers and those older mourning a bygone era and their own pasts. But what about the ultimate tribute to this man, the Gordie Howe International Bridge over the Detroit River? Gordie himself was still well enough and lucid enough to appreciate it when they told him the new bridge would be named after him as a symbol of both nations. Yet as he was laid to rest this week, we suddenly noticed that nothing seemed to be happening with the new crossing. By this time, I had fully expected shovels would be in the ground and earth-moving equipment crawling over the approaches in both countries like a swarm of insects. But all is quiet. Canada hasn't even selected a private partner to build that bridge. For years, we've been told that the new bridge should be open to traffic by 2020, but it seems increasingly clear that there's no way that's going to happen. Governor Rick Snyder was asked about this Wednesday, when he held a press conference with his opposite number Kathleen Wynne, the premier of Ontario. Both parties offered bland reassurances that all was well, though they began to back away from saying the bridge would be done on time. "We're willing to do whatever we can to make this happen," Ontario's leader said. "I believe we're on a positive path," the governor blandly echoed. But the truth seems to be that things appear to be either stalled or moving at a crawl. Land acquisition on the Michigan side is still far from complete. What matters more is what is happening in Canada, which is essentially paying for the entire bridge. Mark Butler, the spokesman for the entity overseeing the project, the Windsor-Detroit Bridge Authority, told a reporter earlier this week that we could ask companies who want to build the bridge to submit their bids in "the near future," a process that will take months. Which means no shovels in the ground this year. "Extremely complicated," were the words Butler used for both the procurement process and building the bridge itself. But what's really behind this delay? Chris Vander Doelen, a savvy longtime columnist for the Windsor Star newspaper, thinks national Canadian politics are involved. Conservative Stephen Harper, a huge backer of the bridge, was defeated by Justin Trudeau and the Liberals last fall. Vander Doelen notes "The federal Liberals have always been tight with Moroun, whose Ambassador Bridge group of companies (has) supported the party," he wrote Tuesday. He thinks perhaps Ottawa is throwing the Ambassador Bridge owner a financial bone by delaying the bridge that would compete with his as long as possible. For the sake of our economy, I hope he is wrong. But I'm beginning to worry that he's not. Jack Lessenberry is Michigan Radio's political analyst. Views expressed in his essays are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Michigan Radio, its management or the station licensee, The University of Michigan.

If you don't like being on the road, don't run for Congress in Michigan's First Congressional District. It is geographically huge, because so few people live up there. The district spans the entire Upper Peninsula, and about the top quarter of the Northern Lower Peninsula. That amounts to 44 percent of Michigan's total land area. That's two and a half times the entire state of Massachusetts – and it includes only about 700,000 people. This year, it is shaping up to be Michigan's hottest congressional race – and may finally make or break Democrat Lon Johnson's political career. Michigan currently has nine Republican congressmen and five Democrats. The district boundaries have been skillfully drawn to give Republicans an absolute lock on six seats. All five Democratic seats are entirely safe, which leaves only three districts, all now held by Republicans, which could conceivably change hands. Democrats self-destructed in one of these, the Eighth, when the Hollywood actress they recruited turned out to be a hopelessly flawed candidate. Gretchen Driskell may give Congressman Tim Walberg a battle in south-central Michigan. But the First District is entirely open, since after waffling, Dan Benishek decided to keep a pledge to retire after three terms. This district leans Republican, but Bart Stupak, a conservative Democrat from the UP, held it easily for eighteen years before retiring in 2010. Benishek very nearly lost his seat four years ago. Now there's a battle in both parties to win the nominations to run for Congress in the primary August 2nd. It's especially hot on the Republican side, where former State Senator Jason Allen of Traverse City is fighting against current State Senator Tom Casperson of Escanaba. There's a sleeper candidate too – a retired three-star U.S. Marine general named Jack Bergman, who now lives in the western UP, and who says "Marines come to win." On the Democratic side, Lon Johnson, the former state party chair, is the favorite, though he first has the awkward task of beating the man he originally recruited to run in this district, two years ago, retired Kalkaska sheriff Jerry Cannon. Cannon, who lost last time, is bitter that Johnson has pulled the rug out from under him, but there are few signs that Cannon is raising the kind of money needed to be competitive in either the primary or the general election. But whether Johnson can win in November isn't clear. Four years ago, Johnson, now 44, tried to win a state house seat in Kalkaska, but lost despite outspending his opponent. He then served a little over two years as state party chair, to mixed reviews. Though his candidate for governor gave Rick Snyder a close race, he lost. Johnson also spent heavily on a scheme to boost turnout via absentee ballots, which failed. This year, however, he has raised far more cash and has more on hand than any of his opponents. He's already bought lots of TV ad time for the fall, and is campaigning like a dervish, living in and campaigning from a 1985 GMC Motorhome he recently bought. Opponents say he's a carpetbagger. But Johnson argues his considerable connections will enable him to do more for the district in terms of attracting jobs and rebuilding infrastructure. This race will be one to watch right down to Election Day. Jack Lessenberry is Michigan Radio's political analyst. Views expressed in his essays are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Michigan Radio, its management or the station licensee, The University of Michigan.

For many years I've predicted, so far incorrectly, that one of these years the Libertarian Party would achieve a breakthrough on the national political scene. Not that they would elect a president, but that they would become a serious force to be reckoned with. After all, the Libertarians have a message that ought to resonate with both the millennials and many of us aging, self-obsessed baby boomers. They say you should be able to do whatever you want in your private life. Smoke pot, have sex with consenting adults of whatever flavor you fancy — that should be none of the government's business. But except for some minimal functions like national defense, don't expect the government to be the nanny state that provides for you. Libertarians say you'd pay a lot less in taxes if they were in charge, and get absolutely no wars unless this nation were attacked. That's a philosophy tailor-made to appeal to any fairly affluent 20-something who has read The Fountainhead. But for some reason, the Libertarians have never really managed to be taken seriously. Oh, they've elected a state legislator here and there. The Michigan Libertarian Party proudly brags they have city council members in South Haven and Hazel Park, but that's about as successful as they've got. Part of the problem is that Libertarians are often seen as, well, one bubble off plumb, as a carpenter I know might say. Take James Weeks, a Libertarian candidate for Livingston County sheriff. He won national notice last month at the party's convention in Florida, but not for his eloquence. Weeks stripped his clothes off at the podium and did a little dance, wearing only a thong. Unfortunately, as Detroit's Metro Times put it, he has "an unconventional body type for a strip-tease performer." This did not help the party's overall image. Nevertheless, there are signs the Libertarians may do better this year than ever before. Michigan was one of only two states where they weren't on the ballot last time. This year they are, and the party seems on course to winning ballot access on all 50 states. Flying pretty much under the radar, former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson four years ago became the first Libertarian presidential candidate to get more than a million votes. This year, Johnson is running again, this time with William Weld, a former liberal Republican governor of Massachusetts as his running mate. They are running as high as 11 percent in some national polls, and Johnson's goal is to get that up to 15 percent, which would mean he'd be included in televised debates. That's unlikely to happen. But with this year's deep dissatisfaction with Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, I wouldn't be surprised to see the Libertarians get five million votes or more. The conventional wisdom is that they will damage Trump, though Johnson himself thinks he may take more votes from Clinton. Even ten percent wouldn't be enough to establish them as a legitimate political party; that would take a lot of victories for lower level offices. Yet this is a year when the Libertarians may finally have a chance to get the nation to take their views seriously. Provided, that they keep their pants on. Jack Lessenberry is Michigan Radio's political analyst. Views expressed in his essays are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Michigan Radio, its management or the station licensee, The University of Michigan.

State Senator David Knezek, a 29-year-old Democrat from Dearborn, has the kind of background most young politicians would envy. His dad was a cop; his mother, a school lunch lady. He got out of high school, walked into a U.S. Marine recruiting station, and ended up doing two tours of duty in Iraq, with a sniper platoon. He was promoted to sergeant. He got out of the service, and promptly earned a degree in political science at the U of M Dearborn. A month before he got his degree, he was elected to the state house of representatives. Two years later, in 2014, he was elected by a landslide to the state senate. Today, he's still two months from his 30th birthday. But he is no longer thrilled with the way things are going. Last week, when the legislature rammed through a package that is more likely to destroy the Detroit Public School system than save it, he told Michigan Radio's Cynthia Canty, "I have never been as ashamed to be a legislator as I am today." Then, Sunday, after the bloodiest mass slaying in American history, Knezek posted a long and agonizing cry on Facebook. He said he was deeply shaken by the Orlando massacre. "I carried a gun for years in the military. I had extensive training in how and when to use it. I believe that I am a responsible gun owner because the Marine Corps properly trained me to be one." But in Michigan, he said, people can be certified after just a few hours training – "or they pay the right person off and they get the certification without ever having attended the class." "I don't know what the answer is to gun violence in this country," he says, before revealing that of course he does know: Enacting laws that, "if they can't stop EVERY gun death ... might stop SOME gun deaths." As he notes, "This morning's (alleged) shooter obtained his gun legally despite being the subject of two FBI investigations. Think about that for a moment. Why, after such convincing evidence to the contrary, would we ever allow someone like that to obtain a gun legally?" He knows that too many of us are resigned to thinking that no massacre, no matter how horrific, will ever break the power of the National Rifle Association, which for years has successfully prevented any meaningful law to protect citizens from gun violence from being enacted. Yet this young Marine refuses to give up. "Surely, level heads can come together and find some sort of solution," Knezek wrote. "Surely some progress can be made. Surely?" Or maybe not. As he wrote, "Politicians, people like me, will do one of two things now: Offer up prayers and do absolutely nothing in response, or renew their attacks on the entire Muslim community for the actions of a few. Both are irresponsible and dangerous paths to continue down." Yet we've been on these paths for years. An old politician told me last week that in his time, men in college dorms talked mostly about women and politics. Now, he said, they don't talk much about politics, because they no longer think anybody can change anything. That just might be the scariest news of all. Jack Lessenberry is Michigan Radio's political analyst. Views expressed in his essays are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Michigan Radio, its management or the station licensee, The University of Michigan.

Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan was as angry as I've ever seen him late last week. For months, members of both parties in the state senate had worked with the governor to forge a rare bipartisan compromise to save Detroit Public Schools. They came up with a figure needed to wipe out the debt and manage transition costs, and agreed to establish a Detroit Education Commission that would decide where any new schools, conventional or charter, could open. The idea was to maintain balance and not have destructive competition in some areas while leaving other areas underserved. But last week, the strident partisan ideologues who run the state house of representatives demonstrated their complete contempt for compromise and bipartisanship, as well as for Detroit and its children. Led by Speaker of the House Kevin Cotter, they rammed through a bill that didn't provide anything like enough money to allow the schools to make it. The Republican house bill also allows uncertified teachers to be hired by DPS, and is far more interested in punishing teachers and administrators for striking than in making sure kids can learn. And house Republicans, many of whom have been financially supported by the charter school lobby, refused to allow any restraint on the crabgrass-like spread of charter schools. Their bill was so blatantly horrible Detroit Free Press columnist Stephen Henderson said "we really ought to round up the lawmakers who took money to protect and perpetuate the failing charter-school experiment in Detroit, sew them into burlap sacks with rabid animals, and toss them into the Straits of Mackinac." Governor Rick Snyder, who had been a big supporter of the state senate plan, instantly signaled that, as usual, he would cave in and sign whatever was put on his desk. But this week, something astonishing happened. The state Senate fought back. Senator Goeff Hanson of Hart, the main architect of their bill, indicated he wouldn't accept what the House sent over, partly because it was angrily opposed by every legislator from Detroit, but also because it eliminated the Detroit Education Commission, which he has come to believe was necessary to give the schools a fighting chance. Senate Majority Leader Arlan Meekhof realized he had a major problem. The original senate plan passed only because it had strong support from most of the minority Democrats. Half the Republican caucus voted no, because they had no interest in helping Detroit schools. Now, any bill resembling what came out of the house will have no Democratic support. "We wanted it to be bipartisan," Meekhof said yesterday. He is trying to cobble votes together from Republicans who rejected the original plan, but might support this one because it demands no accountability from charters, all of which operate on taxpayer dollars. The house leadership ought to have been further embarrassed by the Senate Fiscal Agency's discovery that the numbers in the House package are essentially garbage, and that close to a hundred million more will be needed just to balance the books. The original sensible compromise crafted by the senate is what legislation used to look like before lawmaking was distorted by hyper-partisanship and term limits. The house bill is what we now tend to get instead. What happens next will say volumes about whether the system still can be made to work. Jack Lessenberry is Michigan Radio's political analyst. Views expressed in his essays are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Michigan Radio, its management or the station licensee, The University of Michigan.

Metropolitan Detroit is the nation's only major urban area with absolutely no mass transit from the airport either to the downtown or to major suburban areas. What may be even worse is that there is also no reliable and timely way for most people to get from their homes to their jobs in less than an hour, other than a private automobile. Since more than a quarter of adult Detroiters have no cars, there is no practical way for most of them to get out of poverty. That's why we were transfixed last year by the so-called "walking man," James Robertson, who walked more than 20 miles to and from work every day. This wasn't a stunt. It was the only way he could get there. But few have his work ethic or stamina. Well, this year we are finally going to have what will likely be the only chance we'll ever get at workable, regional, mass transit. The three-year-old Regional Transit Authority of Southeast Michigan, the RTA, unveiled its master plan last week in what was designed to be a coordinated one-two punch – first at Lawrence Technological University in Southfield, and then before all the movers and shakers three hundred miles away at the Mackinac Conference. Unfortunately, the announcement didn't get as much attention as it deserved. This may have been because a lot of attention was focused on the battle to save Detroit Public schools, and the fact that Flint is still such a large part of the conversation. That's unfortunate, because the RTA plan is not only brilliant and affordable, but could be a total economic game-changer for this region. I watched last week as a procession of speakers – black and white, Republican and Democrat, business and government – spoke up enthusiastically in favor of this plan. Voters in four major counties will be asked in November to agree to levy a new 1.2 mill property tax to pay for the RTA. If you rent, this will cost you nothing. If you own a house worth $200,000, it will cost you about $120 dollars a year. That is, by the way, a little less than I spent to take Metro car taxis to and from the airport twice last winter. If the RTA is built, within a few years I won't have to do that anymore. I'll just have to get to a nearby station and board a special bus which will in some ways be more like a train, and travel in its own special lane. Long before that, all sorts of new conventional bus routes would open up and the Detroit and suburban bus systems finally made to logically mesh together and with light rail systems. This is a wide-ranging, multi-platform, fully integrated coordinated transportation plan that is essential if we are to be competitive. The only question is whether the voters will be mature enough to see that. No major political figure opposes the RTA; even Oakland County Executive Brooks Patterson, a longtime mass transit foe, has said favorable things. But there are those who would oppose another dime of new taxes to save the planet from exploding, and this knee-jerk mentality is the biggest threat against our future economic progress. This might just be the most important thing on the ballot this year. Jack Lessenberry is Michigan Radio's political analyst. Views expressed in his essays are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Michigan Radio, its management or the station licensee, The University of Michigan.

Forty-eight years ago today, Robert Francis Kennedy died in Los Angeles, shot by a lunatic after he claimed victory in that year's California Democratic primary. Kennedy, in his final campaign in that truly horrible year, often stunned reporters by his willingness to speak truth to power. Nobody, whether they loved or hated him, ever had any doubt what RFK stood for. Which is something, regretfully, that can't be said for Governor Rick Snyder. I didn't attend last year's Mackinac Policy Conference, but I can tell you that the contrast was dramatic between the way Snyder came across this year and the way he was received in other years. The conference is put on by the Detroit Regional Chamber of Commerce, and those who attend it are a largely business-oriented community, overwhelmingly Republican. In past years, they've regarded Snyder with something between admiration and adoration, and he's come across like a conquering hero. That wasn't the case this year, when he opened Mackinac with a rambling, defensive and faintly embarrassing monologue. Any time a politician begins a speech by saying "the reports of my demise are well-overblown," you know they are in trouble. He went on to blame the media for having a pessimistic attitude about the disaster in Flint, and said that talking to them "was like talking to Eeyore," the gloomy donkey in the Winnie-the-Pooh books. While the governor did admit poisoning the city's water was "a major setback" he said "Let's not dwell on the past. Let's not dwell on what went wrong. Let's learn from it." And in a cringe-worthy moment, he asked those listening words to the effect of "haven't you had anything go wrong in your lives?" Well, I suspect it would be hard not to want Flint behind you, even though it isn't going away. And to the governor's credit, while he was asleep at the switch for far too long, he has belatedly stepped up and owned his responsibility. But what baffles me is if he has a moral bottom line. Most recently, Snyder fought for a comprehensive plan to save and reform Detroit Public Schools, a plan that had bipartisan support. Key to it was the creation of a Detroit Education Commission, which would determine where any new schools, conventional or charter, could open, and prevent horrible ones from defrauding students year after year. The senate passed it. Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan enthusiastically supported it. But the state house, many of whose members take money from the charter school lobby, sabotaged and destroyed school reform. They passed instead a bill which the Detroit Free Press editorial page editor succinctly called "bought and paid for garbage." You might expect the governor to angrily announce he would veto the bill, but that won't happen. The state house has sabotaged him again and again, and the governor hasn't stood up to them. And this week, he said he plans to work hard to reelect the Republican majority in the house, because, "we've had a great partnership there, and I think it would be great to continue that." Had Democrats held the house, his school and road packages would probably have passed. If you can make some sense of what our governor stands for, you are doing better than me. Jack Lessenberry is Michigan Radio's political analyst. Views expressed in his essays are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Michigan Radio, its management or the station licensee, The University of Michigan.

orty-eight years ago today, Robert Francis Kennedy died in Los Angeles, shot by a lunatic after he claimed victory in that year's California Democratic primary. Listen Listening...3:08 Jack Lessenberry for Monday June 6, 2016 Kennedy, in his final campaign in that truly horrible year, often stunned reporters by his willingness to speak truth to power. Nobody, whether they loved or hated him, ever had any doubt what RFK stood for. Which is something, regretfully, that can't be said for Governor Rick Snyder. I didn't attend last year's Mackinac Policy Conference, but I can tell you that the contrast was dramatic between the way Snyder came across this year and the way he was received in other years. The conference is put on by the Detroit Regional Chamber of Commerce, and those who attend it are a largely business-oriented community, overwhelmingly Republican. In past years, they've regarded Snyder with something between admiration and adoration, and he's come across like a conquering hero. That wasn't the case this year, when he opened Mackinac with a rambling, defensive and faintly embarrassing monologue. Any time a politician begins a speech by saying "the reports of my demise are well-overblown," you know they are in trouble. He went on to blame the media for having a pessimistic attitude about the disaster in Flint, and said that talking to them "was like talking to Eeyore," the gloomy donkey in the Winnie-the-Pooh books. While the governor did admit poisoning the city's water was "a major setback" he said "Let's not dwell on the past. Let's not dwell on what went wrong. Let's learn from it." And in a cringe-worthy moment, he asked those listening words to the effect of "haven't you had anything go wrong in your lives?" Well, I suspect it would be hard not to want Flint behind you, even though it isn't going away. And to the governor's credit, while he was asleep at the switch for far too long, he has belatedly stepped up and owned his responsibility. But what baffles me is if he has a moral bottom line. Most recently, Snyder fought for a comprehensive plan to save and reform Detroit Public Schools, a plan that had bipartisan support. Key to it was the creation of a Detroit Education Commission, which would determine where any new schools, conventional or charter, could open, and prevent horrible ones from defrauding students year after year. The senate passed it. Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan enthusiastically supported it. But the state house, many of whose members take money from the charter school lobby, sabotaged and destroyed school reform. They passed instead a bill which the Detroit Free Press editorial page editor succinctly called "bought and paid for garbage." You might expect the governor to angrily announce he would veto the bill, but that won't happen. The state house has sabotaged him again and again, and the governor hasn't stood up to them. And this week, he said he plans to work hard to reelect the Republican majority in the house, because, "we've had a great partnership there, and I think it would be great to continue that." Had Democrats held the house, his school and road packages would probably have passed. If you can make some sense of what our governor stands for, you are doing better than me. Jack Lessenberry is Michigan Radio's political analyst. Views expressed in his essays are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Michigan Radio, its management or the station licensee, The University of Michigan.

Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, who you might call the woman who saved the children of Flint, was only given fifteen minutes to talk at the Mackinac Policy Conference, a brief space sandwiched between other events Wednesday, called a "Mackinac Moment." But it was by far the most compelling session of the conference. She showed a picture of one of her young patients she recently examined, a child who had been drinking lead-contaminated water until quite recently. "Her mom asked me, 'Is she going to be okay?' What do I tell her mom? Do I tell her she has been drinking through a lead-painted straw? Do I tell her what science shows lead can do?" Hanna-Attisha's message was so powerful and her speaking style so compelling that it occurred to me that the candidates for governor ought to be grateful she has no interest in running for office. After her talk, I sat down with her for a few moments. Last September, Hanna-Attisha, a pediatrician at the Hurley Medical Center in Flint, put her career on the line, holding a press conference to announce Flint's children were being poisoned by lead in the water. She and her research were immediately denounced by the state. The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality called her research "irresponsible." But before long, she was vindicated, and some of those who sneered at her were fired. Ever since then, she's been fighting for the children. She does constant interviews, speeches, and still sees patients and runs a program – all without the benefit of a single handler or PR firm. I was curious to know how she did it. "Oh, in science we have this thing called cloning now – there are really about nine of me," she laughed. Her husband, Elliott Attisha, is also a physician who has been incredibly supportive of his wife's work. Her two daughters, who are 7 and 10, maybe not so much. "Ever since you became famous you are never home," the seven year old told her. "Can we get a cat?" "We're not getting a cat," her mom said. She then showed me a picture of the cat, an orange tabby named Simba, with her adorable daughter. These days, when Dr. Mona talks, the world listens. I was curious as to whether she planned to use her bully pulpit to speak out on other children's health issues. "Many people have asked me that," she told me, "but I want to stick on this issue right now." Flint's children, she told me, will need help for years and years, and she wants to make sure they aren't forgotten. Once a week, she is part of a group who meet with Governor Snyder, whose administration tried to destroy her credibility. "It was a little awkward at first, but it's fine now. I feel that he has owned his responsibility," she told me. "Besides," she added, "I'm going to have to get along with the next five governors, because that's how long this problem will last." By the way, Dr. Mona is an immigrant, born in Great Britain in 1976 to parents who fled Iraq. She has said that if Donald Trump was president, "I wouldn't be allowed here." Think what a tragedy that might have been. Jack Lessenberry is Michigan Radio's political analyst. Views expressed in his essays are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Michigan Radio, its management or the station licensee, The University of Michigan.

I ran into John Rakolta late Tuesday afternoon, as he was arriving on Mackinac Island for the Detroit Regional Chamber of Commerce's annual policy conference. Nobody could possibly question Rakolta's conservative credentials. He's raised millions for GOP candidates over the years. He was a national finance chair of Mitt Romney's first presidential campaign and was state finance director for Rick Snyder. He has a graduate degree from Harvard Business School, and is the CEO of Walbridge, the giant century-old construction firm that has been owned by his family for decades. Yet Rakolta is passionately committed to education and saving Detroit's schools. He not only supports Gov. Rick Snyder's plan to spend $715 million to give the schools a new start, he thinks that isn't enough. "There are 65,000 skilled jobs in Michigan right now that employers can't fill," he told me while walking up to the Grand Hotel. "Sixty-five thousand!" He added that our schools weren't turning out students with the skills to take them. Rakolta is a conservative, but one who both has a conscience and who believes we need to plan for the future. He came to Mackinac primarily to be on a panel this morning,"Kids Reap Rewards When Leaders Leave Comfort Zones to drive Detroit Schools Reform." Rakolta is something rare in Michigan today. He is a true leader, a man approaching 70 who has spent his entire life in the private sector, a conservative who recognizes the need for a public sector that can help prepare our kids for the future. I've never asked him, but perhaps that's because all four of his grandparents came from Romania, a country that was one of the worst hellholes on earth under Communism. They came to a place where public education helped them make it. Rakolta is not alone; there are other business leaders who recognize the need to save the schools. Some of this is likely enlightened self-interest; it is hard to plan for the future when you can't find workers who have basic math and literary skills. When I first attended a Mackinac Conference in 1988, there was a clear and obvious divide between business and labor; Republicans and Democrats. Today, you might say the split is more between the rational and irrational, between those honestly seeking solutions and those consumed with irrational ideologies, fears and hatreds. However, not many of the latter are at this rather expensive conference. Most of the attendees are undoubtedly Republicans, but my educated guess is that very few wanted Donald Trump. Nobody, in fact, is talking much about the presidential election. They are focused on Michigan. They know this has been a grim year. Flint has largely ruined the career of the governor who had always been hugely popular with this group. Additionally, it has sounded a clear warning about this state's aging infrastructure. Michigan has devolved in the last three decades from one of the nation's richest states to one among the poorest. Education is in crisis, not only in Detroit but statewide, income inequality is stark and growing, and our political system seems paralyzed. With that backdrop, those attending this conference are struggling to find a way forward for Michigan to have a future. We need to wish them luck. Jack Lessenberry is Michigan Radio's political analyst. Views expressed in his essays are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Michigan Radio, its management or the station licensee, The University of Michigan.

Richard T. Cole, who most people know as Rick, is a remarkable man who's had several careers, sometimes simultaneously. I was first aware of him when he was press secretary and chief of staff to Governor Jim Blanchard in the 1980s. Later, he was a senior executive at Blue Cross Blue Shield, and worked with Mike Duggan back when the man who became Detroit's mayor was overhauling the Detroit Medical Center. But Rick Cole is also an academic with a doctorate who was a professor and department chair at Michigan State. He did some serious writing and research on child abuse, and even served on a Federal Centers for Disease Control task force. And he contacted me the other day to alert me of a new epidemic of child trauma going on this year, something that was the focus of a study this spring by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The highly respected center, founded by the legendary Morris Dees, exists, as its motto says, "to fight hate and bigotry and seek justice for the most vulnerable members of our society." This year a whole lot of hate and bigotry have been on display in the current presidential campaign, most of it stemming from one candidate. The man who now seems certain to become the Republican presidential nominee has promised to deport every person who is in this country illegally, and to build a wall between the United States and Mexico. The Poverty Law Center did a massive study on how a phenomenon they call "The Trump Effect" was affecting teachers and students. They surveyed more than two thousand teachers and found the effects on them, their students, and their ability to learn was immense. In their words, "our report found that the campaign is producing an alarming level of fear and anxiety among children of color, and inflaming racial and ethnic tensions in the classroom." Many minority students, who don't exactly understand what "illegal alien" means, fear being deported. This is true not just of Hispanic children but many Muslim and black students as well. There has also been a noticeable increase in bullying and harassment of minority students. Many are scared. In Tennessee, the study found a frightened Latino kindergarten student who asks his teacher every day "Is the wall here yet?" In Oklahoma, an elementary school teacher said that his students were terrified and believed that a President Trump would deport them – "and none of them are Hispanic; all are African-American." Naturally, teaching in such an atmosphere of fear isn't easy. On top of that, teachers face an anguishing dilemma. Do they dare to speak out, and possibly risk losing their jobs for partisanship? According to the study, more teachers than ever are simply ignoring the campaign, whereas they traditionally would use it as a real-world civics lesson. Some teachers worry over whether to take a stand. One candidly said she would keep her mouth shut, because she needed her job. But a Michigan high school teacher who has never been political before said "I feel it's my duty to speak out against ignorance." Dramas like this are playing out in America's schools this spring. And as with the lead poisoning in Flint, the long-term effects may take years to assess. Jack Lessenberry is Michigan Radio's political analyst. Views expressed in his essays are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Michigan Radio, its management or the station licensee, The University of Michigan.

The governor and the legislature are currently fighting over how to rescue the Detroit public schools from financial collapse. There's a general recognition that this has to be done, if only because the consequences of not doing so would cost the state even more. The state constitution requires Michigan to provide an education for all children. Detroit's schools are half a billion dollars in debt and on the brink of not being able to pay their staff. The house and the senate are far apart on money, but the real issue dividing them is whether to put any restraint on the spread of charter schools. The governor wants to establish a Detroit Education Commission that would have a say in where any proposed new public school, conventional or charter, could locate, in order to prevent the sort of destructive competition that has left some areas dreadfully underserved. The state house, however, wants no restraints over the charters of any kind, and the Speaker has indicated that's more important to him than saving Detroit's schools. But beyond Detroit is an even more significant story that Michigan Radio reported last week, but too many news outlets basically ignored. The Education Trust-Midwest, a non-partisan research organization, released a report showing that Michigan schools were among the academically weakest in the nation, and getting worse. If you think this is only a minority-based problem, think again. In fact, in terms of fourth-grade reading, affluent Michigan fourth-graders are already 50th. This will have devastating consequences for our economic future, in a world where virtually all new good-paying jobs require education beyond high school. This may have come as a surprise to some lawmakers, but was anything but news to one mother I know. Rebecca Kavanagh is a Michigan native in her 40s with two kids in a fairly affluent Detroit suburban public high school. She and her husband moved back from San Diego in the year 2000 to raise their children in what was then regarded as a model school district. "We moved here for the schools – and now I am holding my breath hoping my kids get into college," she said. Her daughter, the oldest, has a 3.9 GPA, but Kavanagh said "she's not seeing the same high scores on her ACT and SATs – and yes, I do blame the schools for not preparing her." While the teachers focus on "teaching to the test," her parents, both graduates of Michigan State, worry their kids aren't being taught what they need for college readiness. "I know it didn't used to be like this," Rebecca said. "My mom was a teacher. I believed in Michigan's education system. And I'm not sure it can ever recover, honestly." The Education Trust report indicated recovery may be possible, but not through any quick fix. "We won't succeed with the one-off investments that Michigan has long tried," the report concludes. "It's going to take a series of interconnected changes in policy and practice, fueled by strategic investments over multiple years." That would mean no more robbing the schools to give businesses a quick, politically popular tax cut. It would mean a policy of putting our children and our future first, which is what responsible government should do. I'm not sure that any issue could be more important. Jack Lessenberry is Michigan Radio's political analyst. Views expressed in his essays are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Michigan Radio, its management or the station licensee, The University of Michigan.

I didn't grow up around a racetrack culture, but the ponies did affect my life. I had a rather irresponsible algebra teacher in high school, who was very fond of horse racing. I took Algebra I and II the last hour of the day. The teacher would put a bunch of problems on the board, tell us to solve them, and slip off to the track. We never reported him, and we all passed, though today I know about as much algebra as does my dog. Well, I know only slightly less about racing than I do about algebra. My knowledge was formed largely from watching the Kentucky Derby on TV, and movies like the Lemon Drop Kid. I did go to the Hazel Park Raceway once or twice years ago, but found it a seedy and depressing experience. The father of a friend, Detroit writer Dave Mesrey, actually dropped dead there. Back then, you placed a bet by going up to the window, just like in the movies, and plunking your two dollars or $10 or $20 on Fleabiscuit. I was also aware there were people called bookies who would illegally place bets for you if you couldn't make it to the track yourself. Well, I learned recently my knowledge was way behind the times. Horse racing has gone into a steep decline – possibly because casinos and lotteries and other forms of gambling are ubiquitous. Seventeen years ago there were nine racetracks in Michigan; now, there are just two – Hazel Park and Northville Downs. According to Lindsay VanHulle, reporting for Crain's Detroit Business and Bridge Magazine, virtually all the gambling revenue these days comes from betting not on live races, but on so-called simulcast races broadcast at the track. That would seem to me to take all the fun out of it, but now the racing industry wants to go a step further and have online betting, which they call by the sober term "advance deposit wagering." Basically, you could sit on your couch and bet the rent money on the ponies without ever having to go near a race track. Personally, I think that's an awful idea, and was pleased that a provision that would have allowed online betting was stripped from a bill now before the state senate. There is a general consensus that Michigan's horse racing statutes need to be updated, in part because of disagreements over how to split the simulcast revenue. But the tracks themselves say they need online betting if they are to survive. Long ago, I learned that virtually every thinking person has some issues on which he or she is both conservative and liberal. On gambling, I have the mentality of a Baptist preacher or a primitive Marxist. It is destructive, unproductive activity that ruins families and enriches some of the more unsavory elements in society. I recognize people have a right to do it, but we already make it very easy. Allowing gambling addicts to blow their paycheck on a cellphone bet on a horse race they will never see sounds like bad public policy to me. The race tracks say they'll eventually need this to survive. If that's the case, I think we need to ask whether they should. Jack Lessenberry is Michigan Radio's political analyst. Views expressed in his essays are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Michigan Radio, its management or the station licensee, The University of Michigan.

A long time ago, when VCRs were state of the art technology, Ronald Reagan became President, and his captains proclaimed a new economic philosophy: We'll give massive tax cuts to everyone, but especially corporations, and that will cause them to create millions more jobs. Formerly unemployed people will become productive taxpayers, and even though they pay lower tax rates, the revenue will come flowing in, and governments too will have more money than ever before. They adopted a Kennedy-era slogan, "a rising tide lifts all boats," and the revolution's sacred relic was a napkin on which economist Arthur Laffer had supposedly drawn a curve in 1974 showing how all this was supposed to work. Cut taxes, get more revenue. It was a great theory. In practice it resulted in record federal budget deficits, and the beginning of a massive transfer of wealth from the poorer half of the population to the richest few, a pattern that continues today. Most economists regarded the Laffer curve theory pretty much the way George Bush the first originally described it – "voodoo economics." Regardless, five years ago, a businessman named Rick Snyder got himself elected governor of Michigan, and tried a slightly crueler version of the same thing. Snyder economics involved a massive tax cuts for businesses and corporations, cuts to education, and the taxing of people's pensions. Fortunately for him, Michigan benefited from the national recovery. But the Snyder cuts never produced the jobs we were led to expect, and according to today's Detroit Free Press, the number of jobs created has actually dropped every year since the Snyder tax cuts took effect. And yesterday we learned that for this year and next, the expected rising tide has left us stranded in the mud. The state is projected to have almost half a billion dollars less than an over-optimistic revenue estimating forecast expected in January. If this were a lurid novel, you might call this "The Death of Rosy Scenario." This resulted in worry lest the legislature use it as an excuse to kill the effort to save Detroit Public Schools, or reduce the help available for stricken Flint. So far the governor's office indicates that neither is on his agenda, though things like the effort to prevent tooth decay in poor children may take a hit. But there is a solution, and it lies in a chance remark made by the state treasurer yesterday. He said part of the reason for the shortfall was that citizens were spending more on services and less on stuff. Bingo. If you sell me a length of copper pipe, I pay six present sales tax on it. If I pay you to come install that pipe, I pay no sales tax, and the state gets nothing. Why is this? Because times have changed, and our tax collection ideology hasn't. Back when the sales tax started in the 1930s, we were overwhelmingly a manufacturing state. We made and sold stuff. Now, the world has changed. We are primarily a service-driven economy. Not extending the sales tax to most services makes no more sense than not extending it to hybrid cars. The legislature could easily fix this, and save Rosy Scenario, just by passing a law. But that would sacrifice ideology for reality. So, don't hold your breath. Jack Lessenberry is Michigan Radio's political analyst. Views expressed in his essays are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Michigan Radio, its management or the station licensee, The University of Michigan.