May 1, 1998

Legislative & Political Week in Review

• The governor’s third-term campaign officially was launched this week at a rally in Livonia. In counterpoint to the faithful’s enthusiasm, Detroit Free Press columnist Hugh McDiarmid cynically observed that the John Engler who told voters in 1990 that it was time for new leadership is now himself one of the Michigan’s longest-serving incumbent state officials. In his 28-year political career, Engler has yet to lose an election.
• April showers bring May agency budgets, with two department appropriations bills passing the lower chamber this week. The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality receives $92.3 million in General Funds under terms of HB 5589, a sum less than $0.5 million over the administration’s recommendation. A $50.1 million appropriation for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources (HB 5591) exceeds the administration’s recommendation by nearly $2 million, roughly equal to the amount added for improving recreation facilities in the state’s smaller communities.
• Michigan is now a no-clone zone following Senate passage of a four-bill package forbidding genetic replication of humans and establishing an unprecedented $10 million fine for infractions. The bills, SB 864 and HBs 4846, 4962, and 5475 ban research on, as well as application of, human cloning. The House is expected to concur with the Senate’s changes, and then the governor likely will sign the legislation. Although opponents of the measures contend that anti-cloning legislation hampers legitimate genetic research on congenital disorders, the bills passed unanimously in the upper chamber.
• The CEO who oversaw the privatization of the Accident Fund from a state-run workers’ compensation insurer to a private firm has been named Michigan’s new insurance commissioner. Insurance consultant E.L. Cox replaces Joseph Olson in the post; deputy commissioner Dominic D’Annunzio fulfilled the duties on an interim basis.
• Michigan insurance agents are calling for their checks. The state association of insurance agents complained this week that most Michigan insurers have not yet decided how to refund to customers the $1.2 billion in surplus funds that the Michigan Catastrophic Claims Association Board voted last month to return to state motorists. This leaves agents unable to advise clients—who are pressing for their money—as to whether they should expect a refund or a credit on future premium payments.
• Here comes the McBryde: Mt. Pleasant termed-out Republican Jim McBryde has announced his electoral bid for incumbent Sen. Joanne Emmons’s (R-Big Rapids) 23d Senate District seat. Dismissing her new challenger’s attacks on her legislative attendance record, former teacher Emmons cited a 95 percent voting record and observed, "Ninety-five percent was an A everywhere I taught."
• Like Oliver Twist, university presidents testifying before a House appropriations subcommittee this week asked for more. The chiefs of the state’s big three public universities told lawmakers that education quality will suffer at their campuses under the scant 1.5 percent increase recommended in the executive budget for the coming fiscal year. UM’s president predicts a tuition hike of 4–5 percent, MSU’s says faculty teaching loads have crept up by almost 10 percent over the past four years, and Wayne State’s says the evening and weekend classes that his urban student body needs keep costs higher there than at other schools.
• First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton apparently pleased the 4,000 who attended at the University of Michigan’s "Year of Humanities and Arts" commemoration. Her 45-minute address—during which she urged listeners to treat reading the great poets as a responsibility, not a luxury—drew a standing ovation in Ann Arbor.