In this correspondent edition of OTR we look at the budget stalemate.

Who's in the lead in the money race for governor and the school cell phone ban.

Thought dead is alive.

Providing their take on all this, Colin Jackson, Samantha Shriber, Lauren Gibbons and Bill Ballenger.

Sit in with us as we get the inside out.

Off the Record.

Production of Off the Record as made possible in par by Bellwether Public Relations, a full service strategic communications agency partnering with clients through public relations, digital marketing and issue advocacy.

Learn more at bellwetherpr.com.

And now this edition of Off the Record with Tim Skubick.

Welcome back to Studio C, another edition of On the Record.

As summer comes to an end.

It's almost over, isn't it?

Is it really?

Yeah.

I think summer's just begun.

Okay, well, let's go with that.

I like that much better than my analysis.

So let's do an analysis o the cell phone ban in schools.

Last week, all of you reported that it was dead right?

Not us.

Well, guess what?

Boys and girls, the corpses has winked.

Let's take a look.

I'm very confident that we'll have 56 votes minimum on our side of the aisle to move this forward.

You've never told that to me before.

That could be a breaking news.

Then.

It's likel that many school kids last week were the ones laughing with reports that a ban on cells in schools was dead.

But this week, the legislative corpse has winked with a bell to bell proposed ban.

Well, belled a bell.

This is kind of the gold standard in cell phone or smartphone prohibition in schools.

When the morning bell rings, you put the smartphones away.

When the afternoon bell rings for dismissal, you can get them back out.

Never want to toss in the towel, Oakland County Representative Mar Tisdel has rewritten his bill, allowing students in the middle of an active shooting or other emergency to actually use their cells.

In his original bill he strongly opposed that to me.

I'm willing to make that make that concession to help move this bill along.

Backers of the ban report that grades have improved and assaults in schools have dropped, as was the case in the Auburn Hills Avon Middle School.

At the end of the first year, there was a 68% reduction in fights, an 80% reduction in disciplinary referrals, for counselors and a 100% reduction in assaults on teachers.

The lawmaker hopes that Governor Whitmer can also deliver some Democratic votes.

And unlike last week when he lost this battle, the never say never lawmaker now says, I'm very confident that we'll have 56 votes minimum on our side of the aisle to move this forward.

But ironically, the representative felt the same way last week when he lost.

So Sam what you make of this switcheroo?

So I know at first I was like, it's dead.

But honestly, I don't think it's dead.

I think it's a bit stuck in the womb right now.

I mean, one of my biggest questions for 2025 is, is this the year of independent collaborators or the year of Partizan Firebrands?

I think when Governor Whitme called on legislators during her State of the State to send a cell phone ban in schools to her desk, I think she was really trying to prove herself as a collaborator.

Right.

It doesn't matter if you are a MAGA conservative in St Clair County or if you'r a liberal in Washtenaw County.

I mean, we all agre that you would rather have a kid paying attention to school as opposed to scrolling on TikTok and Instagram while their grades plummet and math and reading scores are down.

At the same time I think that this ultimately embodies the heightened state of disagreement that is being experienced in Lansing right now.

What was the defeat last week because of the conten of this legislation or ancillary issues surrounding what happened on a disastrous day?

You know, I think I think fundamentally I don't think anyone is saying I want my kid to be on their phone all day while they're at school.

I think where the discrepancies lie is there is a legitimate concern that if someone's phon is in their locker, for example, and an emergency happens, if they go into lockdown, a lot of a lot of students would and probably their parents as wel would prefer that their student have a means to contact them in an emergency situation.

So I think that's where some of the discrepancy and some of the concern in the Democratic Senate with the Republican version of the bill is coming from.

Well, when we talk about what happened last Thursday, it wasn't necessarily a great day for Republicans.

They didn't have all their members there.

And I think to a certain extent, you know, we were told ahead of time that Representative Tisdel had made a deal with the governor's office, that there was some sort of agreement there.

Clearly, it didn't materialize.

I think part of that was the Republicans didn't have all their members there.

And this was a chance for Democrats to maybe flex a little bit of muscle.

It's also important to note this wasn't universally supporte or voted against by Republicans, either by Republicans either.

I believe you had Representative Jamie Greene vote against this bill, if I'm not mistaken.

And th in addition to everything else.

And so afterward, you know, there is clearly frustration there.

Mark's, Representative Tisdel's desk is right on the edge of the house where reporters sit, you know, so you can over here in conversations.

And so without getting too much into what you hear which you don't hear everything, there was frustration there.

Are you eavesdropping representative?

You could tell there wa frustration there on the floor.

But also we were told, you know, look, whatever if there's going to if this is going to come up again, this is going to be something that Republicans are going to push for.

So whatever the next version of this bill that comes up for a vote i the House, you know, we'll see.

And meanwhile, you have Senate Democrats, Representative Polehanki, which I'm sure yo can probably speak to as well.

She said, you know the supports are really behind the Senate bill not the representative to bill.

So that's another thing, really.

Picking up on what Colin said, look, don't put something up for a vote unless you have all your members.

He thought he had it.

He thought he had it.

He told me.

Look, Republicans have a 58/52 majority but three members were absent.

You got to have one Democrat come over to get the 56 from 55 and they should have had that arranged.

They thought they had it.

Yes.

Didn't happen.

So I think getting back to what you hinted at, Tim, there were ancillary issues surrounding this.

It wasn't really on the substance of the bill.

It was we don't want to giv Matt Hall the Republicans a win.

We don't want this to happen.

Unless absolutely everything is ironclad, agreed to in advance.

Well, and to that point, you know, Republicans last session proved they could vote as a unity occasionally derail some Democratic, Democratic initiatives.

And here here Democrats are saying, well, we can do that, too.

Sometimes.

Well remember, last session, the Democrats were given kudos by everybody because with a 56/54 majority really narrow.

They were so disciplined, they got all this legislation through without anybody leaving the reservation.

This time, the Republicans have a bigger majority and they can't get it done.

Let's hope they can now.

Can I just make one more point, though, specifically thinking about cell phone ban in this very heavily digital age that we're living in, it's not a nuance consent, concept that these debates and bills take time.

How many years did it take for the hands-free driving bills to get done?

I mean, that wa I want to say, over five years.

Is that accurate?

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but I mean, people want to make the case this is an issue of legislative control versus school board control.

The Polehanki bill on the Senate Democratic side says that it's up to the school boards.

You have to establish some type of restriction.

What that looks like is up to you all.

And the problem with that, Mr. Tisdale said, was if we allo all of these school districts to go on and run the cloc as a debate, this thing on two infinitum cell phones will be, there won't be any more, which is obviously not true.

I think this is event this is going to happen.

I mean, it's already happening at the local level.

They can do this right now.

It's in 30 school districts right now.

Traverse City is a model of what should be that policy.

You agree this will pass?

Well, I think the question again is what did last week do to the prospects for this bill going forward and what it looks like going forward.

Are Republicans in the House willing to compromise as much with the Democrat, with the governor's office in the Senate now that they feel that House Democrats at least turn their back on them?

Well, he said in that piece he had 56 votes.

There's more than 56 Republicans.

So partizan anyway, this is ridiculous that almost every Republican supports it and the Democrats are opposed.

It's ridiculous.

Well for a senate education share Polehanki, even though she has a bill that, again, would give school districts the power on this topic, it's not like this is a number one priority for her.

I talked to her at the beginning of this year and she says my priority is reducing class sizes so that we're not overly maxing out teachers of the number of students they're responsible for.

It shouldn't be either or.

It could be both and.

But in this era, negotiating negotiations is what makes the headlines.

Well, speaking of priorities the schools are also concerned about another little thing called a state budget.

Let's take a look at that story.

Normally by this time school officials know how much money they're getting from the state and they are writing their budgets, but right now they are not.

That's because the schools have no state budget.

Lawmakers have not passed it.

And school officials argue that's because school aid is now linked to fixing the roads.

We are putting concrete over kids.

It's been stated tha we will not see a school budget until we see a roads budget.

This lobbyist representing disadvantaged school districts calls this a, quote, manufactured crisis resulting in this, Holding up the budget to pave the way for a roads deal is unacceptable.

And every day that ticks by only makes the situation worse.

There are now two L words part of the local school district chatter this summe layoffs and larger classrooms.

That will become a common thing across the state for all of our superintendent leaders.

We know parents don't want large class sizes.

But some conservative Republicans argue there is no state aid bill adopted because lawmakers are still taking more time to weed out the por in the school aid budget first.

There's over 110 different por barrel projects in our education budget, money that does not go into the classrooms, money that goes to all these outside nonprofits run by a bunch of leftis that doesn't benefit the kids.

So the pressing question is when schools are back in session in the fall, will local schools have their state aid budget?

Good question.

Remaining unanswered at this read.

Governor Whitmer, who said We're not going to have a budget without a road bill.

Yes, she did.

Yeah, I think she's right.

Well, obviously, these folks not using these folks don't disagree.

They disagree.

Well, I believe Sam and I were there together at the press conference when she said that the budget isn't done until she gets the roads plan done.

This has been a hallmark of her tenure as governor, you know, dating back to 2018, fix the damn roads.

You know, she found ways to get it funded originally, and that's running out, that mechanism running out.

Now, the state needs a more permanent solution that she clearly feels.

What about the educator who say that's the wrong policy?

They are pretty concerned at this point.

And, you know, I it's it's getting pretty disturbingly close in their minds to October 1st, which is the constitutional deadline for the budget to be done.

It's always it's always better for educators and also local governments as well.

Who's whose fiscal calendars are on a little bit of a different calendar than the state is making it very hard to plan for the future right now.

So it makes sense at this junctur that they're sounding the alarm.

So I would assume the governor has linked these two because she thinks she can use leverage on both to get what she wants.

But will she unlink it so the school folks would be satisfied?

I mean, at the end of the day, the concept that seems to be the most popular right now, but additionall the most complicated is a system that would ensure any state taxes that you pay at the gas pump are for sure going to go to the roads and roads alone.

Now, that being said, the sales tax that you pay at the pump additionally goes to other obligations like public schools, local government revenue sharing.

Ther you say that you want 2 to $3.1 billion extra for road funding.

Well, when you do that, you have to figure out what are you going to cut to make sure that the public schools aren't missing anything.

And that's kind of becom a bit of the the complication.

Right.

I some people would describe what we're experiencing right now as a budget making game of chess.

I call it the budget makin game of chicken that we're amid.

I think Senate Democrats and House Republicans and even the governor herself are waiting to see who is going to swerve first to get them what they want.

Well, got a contrarian point of view.

This not very popular.

Go for it Billy.

Well, I'm just saying how long we heard fix the damn road?

I mean, it's been since 2017.

So, look, bottom line is the roads need to get money and the schools are going to get their money.

It's going to be later rather than sooner.

But if the price to be paid is, the schools have to wait so that we can finally fi the damn roads, it's worth it.

And that's what Whitmer is aiming for.

And that's what I think Matt Hall and the Republicans on the Hous side, they're aiming for, too.

It's fascinating.

I do Republican Democratic roundtables on my weekly podcast program, and I had a state representative, Tom Coons, the Claire Republican, and he had told me that as the days get shorter, the nights will get longer in Lansing and the Capitol building.

And it's interesting to se people like Republican lawmakers or the governor herself enter the chapter of comfort of we are going to be negotiating a budget after the school year starts.

We are going to be negotiating when the fall and the fall comes and the leaves begin to drop.

In the days get shorter, the next day longer.

But who's in Lansing to negotiate?

The House has had one voting day since July 1s since that deadline was missed.

Meanwhile, last week, we also saw them cut their lead Democrat on the minor House minority White House Appropriations Committee.

So right now, you see this has been a negotiation among principals.

You know, the Senate has said multiple times they want to see a full House budget proposal on a full budget passed.

The House hasn't come near that yet.

They haven't unveiled much else besides the first like five departments between like education, higher education, etc..

So we're so a long ways out from getting this done.

If that's the case.

And this road funding debate stands to make a lot of lawmakers vulnerable in some of our state's most competitive districts, especially in Macomb County, where sometimes the roads can look quite disastrous.

I say that as a Macomb County girl myself, but right now, both the governor and Senate Democrats say, okay, you want a road funding deal, we are going to have to explore, create a new revenue for the state new arteries of state revenue.

Well, there's there is the rub because the House Republicans say, no, we don't.

Well, what happens when there is any type of tax increase?

I would dare say that's when the recall efforts start to drop.

I'm not sure, recalls will come out of fixing the roads and because people want it, you know, people I think people that don't understand the money is needed now.

They are going to argue over how to find it, right?

Absolutely.

This has been a tale as old as time.

The roads always need money.

They always need more money than people are really comfortable providing.

And, you know, I think I think when I have talked to folks throughout the transportation industry, it's always said you can't keep cutting up the pie.

You need to make the pi bigger, as is their argument and that argument for more revenue.

But it's really tough to ge the political will to do that.

Well in the hook for the local folks.

Is this a lot of this money will go into the local roads, which in the past have gone in to all the federal roads and all the state roads, as the local folks said, where's our share?

So we'll continue.

Mike Duggan had a great week.

A lot of people are saying he picked up some bipartisan support from some people you might or might not know.

Some names on the list are wel known Democrat Mark Bernstein, former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang, former state Republican Party chair Ron Weiser and car guy Roger Penske.

Some of the names not so well-known, but either way, there's about two dozen Republicans and Democrats endorsing Mike Duggan's independent bid for governor.

I think it's pretty impressive.

Were you surprised by this?

Yeah, quite frankly.

Most of the names on the list are well known in this town, but typical voters out there in the real world probably don't know who they are.

Six News pollster Bernie Porn says that really doesn't matter a the end of the day, because Mr. Duggan can run commercials, basically taunting the issue of bipartisan support at a tim when the two political parties are fighting.

They may not know the name, but when you put the list together of both Democrats and Republicans who support Duggan, that kind of supports the argument that he is trying to break through the logjam of the two political parties and look at the support.

So how will the Democrat running for governor counteract this bipartisan message from the independent guy in the race?

Solving Detroit problems is not the same as addressin the problems of my community in in Lansing or in Grand Rapid or wherever the case may be.

And he's not qualified to address those issues becaus they're different than Detroit.

Last week, Mr. Duggan raised more money than all the rest.

And now this list of these and others who are supporting him, one could argue at this early point in the governor's race, Mr. Duggan appears to be on a roll.

Colin is he on a roll?

Yeah, I think the wind is to Mike Duggan sails.

Earlier this week, The New York Times came out with an article saying downtown Detroit is back.

I think that's in a lot of that article focused on, you know, real estate stuff to do downtown, ways to get downtown.

The key line, the moneyed interests.

I think that when you look at Mike Duggan's endorsements, you see the Detroit Regional Chamber, but then you also see, like you said, bipartisan folks in and out of government or related to government.

He has a lot of union endorsements that I think Democrats would have loved to have won.

I think and I do want to give credit to Sam Robinson of Detroit 1 million, who has made this case to me.

Many times, that Duggan is a very savvy politician.

My personal opinion, I think his biggest issue is still name I.D., especially when you get to like the west side of the state in a way from metro Detroit.

But I think for a lot of people around Metro Detroit that do know him and again, do people that are from Metro Detroit who have been going to Detroit and seen it change over the years, I think that Mike Duggan has a lot of clout and a lot of interest from people.

So what kind of pop does he get from this bipartisan list?

You know, I think in terms of pop, it is, as you mentioned, just the fact that he can say that it's bipartisan.

Right.

Like he's getting suppor from Republicans and Democrats.

That's his entire message.

He is the independent.

He who can rise above the petty partizan politics.

That's his whole message.

So, as you mentioned, just being able to say, even if the names aren't aren't quite the the hottest ticket items.

Butch Hollowell.

People at home are saying, who's Butch?

Condolences Butch.

And to Colin's point as well, just the fact that Detroit seems to be doing well is good for it's good for the mayor of the city.

He can take credit for some of that or at least say, hey, I was the mayo when this good thing happened.

What very Brittney' point was in outstate Michigan, nobody cares how Detroit is doing.

Those are a whole different set of problems.

They are different.

But he has an ability to talk about what's really importan in terms of solving Michigan's basic problems to people in West Michigan.

Upstate, he's been around the state a lot more than a lot of people realize.

He's building up connections, bridges with important groups in all sections of the state.

So, I mean, not only did he get all these bipartisan endorsements, but look at the fundraising if you see the figure of the people giving him money.

Huge, important figures in the Republican and Democratic parties, both sides.

So he is on a roll, as Colin said.

The question is is it going to last 15 months?

I mean, we're in August almost of 2025.

He's got to make it last all the way to November of next year.

When we put the show to be last week, the numbers for Mr. Duggan had not come out in some of the details.

The numbers were coming out after the fact.

So I'm going to make two corrections.

One, he was the top fundraiser among every right.

Is that not correct?

3.2 million.

Now, the Benson peopl thought they had the headline.

They she came in at 3.5 million.

Do the math.

It's a little more.

Okay.

But here's the problem.

1.1 million of her money came from another fund that she transferred over.

We forgot to say that last weekend.

I apologize to everybody who caught us on that.

So what does, who's ahead in the money race really mean anything?

Well I think the fact that he's able to spend it like a general election candidate right now, you talked about how he does have visibility.

He's starting to build up visibility in northern Michigan, West Michigan.

He's able to do so as a general election candidate, courting both Republican, Democrati and purple independent voters.

I think what we see with Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan's independent candidacy is somebody who is disrupting partizan traditional donor bases and partizan traditional volunteer pace and basis in a very large scale way.

But he's also getting some flack for some dark money which has shown up right?Yeah, But all of them have dark mone and they they want more of it.

Okay.

But they want to castigate Mike Duggan for doing the best, getting it right now.

Well, can't you make the same case against Jocelyn Benson for getting donations from out of state?

You know what?

What does a California, John James, too.

Yeah, but one thing that I do also want to mention is that peopl are getting into the same room for Mike Duggan that you never would have imagined them breaking bread before.

You're talking about people like former Governor Rick Snyder, whose past chief of staff has past treasurer.

People from the pro-business deregulation Snyder era are coming together with unions such as the carpenters, the bricklayers, the hospitality and the venue unions.

It's fascinating to ask the question of why do you view Mike Duggan as a worthwhile investment to cause this disruption?

Well, there are some people who are saying they're cozying up to Mike Duggan because they get stuff from him out of Detroit.

Well, that's part of it.

But look, the bottom line is this guy is the strongest independent candidate for governor in the entire history of Michigan.

Well, he's the only one, Billy.

By definition, he has to be that.

Nah over time, if you go back to the 19th century and there were third party candidates.

I mean, there have been a lot of people who've tried, but, you know, he is in a better position to actually be elected than anybody ever.

And, you know, I think he's the favorite right now.

And importance of this story is that it helps him to knock down the story that this is a far fetched off the wall.

Never going to happen.

Now, people in town are saying you're on.

Yeah, it could happen.

Yeah.

You start as a curiosity, then you become a threat and that and we become whateve you become after Election Day.

Duggan experiment.

And you can no longer make the case of, oh, anyone who was Duggan curious on the Dem or Republican side they were just a rhino or a dino to begin with.

My question now.

Are we going to see other people in Michigan now that they see this great Duggan experiment, are they going to try replicating it if they don't see a clear path to victory in their own primaries?

But let's also throw on the table that they really have not started to come after, if you will.

Mr. Duggan, right?

Yeah, no, because they ha their arms around him last year.

Like it's it's hard, especially from the Democrat side of the aisle, to attack him.

And it's the same thing is Mike Duggan still going to have to do a lot of work to distance himsel from Democratic Party platforms?

He won't be able to do it.

I mean, they got pictures of him and Joe Biden, right?

Yeah, exactly.

So this is a long public record and a long history here.

And I think it's interesting, too, the lanes that everybody's going to have to take to move forward to Election Day, for example, Mike Duggan, because he's going forward as this independent candidate.

You see Secretary Bentsen going forward.

She has a lot of she when she announced she had a lot of endorsements from progressives in the state legislature, for example, to try to take that lane moving forward for this governor's race.

And I think there's still so many different storylines that have to play out.

And I think a lot of this, a lot of the, you know, potential attacks towards Duggan will come after the primary potential.

Well, you know, these are these folks got to get through the primary first.

So they're focusing on their base, their Democrats, the Republicans.

They're not necessarily worried about those people flirting with Duggan's campaign.

But, you.

Know, what did they got?

Are they going to wal and chew gum at the same time?

But the longer they stay away from him, the more he builds and the toughe is to take a Humpty Dumpty down.

Yeah.

And that's that's definitely true.

And and so it does remain to be seen.

You know how especially after that that fundraising haul how do Democrats and Republicans really take that and, you know, maybe split their time a little bit between winning that primary and saying, hey, stick with the party.

The toll it's going to have on inter-party relations.

What inter-party relations?

I think you're already reducing.

Something I've missed.

I've seen fireworks and water.

It's people saying we have to all get behind Bentsen no on the Democrat side of things.

I just wonder what type of feelings are going to be hurt within.

Yeah, well.

Fat Chance and Swinson is going to bail out, right?

Fat chance that LG is going to bail out.

I think.

There are chances that they'd be.

A while.

You do?

Yeah.

It's hard for a party to win three straight terms in the governor's office in Michigan, though.

Yeah, not only that.

Look, straight ticket voting.

Big thing next year with Doug an independent.

What does that do to candidates on down?

We done it again.

We killed 28 minutes, which is commentary to announce that thanks to the four of you thanks to you out there in TV land for watching Come on back next week.

For more on to your CNN.

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Learn more at bellwetherpr.com.

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