11/12/2006

The new majority and the Great Lakes

By George Weeks
Syndicated columnist

Much of the Michigan media post-election pondering has been on widely respected Sen. Carl Levin, 72, a chief critic of the Iraq war, becoming chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and having a bigger oversight role than he has as its oft-quoted ranking Democrat.

The spotlight also has been on Dearborn Democrat John Dingell, 80, highly regarded dean of the U.S. House, becoming chairman of the House Commerce Committee with enhanced power as an advocate for the auto industry and health care reform, and on Detroit's combative John Conyers, 77, who as ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee wrote a bill to consider impeachment hearings against President George W. Bush. But he wisely said last week that if he becomes chairman, "impeachment is off the table."

Well it should be.

"Aging lions become top dogs," headlined the Detroit Free Press Friday about Michigan's new geezer power on Capitol Hill.

In Lansing, the post-election focus has been on how re-elected Gov. Jennifer Granholm, the newly Democratic House (58-52) and the still Republican Senate (21-17) will deal with next year's compelling tax and budget issues, especially in light of the need to replace lost revenue from elimination of the Single Business Tax.

While there is understandable emphasis on other issues in both capitals, let us in the Great Lakes insist that their leaders also focus on issues lapping at our shores.

The questions I have:

• Democratic congressional champions of the Great Lakes from Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Michigan will have more power next year, but will they have the influence and resolve in a tight budget to finally get passage of the proposed $20 billion Great Lakes restoration plan that has languished for three years?

Sen. Debbie Stabenow and Rep. Bart Stupak of Menominee have been among those champions and will have added clout with their party ruling both chambers.

Rep. Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, co-sponsor of the Great Lakes Collaborative Act, headed the campaign committee that helped finance the Democratic takeover of the House and is a member of the Ways and Means Committee; Rep. David Obey of Wisconsin will chair the powerful Appropriations Committee, and Rep. James Obserstar of Minnesota likely will head the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, whose responsibilities include water issues.

Democratic Sen.-elect Sherrod Brown of Ohio, another co-sponsor of the Great Lakes act, has vowed to fight for Great Lakes protection.

Surely, there should be enough influence among Great Lakes lawmakers to at least fund a better battle against invasive species, especially those Asian carp coming up from south of Chicago.

• Will Granholm, cautious in her first term but now term-limited with a Democratic House, have backbone and will to go to the mat for Great Lakes and other environmental issues?

She told me during the campaign that she'd support strengthening laws on withdrawal of ground water, an issue on which she was a tad wobbly.

At the beginning of her first term, Granholm delivered on her campaign pledge of making land use reform an immediate priority. Her commission on the matter, chaired by Republican ex-Gov. Bill Milliken and Democratic ex-Attorney General Frank Kelley, made recommendations — less than 20 percent of which have been implemented as of the end of that term in dealing with the Republican Legislature.

Milliken predicts Granholm will vigorously fight for "her better chance for a clear path on environmental and land use issues."

Bill Rustem, former Milliken environmental adviser and now president of the Public Sector Consultants firm that staffed Granholm's land use commission, recalled that Milliken as a Republican environmental advocate in the 1970s was allied in the Democratic House with Conservation Committee Chairman Tom Anderson, D-Southgate. Now, says Rustem, look for Chair Patricia Birkholz, R-Saugatuck, of the Senate Natural Resources and Environmental Affairs Committee, to have a similar productive bipartisan alliance with Granholm in yet another divided Legislature.

Birkholz and fellow GOP senators will have the lone Republican stronghold under the Capitol dome (Granholm has a ceremonial office there; the GOP-ruled Supreme Court, once in the Capitol, has its own Hall of Justice).

Ironically for environmentalists, Republicans have a 21-17 Senate toehold in the Capitol because Green Party candidates managed to get votes that surpassed the narrow margins by which Republicans beat Democrats by less than 1,000 votes in Oakland and Saginaw counties. Had Democrats won those races, it would be 19-19, with Democratic Lt. Gov. John Cherry tipping the scale.

George Weeks retired this year after 22 years as political columnist for The Detroit News. His weekly Michigan Politics column is syndicated by Superior Features.