LSJ Blogs: Derek Melot is Just Asking

Pure Michigan earns praise

Courtesy of the governor's office: "The award-winning Pure Michigan tourism campaign has received another accolade, this one from Forbes, naming it among the 10 all-time best travel campaigns. ... Forbes ranked the Pure Michigan campaign sixth best, saying, 'this campaign sells with its simple and universal message: that sometimes we all need to get away from life’s stresses and relax a bit.'  Clearly, the three judges agreed.  Ranking the campaigns were Peter Greenberg, travel journalist; Rudy Maxa, contributing editor with National Geographic Traveler magazine; and Tom Parsons, publisher of BestFares.com."

Congrats all around. And on the the most important point for state government: "For each dollar Michigan spent on out-of-state advertising from 2004 through 2008, new visits to Michigan stimulated by that advertising created more than $40 of spending at Michigan businesses and generated $2.86 in new state tax collections."

A prisoner list, of sorts, is on the horizon

A voice mail came in late Monday from corrections spokesman Russ Marlan, updating the situation with the Oakland County prosecutor’s lawsuit.

Marlan reported the Department of Corrections will be responding to Oakland Prosecutor Jessica Cooper’s second FOIA request for information on a list of potential prisoner releases. He said that the problem is that the Parole Board does not schedule out its interviews for an entire year, so DOC can’t provide such a list to Cooper.

That's a relief

State Rep. Mark Meadows' always-helpful newsletter let's us know that the people of Michigan are being protected from dire threats in 2009:

Prohibit Brass Knuckles

House Bill 4828 (POLIDORI), Passed:  109-1

Next: Sent to the Senate for Consideration

House Bill 4828 prohibits 'brass knuckles' and expands the definition of that term to include any device worn over the fist with the purpose of increasing the impact of a blow with the fist.  The devices are prohibited regardless of what they are made of.  Current law only prohibits metallic devices and not plastic ones."

Really? We have to worry about plastic brass knuckles? One presumes that anyone using such a device, brass or plastic, has committed other crimes such as assault. Can't we rely on an assault charge to lock up a goon?

Move along, nothing to see here

In recent weeks, I have seen plenty of school buses parked on Walnut Street west of the Capitol, waiting to pick up their little riders who were fresh from a tour of how state government works.

At least, that’s what some want you to believe ... that policies are made in legislative chambers after due deliberation and uplifting debate and all.

The reality is much less ... photogenic: “Michigan comes in last among the states for personal financial disclosure by public officials, according to a new report from the Center for Public Integrity. Michigan is one of only three states that has no law requiring public officials to file a statement of their personal financial interests. The Michigan House of Representatives passed HB 4381, which would mandate personal financial disclosure for State officials, earlier this legislative session but the Senate has not acted on the bill,” reports the Michigan Campaign Finance Network.

See the full report here, then ask yourself: What does Michigan know that so many other states do not about trusting to the good intentions of its state lawmakers?

Taking their time

Is it just me, or is the construction work on Allegan Street downtown taken an inordinate amount of time? The latest CSO construction newsletter says the underground work between Washington and Grand is done, but now the intersection of Allegan and Washington is going down.

I know, I know ... patience is the order of the day.

Where would spend cop dollars?

The Lansing area has been suffering under a surge of violent incidents in the last week, just as the politicians are arguing over law enforcement money at the Capitol. I want your opinion on a multiple choice question.

In light of these incidents, or just one ... say the 7-year-old girl shot and injured or the elderly man beaten near to death ... which category of law enforcement spending would make you feel safer?

Blue-light special on red-light cops

I didn’t know this, but I’m not surprised: Tim Egan’s blog today in the NY Times reports, “Numerous studies have found that robo-cams make intersections less safe. People panic knowing the camera is on them, trying to beat the recording click of their license plate. In Alexandria, Va., one study found that accidents increased 43 percent at intersections where cameras were used to enforce red lights.”

Solution: Tear down special legislative committee

For an obviously horrible idea, the Michigan State Police building project sure had a lot of friends at the Capitol -- at least in 2007.

Here’s the vote tally from the Joint Outlay Committee of the  Legislature:

Yes: Reps. Hood, Sak, Bennett, Gonzales, Lahti, Cheeks, Proos; Senators Jelinek, Cropsey, Hardiman, Switalski, Cherry, Clark-Coleman, Scott.

No: Reps. Caul; Senators Brown and Pappageorge

Didn’t vote: Reps. Shaffer and Booher; Sen. McManus.

My count shows that 14-3, with 3 abstentions. Not exactly close.

Also, you don’t land on this committee if you are somehow out of step with your colleagues. Leadership puts you on this committee.

I know Sen. Cameron Brown has been a long and vigorous critic of this project. His vote on the committee that day reflects it. The vote also reflects the fact that there was no widespread opposition to this project in the Legislature. The Legislature could have stopped it. We here at the LSJ argued for stopping it. They didn’t.

The same goes for the State Administrative Board, which is made up of top exec branch officials such as the governor and attorney general. They could have stopped this in 2007, before ground was broken and money was spent. They didn’t.

I know it’s now politically popular to be outraged and appalled by this deal, but I find all the posturing contrived.

Maybe the solution is to abolish this special committee and force every member of each chamber to vote on every project — no abstentions allowed.

Stick to the numbers, ACLU

There are some rather serious allegations made in a new report on school discipline from the ACLU of Michigan. They cluster around the theme that race is playing a major role in how student discipline cases are handled. Check out the full report.

From a quick read-through, I see some disturbing numbers about the disproportionate number of expulsions for minority students. And the ACLU is making a good case against the ridiculous zero-tolerance regime that treats school leaders as incapable of making judgment calls. (I’m reminded of the Simpsons episode in which Superintendent Chalmers says, to Skinner and Krabappel that he can’t change school policy because he’s just a public official and not allowed to use his judgment in any way.)

I have to wonder, though, about some of the “analysis” included, such as this: “Student reactions to a negative climate and classroom management may be exacerbated by cultural discontinuities that place African American students, especially African American male adolescents, at a disadvantage in many secondary classrooms. [One researcher] suggests that many teachers, especially those of European American background may be unfamiliar and even uncomfortable with the more active and physical style of communication that characterizes African American adolescents; the impassioned and emotive manner popular among young African Americans may be interpreted as combative or argumentative by unfamiliar listeners. Fear may also contribute to over-referral. Teachers who are prone to accepting stereotypes of adolescent African American males as threatening or dangerous may overreact to relatively minor threats to authority, especially if their anxiety is paired with a misunderstanding of cultural norms of social interaction.”

To me, this reeks of the racism of lowered expectations. We can’t hold African-American kids to a general standard on classroom behavior, only adapt to their “impassioned and emotive manner.” Such claims only weaken the ACLU’s case.

Obama's under their skin

One of my duties here at the LSJ is processing letter submissions. And I have to say, after only, what?, five months in office, Barack Obama has driven a slice of mid-Michigan to distraction.

A number of letters have crossed my desk in recent weeks that assert, in one way or another, that it is Obama’s goal to wreck the country. Say again?

A fine argument can be made that Obama’s policies lead in bad directions, but these writers go beyond that point. They believe it has been his intention to run America into the ground. Really?

I don’t agree with some of what Obama has done. I’m as nervous as the next guy about all this debt owed to the Chinese, for example. But I don’t think Barack Obama has spent years of his life rising to the highest office for the express purpose of destroying his own country.

Could his plans end up damaging the country? Sure. Any president can make mistakes and leave matters worse. But that’s not the intention. I had big problems with much of what George Bush and Dick Cheney were doing, but I never thought for a second that they were intentionally trying to hurt the country. They were just making bad decisions and following poor policies.

So where does this thinking come from? More important, how do you engage it in the political process?