February 27, 1998

Legislative & Political Week in Review

• Facing a certain expulsion vote from his legislative colleagues, Sen. Henry Stallings resigned this week, vowing, "I shall return." Prevailing wisdom predicts otherwise, with one pundit calling Stallings (D-Detroit) a man without a political country. His resignation is effective March 31, giving him another month’s salary and travel expenses, although under an agreement with Senate leadership he will not attend session or vote. Following his resignation announcement to a stone-silent chamber, the former senator blamed his current difficulty on disloyal associates and recanted earlier sworn testimony in which he admitted receiving money under false pretenses.
• Despite a remarkably mild winter and a booming economy, metropolitan Detroit homeless shelters are 15 to 50 percent busier this year, and some advocates are blaming Michigan’s tougher welfare rules. According to a Detroit Free Press report, the state’s Family Independence Agency (FIA) is looking into a finding by the U.S. Conference of Mayors that the 20-percent hike in homelessness in Detroit largely is due to welfare changes. Shelter providers contend that stringent new work rules require parents on welfare to take jobs, even at low pay, and when a job subsequently is lost, there’s no rent money or assistance (when a recipient takes a job, his/her case closes) and the family ends up at a shelter. Welfare caseloads are at a 27-year low, but a spokeswoman for the FIA said that the department may have to reshape its policies if a planned poll of shelter users reveals that the new welfare rules are contributing to homelessness.
• Juvenile probation officer Alan Sanborn (R-Richmond) won the special 32d House-district election, beating his opponent by nearly 3,000 votes. The 6,751 votes cast represent about 11 percent of eligible voters—1,000 fewer than the number who voted in the special primary three weeks ago. The new representative will serve out the last ten months of Sen. David Jaye’s unexpired term in the lower chamber.
• Longtime Department of Management and Budget spokeswoman Maureen McNulty is taking a leave; she will serve in Gov. John Engler’s reelection campaign as deputy campaign manager for communications.
• Michigan’s governor has received a presidential appointment to the National Assessment Governing Board. Among the 25-member, bipartisan board’s responsibilities is overseeing development of proposed national tests to gauge fourth grade reading and eighth grade math skills.
• State personal service contracts declined by $34 million for the 1996–97 fiscal year, according to a Department of Civil Service report. This often-controversial category of consulting contracts, through which state agencies may purchase temporary services without hiring additional state employees, has been declining steadily for a decade. Gongwer News Service reports that the number of Civil Service–approved contracts has dropped by almost 3,800 since 1990.
• Appearing before the House Appropriations Judiciary Subcommittee, State Supreme Court Chief Justice Conrad Mallett, Jr., asked for $162 million for the judicial branch budget in FY 1998–99, $11 million more in general funds than the governor’s status quo recommendation in the executive budget. Mallett told the panel that the 5,400 new prisoners anticipated in the governor’s Corrections budget won’t get there without passing through the courts. Mallett’s request represents an increase of seven percent over current year funding.
• In an obscure footnote to legislation reauthorizing the National Sea Grant College Program, Congress last week decreed that "the term ‘Great Lakes’ includes Lake Champlain." The semantic juggling will permit Vermont universities to compete with other coastline schools for federal Sea Grant research funds. The more inclusive definition drew a decidedly cool response from Michigan Office of the Great Lakes director, Tracy Mehan, who observed pointedly that, "by custom, history, usage, and tradition, there are but five Great Lakes."