Christmas came early this year for Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan/would-be next governor. Santa had nothing to do with it but the members of the Michigan House did.
At the opening of the Lame Duck session three weeks ago there were high hopes but they quickly degenerated into a dysfunctional display of how not to conduct the people’s business. What followed instead were a host of political prat-falls that must of brought a smile to the face of His Honor the Mayor. More on that in a moment, but here’s the list of what happened or not as the case may be.
After gloriously botching their campaign to keep control of the Michigan House, the D’s returned, heads held low, only to find themselves to be losers despite having more money than the other party.
Faced with a last ditch effort to put it’s imprint on state policy before returning to minority status in the new year, the Democrats got their act together, lined-up their ducks and announced an aggressive agenda to get things done.
Well not quite. In fact, not even close.
Instead of laying out a play list of “must-do” issues, the House Speaker, the Senate Democratic Leader and the governor never jointly issue such a rundown for the members. Left with a political vaccum, the rank and file D’s filled it with what they wanted to do which did not jell with what the leaders wanted to do and it was off the races of every man and woman for themselves or put another way total chaos.
Remember the D’s only had 56 votes the bare minimum to pass any bill and it didn’t take long for the newest progressive members to realize they had the power to single-handedly grind the process to a halt: Just withhold your vote until they got what they wanted and then the “leadership” could get what it wanted from them. But the horse trading never got out of the legislative corral.
Meanwhile back at the ranch, plotting to exploit the disarray on the other side, House GOP leader Rep. Matt Hall..soon to be new speaker of the house next year, delivered his own ultimatum to the Speaker Joe Tate.
Mr. Hall had all 53 of this members behind him (note the contrast of unity to the disunited D’s.) He stood outside the entrance to the house and told the waiting Democrats inside, that if they did not put up a vote on a bill to save the tip income for some hospitality employees, the R’s would not take their seats.
And of course, the D’s would not be intimidated and so Mr. Hall et.al for three days in a row refused to show up on the house floor. He refused to use the term boycott but if it walked and quacked like one, it was.
To recap: D’s floundering and R’s refusing to vote, meant the lame duck session degenerated into a stalemate which finally resulted in Speaker Tate telling everyone to go home for the holidays with Lame Duck egg all over everyone’s mug.
Enter Mike Duggan holiday gift in hand.
Recall he is running as an independent candidate for governor and is running on a platform that the D’s and R’s are too busy fighting each other with no time to fight for citizens which he of course promises to do since he has no allegiance to either party.
And exhibit A is what unfolded in Lame Duck and it plays right into his hands.
You can see the commercial now. A shot of the empty house floor..no one at work and Mr. Duggan walks down the center aisle. Never mind that he is not allowed to do that but through the magic of optics he can get around that road block.
And he says, back in 2024 during Lame Duck when both parties came here to work on the items you wanted, they decided to fight each other instead and your wishes were not fulfilled. When I’m elected governor I won’t have to shave back my goals to placate either party. I will simply tell them (glancing at all the empty seats) that if they don’t work with me on my agenda, I will use my veto pen to make sure they never get a thing they want. I can make this dysfunctional system work with your help.
Ho. Ho. Ho.
