December 16, 2011

Welcome back off the record starts right now.

On the altar our panel this week we have Kathy Barks Hoffman and Susan Demas, along with Chris Christoff.

Now here's the rundown.

Lawmakers are home for the holidays.

What have they left under your tree?

The charter school cap is off.

And home heating assistance for the truly needy.

Later on, Representative Stacy Erwin Oakes is here to discuss medical marijuana and other issues.

All this and more coming up right now.

Off the record and getting the inside out.

It's off the record with senior capital correspondent Tim.

Skubick.

And his Capitol press corps colleagues.

Production of Off the Record is made possible in part by a grant from Truscott Rossman.

Michigan's only bipartisan strategic communications firm serving statewide, national and international clients from their offices in Lansing, Detroit and Grand Rapids.

Truscott Rosman, accom by the Michigan Food and Beverage Association in conjunction with the Michigan Business and Professional Association, working together for its members.

Membership Information on the Web at Mission Business dot org and by Hager Fox Heating and Air Conditioning Company providing comfort to mid-Michigan homes and businesses since 1941.

Hager, Fox and Bryant for whatever it takes on the Web at Hager, Fox dot com.

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

Thanks, Joe Donovan and welcome to this week's edition of Off the Record.

A rather busy one as lawmakers are now home for the holidays and leaving behind under the tree.

Lifting the cap on charter schools.

Ms.. Hoffman Yes, I finally agreed to do that.

But the compromise, they decided not do it all at once.

It's going to be a gradual lifting of charter schools that can be chartered by universities, and the cap will finally be gone in 2015.

Start to 200 than 500, and then the sky's the limit.

Yeah, yeah.

So.

So what?

Well, Michigan already has the sixth most number of charter schools in the nation, so we weren't really lacking.

But now the doors are open.

Chris Well, it's a dream come true of what, a decade, two decades this has been going on 16 years.

And they finally got to the Republican majority.

They wanted and needed to get it passed.

I I'm not sure what's all that different now other than people have gotten more used to charter schools.

And it is the evidence and the research says that they, from what we've seen, haven't performed that much better than than public schools.

It's a mixed bag.

Was a mixed bag just like public schools are.

I think the good thing is that they do include some transparency measures in there to make them, at least the public, a little more aware of their performance.

What the Democrats are raising a number of points against charters is they obviously defend the traditional public schools, is that these for profit companies come in and their objective is to make money and oh, by the way, while we're doing that, we'll teach the kids, talk to Vicki Barnett.

And she said, look, if you're looking at the profit bottom line, you're not going to make some critical financial decisions to help the kids resonate or not.

Well, I think it resonates from the standpoint that they don't educate special ed kids.

Most of these they don't accept them because it's expensive to educate special ed kids.

And quite frankly, the public schools don't get funded and don't get entirely the money back for for taking special ed kids.

So I do think that they make financial decisions on which students they want to take, you know, do it.

Is it to the point that they are giving kids bad educations purposely to get make more money?

No, that's not true.

But I do think that they are not a panacea for what ails public education.

You know, they give you know, the advocates, I'll say, well, they give parents a choice to get out of bed public schools.

But like Chris said, the research is, is that generally, if you're taking the same school population in the same communities, their test scores are not better.

So I don't think that it's a panacea.

I do think that there is some concerns that, you know, this is a lot of private corpora and it is a private sector.

But, you know, when it comes right down to it, it is a parent's choice.

I just think the parents have to be very, very you know, they have to know what they're getting into and they have to know what's best for their kids.

We've all been around here long enough to know when something gets pushed this hard for this long that money's involved somewhere.

You know?

And to say that the profit motive is not is irrelevant, that's not really what's going on.

It's all about the children is just flat out not true.

All right.

So I mean, that yes, that's a big factor on what's going on.

Other things are, you know, you have parents in districts like Detroit and some urban districts, they get fed up with what schools?

And I think some of their decisions are not made so much academically.

They want to put their kids in a safe place.

Precisely.

And anybody who thinks that this is a watershed for education in Michigan is probably going to be disappointed.

It's a very complex problem.

Nobody is addressing the fact that poverty is very linked to academic performance and nobody has come out with legislation to have children have a choice not to have bad parents who are a huge factor and that.

She tried to get that law through the legislature.

You know, and rush these places, you know, they don't have a psychologist on the staff.

They don't have a social worker or somebody that helps these kids, you know, get plugged into social services, are doing things that a lot of the public schools are doing.

And the public schools are absolutely right.

Every kid that walks off to a charter school takes their money with them and it makes it harder for the schools and to to make do a better job, especially when.

Charter people say that kind of competition will foster the kind of growth that will improve everybody.

It raises everybody you know, we have 225 charter schools in the state already.

And I don't know that you can make that argument legitimately.

I think the bigger problem is possibly online schools.

You know, if we're going to have a lot more of these, you know, virtual schools, I think that there's a lot of questions about how well those schools really educate.

The interesting thing about that, you had many outstate Republicans coming from successful school districts who said, you know what, I don't want the charters coming in and siphoning off all my good kids from those good schools.

Leave us alone.

Because our schools are working.

So don't ruin them.

And there's an argument to be made.

Mm hmm.

Yeah.

But Pablo.

Pablo says, look at if there isn't a reason to bring in a charter, they won't go into those districts.

So that's his retort to that.

Well, I think that's untrue.

I think a lot of these charters sit there and sometimes they say, well, we're going to offer your kids a free computer or we're going to you know, I mean, there's lots of ways that they have they market you know, they market they have a marketing budget.

They spend a lot of money.

Like you said, it's not the money isn't all going towards education.

You know, they're out there marketing, trying.

To get to market now, too, because of the choice.

I mean, they're spending money that could have been spent in the classroom advertising to get people to come back.

Let's face some of this is just about, you know, getting at teachers unions again, because a lot of these are charter schools.

They don't have unions that you know.

And so there is some of that, I think, involved as well.

And, you know, almost everybody around town says, well, this is all fought in opposed by the teachers unions.

When we talk about out state Republicans and and and others not just outside but in Detroit area in these legislators.

And one of the constituencies that they hear from a lot and listen to a lot and always have are school superintendents.

Yeah.

Our school.

Our school administrators.

And they're just as concerned about it, too, about the idea of siphoning off kids, too.

That's one of the reasons it's taken 16 years.

Give the governor and House Republicans credit.

They started out with about 20 Republican votes that were no votes and they whittled it down and got enough.

And I'm told that people were being brought into the governor's office.

I assume he does not have a woodshed.

This guy, just governors, is not a woodshed guy, is he?

No.

He's persuasive.

Though.

Yes.

Well, obviously, he got the bill.

Home heating for the poor passed.

Yes.

Finally, there is a compromise between the House and Senate versions.

You know, there was a court case that kind of threw the program in limbo.

Now we have a new Vulnerable Warmth fund that's being funded about $60 million.

So that program will live on for another year till they figure out what to do with it.

The Republicans knew that they did not want to go home for the holidays with the prospect of people having their heat shut off and people dying in their homes.

Especially in northern Michigan.

Well, yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

This has been a huge deal.

And the thing is, the court decision was in July.

They've had a lot of time to work on this.

And, you know, when I started writing about this a couple of months ago, Representative Horne said that he didn't think that his fellow lawmakers were taking it seriously enough.

So finally things got down to the nitty gritty and they did come up with something.

You know, there's been a lot of Democratic criticism saying that all they had to do was go back and fix the law so that they could continue this program.

And that's that's really what they could have done.

And that's kind of what they basically did, except they only did it for about a year.

So we'll see what happens long term.

I mean, represent, you know, in the court case in the first place was that businesses say we don't benefit from this.

It just goes to residences.

And so there could be some way where you fix it that you do drop businesses out of it, but you would then have to make it statewide.

Right now, only customers and consumers energy in Detroit Edison pay it, although customers statewide benefit from it.

So you might end up having it spread to all all residential customers in the state.

There will be a surcharge on your monthly bill to help fund this.

About a dollar a month.

Yeah, it's very little.

People want because you get a refund too.

Yeah, yeah, they got it done.

It was iffy yesterday as they were going back and forth between the House and Senate, but they did.

Now, domestic partners, this is a ticking time bomb for the governor.

Yay or nay?

Oh, yeah.

This is the kind of stuff he doesn't like.

No, he doesn't like it.

It's kind of the kind of social issues he, he and his administration want.

Really nothing to tell the.

People what they did.

They basically sent him a bill that says.

That public public employees cannot have benefits for domestic partners who aren't married.

And but eventually the dispute is over whether this applies to universities.

And the governor doesn't want to sign it.

If it applies to universities, because universities have constitutional autonomy in Michigan, some of us are wondering why he would sign it to begin with, since on the campaign trail, he made it clear that he supports civil unions for gay couples.

Yeah, part of the problem with the legislature is that because, you know, they could have kept this narrow.

But then we had the defense of marriage law that we've passed here in the state.

And all of a sudden, instead of being able to offer it just to domestic partners, to gay partners, you have to offer it to anybody in the household.

And so you have, you know, some of representatives saying, well, this is just wildly expensive because you can have anybody move in with somebody that's a public employee and get covered, which is probable mean.

That's a that's a large lie.

But if they just you know but it's because, you know, a lot of these conservative, you know, in the state pushed that so that gay couples could not have.

But it isn't costing us money.

The estimate for state workers was that this could cost us 6 to $10 million.

It's only 600,000.

That was a wildly inaccurate estimate.

But the other side says the number will grow once the word gets out and everybody latches onto this.

My problem is we haven't covered it enough.

Well, right.

Well, and the governor keeps talking about how he wants the best talent to come to the state.

Well, if somehow, you know, that's especially true for universities, which he does say, then why is that not true for our school districts?

Why is that not true for the way our cities are run?

I mean, I.

Just well, because he lives in Ann Arbor and I'm sure he's heard more than his earful from the University of Missouri and others, too.

But like I said, if you want the best, why would you sit there and say, well, that doesn't apply to other segments as well?

That's the constitutional separation of university autonomy.

That's really what the issue is.

Not to pick a fight with the legislature here, but, you know, sometimes if you're on different pages, you have to do.

That.

This is the beginning of this story, which I think will be the story of next year, Governor versus is this kind of stuff coming out of.

What they really want to do that in 2012 with a presidential election?

I don't know that the House does well.

The House Republicans do.

This is the stuff they run on shoes.

Come on.

This is how they give.

The general election afterwards to deal with.

When people don't care about this, people care about the economy.

Well, the base cares about it.

Come on.

Well, that's great that the base is, what, ten, 20%?

Well, you know, in a Republican primary, that's the margin of.

Error still in November election.

And.

Right.

So what issues.

Do you think are we we have we have domestic partners.

I assume abortion will be up there somewhere.

Some more issues at some point to work.

There is Pledge of Allegiance.

I mean, you I mean, we had Gary Glenn on here.

He had a laundry list of 20 issues.

They take this.

Banning of banning nudity.

I think.

This is.

This is important stuff that affects people's bottom lines.

Definitely.

We got to be worried about that.

Well, let's see what he does.

Well, I think that there's always, you know, push when, you know, one side or the other has control of both chambers and the governorship to go ahead and get their wish list in.

But I don't think that you know, I think the governor has made it pretty clear so far.

He repeatedly talks about, you know, I don't want to get into a right to work fight.

And he doesn't look at all the air.

It's going to suck out of Indiana.

That's our number one priority in Indiana for 2012.

You can already tell nothing else is going you know, you're going to have rallies on the Capitol lawn down there.

And I don't think the governor wants to get into that.

And, you know, I think he's going to make a very strong argument that most of these lawmakers don't want to have a whole lot of people.

I think that's one reason that everyone's looking at what he does with this.

The best part has been to see if he sends a signal that I'm not going to I'm not going to get into that stuff.

It was interesting.

We had both newspapers on the right and the left after editorializing on the very same point, which is, Governor, stand up and man up and tell these guys to take a hike.

Because Nolan Finley, the conservative columnist for The Detroit News, said, wake up, this could cost us in 2012.

Don't go there.

It'll be fun to see what he does.

All right.

Let's call in Representative Boggs, please check in on Democratic Representative Stacy Irwin.

Okay.

She's in her first term in the Michigan house where she once served as a staffer.

She earned a criminal justice degree from Ferris state and worked as a corrections officer.

She also holds a law degree from MSU.

She serves on the House Judiciary Committee.

Representative, welcome to our program.

Susan has a first question.

Representative Why did things fall apart on the road commission issue to make it so that those could possibly be eliminated?

But we didn't see the House acts on that yesterday as expected.

Well, I can't specifically tell you, but I know that the Republicans had enough votes to move the bill if the vote if they wanted to, in fact, move the bill.

Ultimately, as you know, in Lansing, there's a lot of negotiation and it's my belief that those negotiations fell apart.

Was this a big loss for the speaker?

This was something that Jason Moser really wanted.

That's my understanding that this was, in fact, something that he really wanted.

And there may have been some personal issues there as well, things that we as Democrats didn't want to get involved in.

Clearly, they had enough votes on the other side of the aisle.

How were the Republicans treated the Democrats this year?

I would say that it's not been as transparent as we would have liked.

I do know in the past as it relates to floor speeches and things of that nature, I can appreciate that we have had the opportunity to speak on the floor a little more, so I will give them credit for that.

How about on bipartisanship?

Bipartisanship?

I can not say that it's been a very bipartisan effort.

It's very disappointing.

We started this legislature in 96 legislature.

Speaking about jobs, jobs were going to be a priority.

Jobs are going to be first going to be a top of the list of things to do.

We have not seen that.

We've seen erosion of the school aid fund.

We've seen, you know, a tax on couples.

We've seen everything but things that are priority for jobs.

What's one issue, for example, that you think should have been taken up?

That wasn't one issue that should have been taken up.

That was not taken up.

Well, it was taken up, unfortunately, that $1.1 billion that was removed out of school life was very detrimental.

And yes, we've seen efforts to replace some of the money or it turned out that it wasn't as much per pupil.

But ultimately, when you do things of that nature, it sends a message to the district who then has to lay off teachers?

That sets a negative tone for the environment and and the students.

What could Democrats be doing to be more effective?

I know you're in the minority, but, you know, you you haven't really been a huge presence this year.

One of the things I believe we have to do to be more effective is make people more aware of what's going on in Lansing, the things that are important to them.

We have to communicate the issues a little clear to be more effective because that's ultimately who we work for.

We work for the people who have elected us to be in Lansing.

Medical marijuana.

You were on the Judiciary Committee.

When they come back in the new year, they're going to play around with this law.

You were on board or not.

As a released American marijuana or your question specifically?

Well, do you think we need to have new regulations to fill in some of these gaps?

And are the police overreacting by shutting down all of these district distribution centers?

To answer your first question, as it relates to medical marijuana, it passed overwhelmingly by the people.

So again, we're elected by the people.

We need to make sure we address those issues.

Is there a need for some clarity?

Definitely.

Whether you see the police who are involved or the people who receive medical marijuana license as the legislature, it's incumbent upon us to make sure we address those issues.

One thing we do know, the applications came in overwhelmingly.

Another thing we know is they've collected in excess over and above the regular fees, about $1,000,000.

But they're very understaffed.

All of these things create a problem.

So hire more people to address this.

And we have the legislature needs to make sure we give the clarity that they need.

And I will not stop short of saying that it's unfortunate that our attorney general chooses to go after these individuals knowing this clarity is not there.

We need to offer that clarity.

Do you worry with, you know, the legislature looking at having a plan B for the financial emergency manager law that would kick in if somehow, you know, if there's enough signatures to put this in abeyance until the election next year, that that, you know, that is just kind of trampling on the, you know, and the rights of people who've gathered enough signatures to to stop this temporarily, you know, is that a wrong decision or is that the right decision?

Because we have these financial emergency managers that would have to stop doing what they're doing otherwise.

I think that's a very wrong decision and a wrong decision because as I've indicated, we are a democracy and we have to listen to the people and to take the right of the people away to elect elected officials.

I think that that is a shame.

Well, are you opposed to the emergency manager law as it's currently written?

Yes.

Would you like it completely repealed?

Yes.

Would you sign a petition to do that?

Yes.

Have you done that?

No.

Why not?

Not been presented with the petition.

Okay.

Do you think there's going to be an effort by the Republican led legislature to put an interim one in case there are enough signatures to dump pay for?

I can't say what their plan may be, but ultimately I think that they are getting the message that it's the plan of the people to make it clear that they're not happy with this with this law.

You served in the attorney general's office, not under Mr.

Shooting, but your comment, it's unfortunate that he's going after these people.

What's wrong with this issue to you in your mind?

Well, he's basically trying to thwart the medical marijuana act when in fact, it's up to the legislature to give that clarity.

And we may not be an appropriate legislature at the time, but taking full responsibility if we didn't give the proper clarity that it was necessary so that local officials, so that the medical marijuana holders would know what they could actually possess, what they would know, where they could actually purchase the medical marijuana.

Then it's incumbent upon us to give that clarity.

So he's encroaching on the legislature.

One might say.

So do.

You believe that.

This.

Is this become a personal issue for him since he led the no campaign back in 2008?

It appears so.

And I think, again, that goes back to the erosion of that democracy, not listening to the people, whether I agree with medical marijuana or not.

At the end of the day, that passed overwhelmingly and we have to respect that.

Do you know people rarely request to be in that seat?

Your office called and said, hey, our boss would like to be on.

What's up?

I have a very aggressive staff.

They are very smart and they love the show.

I said.

Have you ever considered a career in politics?

Are you running for the Senate?

Am I running for the Senate?

Currently, I'm running for reelection.

I'm up for reelection in 2012.

I do indeed plan on running for reelection for the statehouse, for the 95th District.

And then after that, you would run for Mr. Council seat.

Is that your district?

Senator Khan is my senator.

But after 2012, I'll have to see what happens.

After 2012, I hope to be reelected a state representative.

But you do have future political ambitions.

I have future political ambition.

I have future ambitions all together.

As indicated in the opening segment, I'm a former school teacher, former correction officer, adjunct professor at Saginaw Valley, Saginaw Valley.

And I enjoyed all of those things.

So I'm.

Not.

What would you like to be when you grow up?

Politically, what would I like to be when I grow up?

Whatever the people would have me to be.

No, no, no, no.

I'm not going to take that.

No, no, no, no.

What do you want to be?

What do I want to be?

Really?

I've been a public servant for most of my career, and the people have pretty much moved me to an elected position.

As you indicated, I worked as assistant attorney general for eight years.

That's not a elected position.

But ultimately, it was people in my community who said, we think you can do more.

We want you at the table.

We want you in the legislature.

What do you think it's going to take to get more women in the legislature, though?

I mean, the numbers have not gone up.

And, you know, there are very few women actually in the legislature as a proportion.

This is true.

I think it's going to take women like myself who are currently here encouraging other women to run, too, letting them let them know that it's necessary for us to be a part of the process.

We represent almost 50% of the state.

We should represent almost 50% of the legislature.

There isn't a female caucus in the legislature.

There is a women's caucus in the legislature.

Last time it meant.

It met over the past two.

Weeks.

Really?

Yes.

What did you talk about?

We talked about issues some which you mentioned in the show, abortion issues.

We've talked about getting other women involved in politics.

Is in bipartisan.

And there is a bipartisan group that meets as well.

You you're not very visible.

The Women's Caucus.

The Women's Caucus.

Well, there's been a lot going on.

And at the end of the day, we know that some of those other issues are coming down the pipe and we're trying to make sure we keep those visible, visible.

We did make sure we do something during pay equity month, something that I'm quite passionate about.

I mean, if I work 8 hours, I think I should bring home the same dollar as my male counterpart.

What did you learn?

Being a corrections officer.

I learned being a corrections officer that people are people who, no matter where they come from.

At the end of the day, if you give respect, most of the time you will be given respect.

I learned that it can be a very tough environment to work in.

Not so much.

Only because you're working with inmates and people who have been found unfit for society.

But sometimes you're also working with coworkers who come from different backgrounds and may not be as accepting of you either.

You think the state is on the right path with its policy of trying to move more people out of prison?

I do believe so.

You know, at this point, we pay about 35 to $30000 a year to house an inmate.

And do we have too many people in prison?

Certainly we have too many people in prison.

And we must decide to make sure we're locking up those who we are afraid of, not those who are mad at at the end of the day.

We consistently pass legislation that can put the average citizen in prison for things that you and I probably aren't afraid of.

Yes, I'm mad at my neighbor because their house is in foreclosure, but at the end of the day, I don't want to see money locked up.

Let me ask you, this has been a whirlwind year for first termers and the governor.

How would you rate the governor's performance this year after one year?

I probably would give the governor adding in in part because the things that we've indicated would be a priority have not been a priority.

We can't point to one thing that is producing jobs right now or set up to produce jobs.

Well, he said his business tax, which takes effect on January 1st, will produce jobs, although he hasn't put a number on it.

And although he may have said that everyone in this nation knows about the business tax, everyone in the nation knows about the cuts that have been made.

But venture capital capitalist show the numbers show that we don't have venture capitalists knocking at the door saying we're ready to do business in Michigan.

What are the odds that the Democrats will take back the House in 12?

I think the odds are great he'll come.

I think those are odds are great because people are paying attention and they're realizing that the things that were promised are not happening represented.

When you decide to run for governor, you'll call me.

I would.

All right.

That was a yes, wasn't it?

I will.

Representative, thanks very much.

I appreciate also thanks to Chris and Kathy and Susan.

Don't forget our email address had on our air, dawg, until next week.

And Kim Scott her off the.

Record.

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