Another huge newsweek in our town.

No August vote on giving the governor power to appoint members of the MSU board and elsewhere, and a debrief on what happened on Mackinac Island last week.

So sit in with us as we get the inside out.

Off the Record.

Production of Off the Record is made possible in part 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 on a busy, busy newsweek.

Let's start with the obvious one, Beth.

The lead out of the Michigan House this week.

They tried to put on the August ballot, giving the governor power to appoint the boards at MSU, and the other two, que pasa?

Well they yeah.

So these these resolution the the resolution that they voted on was introduced like a week and a half ago.

At that point it included not just the boards but also the AG and SoS and some different details about the board appointment system.

By the time it got to the House floor, it had been changed significantly.

It was only the university boards.

They were strict, like mandates about how those folks are appointed.

Democrats said they were given no warning.

And what you saw was, a resolution that was supposed to get two thirds support that could not even get a majority support.

And it wasn't just Democrats voting against it.

There were also six Republicans voting against it.

At the end of the day, I was told, and this is, I think, interesting because the political effort behind this, they want to change both the attorney general, secretary of State and now also university boards.

The primary impetus here was for changing attorney general, secretary of state.

But the departure of Kevin Guskiewicz, the MSU president, because of board infighting, in large part at least, that was what he attributed his departure to despite a $1 million raise has put some fuel on the fire here.

Michigan's an outlier in sort of having a political and public election for reasons that are gubernatorial appointments.

And so part of the impetus here is they want to make this a gubernatorial appointment, you know, increase the executive power.

And then hopefully, I think the, the aim here is to take some of the politics out of power.

And then they, you know, there's a certain faith that if governors are appointing these positions that they can sort of play more nicely together in the be less dysfunction in these bodies and that there would be just a better vetting process.

And, you know, when we're talking about these things, we should just point out for the people who are playing along at home, that the attorney general, secretary of state portion of it was to put that into a primary election close to primary election.

But, yeah, okay.

That was critical for the Republicans.

Voters would have a choice on that and then take the university boards, the big three university boards, and make those an appointment system.

Again, with the idea that maybe it would be less of a cluster and, you know, that they would be better vetted by the, by the governor's office and the governor's team than by, party conventions.

I just want to underscore how much of an outlier Michigan is on the university boards.

I think we're one of the only states, if not the only one, who elects university trustees in this manner.

And so the gubernatorial appointment would put Michigan more in line.

There are some states that do regional elections for the legislature.

Some legislature would be fine.

There are options for advise and consent.

But part of the problem is that it it's very difficult to change, as we saw as we saw with this debate, it's one of those things that it's one of those weird Michigan quirks that is going to be really hard to extricate.

And I think what was on display Wednesday's, you know, this was motivated by dysfunction on on those university boards, but there's also a good bit of dysfunction in the legislature right now.

And it's not functioning the way it should be in terms of, getting policy that most people agree on across the finish line, in part because of politics.

And and now that they've missed that window to put it on the August ballot, I just don't see there being a will to put it on the November ballot.

So... John Engler called after the vote and said to me, we're going to shoot for November.

And I said, well, good luck, governor.

You know, you can do anything you want.

This does give them more time, but let's not lose sight of the fact of why was the August date so important to misters Engler, Blanchard and supposedly the governor who did endorse this.

Right.

Well, yeah, I think one of one of the elements is that you're going to have university board candidates, on the ballot in November.

So if you pass something in November saying they can only serve through December or they they don't get to serve at all, you're going to have a real problem.

So I think one of the reasons was they were trying to give them some, some forewarning that your November election might be meaningless.

It would have increased the consequence two of November's gubernatorial election because of this past in August.

One of the provisions here is that the slates of these university boards are essentially wiped clean, if I recall correctly, in early 20, all of them, you know, all the members are removed.

And then it gives the governor then the time to sort of craft these boards as they see fit.

And the new governor as well, half of it would be the current governor, Gretchen Whitmer, and then the other half would be the next governor.

But, yeah.

And it does create an interesting dynamic.

And just also doing it in August would have been, in so many ways, just a cleaner resolution to this.

Well, fewer voters, less competition with other issues and probably less money to try to sell it if there had been any money at all.

I think they were looking and hoping that the people would understand.

But, you know, the people don't know anything about this process, do they?

It's really complicated.

And, you know, I think the issue of the attorney general and secretary of state for this election cycle, anyway, if they'd had this conversation before they were selected at the party convention.

So you could have made a case to voters, hey, if you do this in the future, you can have more of a say in who was your nominee.

Whether the university boards of trustees, those are very regional issues.

It's sometimes like with the MSU president's departure, every once in a while it becomes an issue.

But it's not something that the average voter cares about much.

It appears to me that part of, you know, the message here is we don't we no longer like having party conventions picking these candidates as opposed to doing something, maybe anything else, which was the speaker singing out of two different hymnals on this thing.

It seems the signals out of the island last week were completely different than the stuff we saw on the floor.

Que pasa there?

Yeah.

I mean, it's a good question on the Island, Hall in an interview with us, was advocating for closed primaries for AG and SoS in those primaries for changes to the state Board of Education to bring the state superintendent underneath the governor and for university boards.

What they narrowed it down to on Wednesday was just the university boards.

When I asked them why all that was left off, he said, we don't have a lot of time.

This is what we think we can get across and this is it.

Plus... he also said now that that the August ballot has failed, all of those are there.

Things are back on the table.

Yeah.

In the MEA checked in and said they didn't like taking away power from the state board in the state student superintendent, which caused some Democrats to take a hike.

So this thing was sort of, on a disaster trip from the get go, but at least they put it up for a vote and fell.

What about 30 votes short?

Yeah.

Okay.

All right.

If that's what we're celebrating these days, I. All right.

Let's talk about the statement from the Governor Whitmer this week.

Vis-a-vis all the speculation in our town about maybe the presidency at MSU.

Let's take a look at that story behind the story.

One thing for sure, political correspondents just love to speculate.

Mike Duggan, U of M president.

Big Gretch, MSU president there you go.

Now we can go home.

One could certainly make a strong case for Governor Gretchen Whitmer going back home to the campus of MSU, where she is an alum, to become the new president of the university.

However, her office reports, quote, the governor does not have an interest in that position.

In fact, the governor explains here that it would be wrong for her to be discussing anything about her future after she leaves office.

I don't think that that's appropriate.

I am governor through the end of the year.

I don't want to do anything that would, could raise, you know, any sort of a conflict.

But remember, this governor said she had no interest in running for vice president.

But if President Joe Biden had offered her the job, she would have taken it.

Some would say so much for not being interesting.

Which brings us to the former independent candidate for governor, Mike Duggan, and the vacancy in the presidency at the U of M, he holds two degrees from the university and Mark Bernstein is chair of the U of M board and supported Mr.

Duggan for governor.

And then there's Steven Ross, a major contributor to the U of M, and this funding says, what if Mr.

Ross does this?

Ross and contributor big backer of Duggan, if he wants, Duggan in there as president.

He got a lot of money and he's already given a lot of money to University of Michigan.

He could make it happen all by himself.

Asked about his own future at his farewell news conference dropping out of the governor's race, Mr.

Duggan indicated he had given no thought to anything.

And five days later, on Mackinac Island, when asked about the U of M presidency specifically, he never answered the question.

Over the next month or two, assess what I do next, which of course will only serve to feed the speculation machine even more.

As for the governor's lack of interest in the MSU gig, she has also said in the past you should say never say never about any job, which she didn't in this case.

So boys and girls, look at that montage.

And how many suits do you own?

Two.

On a good day.

And this I one.

This one has to be back by 3:00.

So let's talk fast.

Okay.

Look at when I say I'm not interested.

Is that the same as saying I will not take this job?

Kids, that is not the same.

You agree?

Do we?

Do do we agree around the table on or not?

It's the same as saying never say never.

It's a platitude, effectively that says, I'm not going to say no to anything, but I'm not going to say yes either.

It's it's so what does she say?

I'm not interested.

Well, I mean, look at what's happened over the past several years.

The board infighting has you know, announced the departure of to higher education administrators.

Like, I think the important thing to note in all this is that universities are pretty Byzantine institutions generally.

Like if you're looking for a high demand president, usually they're from academia and they have some experience in higher education administration.

The speculation doesn't involve folks that have that background running the management that have those sorts of differences between that.

What's the difference between that running state government, please.

The university got a football team, okay.

From a strategic and political perspective, the governor has publicly avoided discussing her post gubernatorial future, and I think that is similar in that she could have said that.

I mean, she could have she could have.

Well, she didn't.

Yes.

She said it was too early for her to talk about what she was going to do now.

Well, yes, but that was done long before this.

MSU stories used to that.

That's changed.

I also think that in to Simon's point, it is one of those jobs that is very, very, very difficult.

We've also seen a former governor try that job and not stay for very long.

So it is very clearly a job that requires, someone who is, to your point, actually capable of working with a lot of very complex personalities.

You know, you look at the level of dysfunction, the board of Michigan State in particular, but, you know, the other two ones as well.

I mean, the question is, what rational person would want that?

I mean, wanting the job is almost automatically disqualifying.

Yeah.

And I mean, I think that's the consternation that you're seeing.

You know, there was like there was an interlude at the Mackinac Palace conference where the, Sandy Baruah and the chair of the conference came out and they sort of gave this like special address where they were sort of saying, something's got to change on these university boards.

These are big economic drivers, like it or not, these major research institutions and that and they're concerned about sort of the instability on the board.

And so you are, you know, taking on a task that is, university in turmoil.

Administratively.

And I don't know if that's a great second act if you're coming and not a lot of power to manage it.

No, but why not?

Because you've got to deal with an elected board that that there's no real control over them.

Also, you look at all of the departments, all of the faculty, all of the staff that there are unions, that there are associations, that there is the internal politics that someone else said is is Byzantine times 20 well, the way you describe it, nobody could do this job.

I think right now I think that's the problem.

Yeah.

The fear is that that with each successive presidents departure, it's increasingly less appealing.

And I also think they have had a couple of good presidents in one probably capable of doing that.

But when you have a board second guessing every, every decision you make, I mean, that's that's basically what 'Gusko' which came out with at the end of it, that it was impossible to move forward.

So as long as that structure is in place and and, you know, there are I will say this, there are no guarantees that governor gubernatorial appointees will be any better behaved than elected officials.

But, you know, I don't know.

I mean, the dynamic right now is, is pretty, pretty awful as well.

Yeah, I think there's a lot of faith of the gubernatorial appointment process that there's not going to be cronyism, in this appointment process.

And then a governor is going to take sort of an enlightened stance, right, and pick somebody who's a good administrator and is going to be above Partisan politics, not just somebody who's a party hack.

Yeah.

And that's taking a lot on faith.

But it's, you know, sort of a belief that, you know, we can have better angels, you know, persevere.

I think that clearing the board entirely and leaving it up to one governor would be looked at as a difficult, a difficult political situation.

You know, I think in a lot of other states, there is that gradual if, you know, if somebody leaves are uncertain, term is over, then that appointment comes in and it could change as the governorship changes.

So that's another factor as well that should be considered.

Let me just expand on my political hack thing, because that's one of the criticism from some of the watchers of government that if you want to get a nice cushy job, you go to the party convention and you've you've paid your dues as a Democrat or Republican, and you can get that.

All right.

So that's where that criticism comes from.

Obviously, the people that are appointed have qualifications, and the convention can make the decision.

And in these cases they have.

But when the convention is doing it, where does the responsibility for what what like individual or individual group, what face gets put to the problems that were created when you've got one person making the appointment?

Sure.

Is cronyism.

Potential hazard.

Absolutely.

But also that that person is going to be vetted, that person.

There are staff people who have an interest in making sure that the person making the appointment, the governor is not embarrassed by that appointment.

Look at I'm going to think there's going to be some people- donors, loyal MSU people that are going to go to the governor at some point and say, look it for the good of the university.

We need to have you in there.

Do it for a year, just put the ship back together again, then do whatever you want to do, but give one for the Gipper here.

We need you because your leadership is strong.

You can go in and do take control.

And then she turned her ear to that, assuming that it's done.

First of all, do you think it'll happen?

Yea or nay?

I mean, that's above my pay grade.

No, it's not.

No, Rick, nothing's above your pay.

A lot of things are.

I mean, what Gretchen Whitmer is and ought to be looking at is this an accomplishable mission.

Now, you could argue, you know, she did it when she was named the, Ingham County prosecutor, following a scandal.

So I mean, it may be in her wheelhouse, but it's a job that you're taking to exit.

Well, and there's enough that that would be the agreement.

Just help us get over this hump and get that thing back on the on the track.

And then you go ahead and do whatever you want.

I think that's the pitch they made the Engler too.

Right.

And that didn't end well.

And he was pretty consistently miserable I think, throughout his short tenure at Michigan.

But there's one other point, but put it in the context of what was going on.

Yes, okay.

This was not a walk through the park.

Yes.

This is in the park either.

Yes.

There's one other point I want to quickly make about this.

And that is voters have a hard time holding the board accountable as well.

Yes, they do elect them.

But in the past, when voters have been interested, especially during the Larry Nassar situation, in recalling certain members of the board of trustees, it's essentially an impossible task because you need to issue a state wide recall for a university board position.

So there's really not a lot of accountability there except when they come up for those terms.

Right.

And the fact that they're coattail candidates, effectively, it's really has to do with national political environment, a lot more that determining these days, the makeup of that board, because there's just no tension, there's no face that people relate responsibility to.

Right.

All right.

You guys were all up on the island.

Give me the lead story that came out of that little lug confab last week.

Exactly.

I will say the U.S.

Senate debate.

It was interesting.

We we heard a lot from those candidates at, at a statewide level.

They've done forums in the past.

So it was very interesting to hear them on that stage.

So I would say that's probably the most interesting thing to me.

Yeah.

there is a gubernatorial forum.

I mean, I moderated it, so obviously it was it was pretty interesting.

Yeah.

Well, also, it was the day before the, Board of State Canvassers decided who was going to be on the ballot.

And so a fair number of people who are part of the, event were not going to be an option, come primary.

Who all sat on that stage?

Oh, goodness.

Well, it was, Benson and Swanson, Nesbitt, James, Rebandt.

... Mike Cox, Mike Cox.

No, no, Perry Johnson, Perry Johnson as well.

Perry.

Thomas.

So you had pretty good.

Yeah.

No, it was it was, who shy.

Who was there.

Who was the winner out of that?

I mean, it was basically, it was one on one interviews.

And so wait a minute.

So it wasn't a debate.

It wasn't a debate, per se.

No, it was, it was, one on one interviews because it was decided that might be, considering the numbers, more effective, a more effective forum and, and, you know, I mean, people got up, they answered questions and they answered them, fairly, candidly.

Why do you suppose they didn't want to have everybody on the stage?

Well, there was a 11th hour attempt to have a two person debate between John James and Jocelyn Benson and John James when this invitation went out, immediately accepted.

And then Jocelyn Benson, who had to follow up after him, was like, I don't think she basically declined the debate and and sort of a repeat of what we saw in the Democratic primary.

The proposed debate in Fox two this week.

And to John James, why wouldn't you?

I mean, you know, you've still got a crowded primary where, you know, there are multiple possibilities.

And if you're Jocelyn Benson, the, you know, de facto nominee, why would you, when you don't know who you're going to be facing?

You know, in November, that's what was your lead.

I think, what stuck out to me most about the Mackinac Conference.

You know, the theme was common ground, but most of the time they were discussing this this theme of the house is on fire and all of the problems that are happening in Michigan and the fact that they think not enough people are paying attention to that.

And it seemed like they were shouting kind of on deaf ears, because I, you know, they were citing statistics about education and income and everything and, and, and just to flame that fire at the same time the MSU president was leaving in because of consistent dysfunction on that board.

So I think, it seemed like a different tone from the chamber in that sense.

Like, I've never heard them have such a negative message about the state of the state at that point.

And, I don't know that it's going to change any minds or any politics in this town.

But it was it was an interesting theme all the same.

I also think it's hard to argue, common ground message when it's an election year.

All of these people are running against each other in November, so there's not a lot of common ground right now.

But what better time to say that you said that that that gathering, operates at its best when the state is facing a singular problem that requires the, you know, the power players, the politicians, the business, the not for profits to find a way to, come together, you know, like, like, you know, let's not forget that the Selfridge thing was a perfect example, but.

And it happened.

Although I don't think it was as marquee as, say, you know, the city of Detroit facing bankruptcy.

One of the things that stood out to me at the conference and I reported on this as well, was sort of there's always a bifurcation at the conference between the public side and the private side.

You know that the conference exists to try the inside game, outside game.

Yes.

They want to bring them together, meld them and get them on the same page.

That's like the goal.

But there was a lot of discussion about artificial intelligence and data centers at this conference, and you could not hear from elected officials and the business representatives, two groups that were further apart.

We had, two members of the recall for family and two data center panels, and they were talking about how Michigan is going to miss the boat on this and that if they could have their way in government in sort of crafting policy, they'd open up and do everything possible to accommodate these data centers.

So they stand to make a lot of money from them.

They talked about opening up the waters of the great Lakes for cooling was one suggestion from JR Rakolta.

But when you talk to when you talk to elected officials on the island, they were, you know, sort of representing, perhaps a tide of public sentiment that is turning away from these things.

Well, the governor took an earful this week, didn't she?

When she cozied up to the guys from the, I feel, did she not?

Yep, she did, and basically ran into the same problem that, you know, the businesses that are pushing it in the island.

And I mean, one of the things about the, data center discussions on the island is a lot of the parties that are holding it up downstate just weren't there to provide the counterpoint.

And so basically, in a sense, they were negotiating with themselves on on that particular question.

Well, and her point was, if we don't do it, other states will and we lose.

I think the message that you have to get across, if you are in support of data centers is to address the concerns that the public has about affordability and access and environmental issues.

If there's a way to message the data center issue, you have to address those points.

A lot of people are very concerned that this is going to make their electric bills go up, that there might be, isn't there a provision that that can't happen?

There is, but I think there's still a lot of concern about that.

In other words, they don't believe the provision.

I mean, I would look at look at where they're dealing with the Michigan Public Service Commission and Consumers Energy and all of whom have record low, you know, trust issues right now with the public.

And so I think there is a little bit of hesitancy there.

Hesitancy is a light word to explain what some of the opposition towards this, but it is, I think, for some of the utilities, they've made their bed and now they're lying in it.

Well, the public service, the Public Service Commission, created part of some problem by going around the process, the normal process to vet this thing.

And so let's speed the utility said, let's speed it up.

And the PSC say, sure, let's do that.

And the public's go, whoa, wait a second.

That train's leaving the station.

Well, well, the plan here is to muscle through a a resolution and then figure out that the public will get on board after the fact.

Yeah.

And, I mean, I think the bottom line is that you can say that it's not going to raise rates.

It can have no impact on electricity.

But then as you're building a 700 acre data center, I believe in Saline, and then the utility is going to be servicing that, then applies for a half $1 billion rate increase.

Again, for, I think, the how many times in the past couple of years, half a dozen, perhaps.

Then I don't think that that, you know, you're pledged to not increase rates kind of rings hollow.

So what about the legislative proposal?

It says, let's just hit the pause button for a year and take a deep breath and come back.

That just delays it, doesn't it?

I mean, and that gets to the missing the boat.

Yep.

Problem.

It just delays the debate that needs to happen.

And I think a lot of the concern is that it wasn't happening, that it's getting sped up.

And there's not a lot of public scrutiny.

And that is part of the problem with the trust.

And I think part of the difficulty here is that when you talk to the elected officials who are not saying no one data centers, but that they want more of a more robust regulatory framework, they want to see, like community benefit agreement requirements in some of these facilities.

Those conversations aren't happening, right.

I talked to a local consultant in town who's been hired by the utilities and the data center people, and he said, here's your major problem.

They send in all the wonks, the people that don't speak this people's language, this is what they need to do is go in and tell the people how this benefits you.

Do you have a cell phone?

Do you use Amazon?

All of this stuff is going to provide you power.

Lay it on the line, be truthful.

And that argument is out there and it.

But he said it was it was.

And over and over again like it's it's not working.

I hear music in the background, which means it's time for me to take my suits back.

And also thank you for being here.

Where would that come from?

Ricky?

Thank you.

Thank you all for showing up.

And see you next week for more Off the Record.

Okay.

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