Author Archive

Eric Baerren

It would be simple, and fun, to accuse the state Senate of being filled with pocket edition authoritarians who cloak their desire to control people in the American flag. But probably not accurate.

Let’s back up a second. Last week, the Senate dusted off an age-old fight over turning schools into indoctrination centers. At first, Sen. Roger Kahn (R-Saginaw) sponsored a bill requiring children in schools that receive public money to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. Then, probably after someone pointed out to him that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled nearly 70 years ago – while the nation was in the middle of a worldwide war the outcome of which was still in doubt – that schools couldn’t compel children to take morning loyalty oaths masked as the Pledge. So the language was altered, and now children can opt out if they have a note from home.

The truth is that this probably has less to do with promoting a mild form of state worship, and a lot more to do with something for which this Legislature has become legend – authoring and passing legislation for which there is very little evidence that anyone thought through what it meant. This is the same august body that just the week before passed legislation intended to compel school districts to adopt bullying policies that left a giant gap suggesting it was OK if the alleged bully could say, “Hey, I was just trying to save that other kid’s soul.”

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Eric Baerren

State legislatures, by and large, have a reputation for incompetence and craven thinking. If there is a problem to address, they tend to be most adept at – usually through sheer bumbling incompetence – making things worse.

This is a necessary backdrop when considering last week’s passage in the Senate of legislation aimed at addressing bullying in school, but that ultimately enabled it. The bulk of the bill’s language establishes requirements for local school districts in establishing bullying policies, but toward the end throws in a sop to the Religious Right that no bullying policy can apply to situations where the alleged bully is acting out of personal moral or religious belief. If God whispers to one child that he should launch a campaign of terror against another, then he can claim sanctuary under the First Amendment.

For a brief second, the bill caught the winds of the 24-hour media, and the nation’s attention was focused on Michigan. The Republic got a good laugh, and before it got to the House of Representatives, a body even more filled with religious zealots and ignoramuses, key representatives were already backing off. You have to wonder what would have happened had a downpour of ridicule not fallen on Lansing.

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Eric Baerren

Two editorials sit ready in the clips file of every newspaper, editors waiting for the appropriate pre-election stars to align just right so they can dust them off.

The first informs readers that it is their duty to vote. Do not, if you value coherence, ask whether people so tuned out to civic matters that they are unaware that an election is upon them should be encouraged to vote.

The second, likely to be seen in one of the state’s legislative districts, is a solemn denunciation of the citizens’ recall. A recall, the editorial invariably says, should be a matter of last resort, something used only to bounce crooks from office. You can practically hear the sound of the editorialists patting themselves on the back for taking up the banner for civility and political sobriety.

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Eric Baerren

If you pay attention to the issue of how local libraries are funded – a story only slightly less interesting than the relative merits of salt versus crushed corncobs to aid motorists post-snowstorm – you’ve probably seen a line item in the budget that comes from tickets issued by local law enforcement.

The connection between speeding tickets and the local library is that there isn’t one. The idea, sent down to us from men much wiser than today’s crop of leaders, was that if you allow law enforcement to use money from tickets that its officers issued, you provide the police with a financial incentive to write a lot of unnecessary tickets. To prevent that, the money is turned over to the local library.

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Eric Baerren

Michigan’s roads are crumbling, its schools are falling apart and unemployment is once again on the rise among its citizens. Yet last week the state House of Representatives waged war on something else. They pushed Michigan one step closer to being one of two states that have thrown off the yoke of federal oppression, at least when it comes to light bulbs.

Back in 2007, Congress passed a bill that required all bulbs manufactured in the United States to meet a series of graduated efficiency standards, and the law would have the effect of causing all old-style incandescent light bulbs to be phased out of use. At the time, the standards attracted very little attention, probably because they were crafted with the help and support of the light bulb manufacturing industry. In testimony before Congress, those manufacturers said that they wanted stability and predictability in the marketplace that a single, unified standard would provide. What they didn’t want were all 50 states going out and creating their own efficiency standards, which, in the name of dear sweet freedom, is what 64 House members voted for last week.

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Eric Baerren

Late last month, Gov. Rick Snyder said something incredibly peculiar. He said that he wanted to address a problem by tackling one of its causes. Anyone not shocked that he’d say such a thing, rather than making an empty gesture designed only to generate headlines, hasn’t for very long been a student of Michigan politics.

During one of those special messages he occasionally delivers to the state Legislature, Snyder said that we not only need to address childhood obesity, but that doing so required that we help make better, more nutritious food available to their parents. In doing so, he promoted programs that double food stamp purchasing power when it comes to produce found at places like farmers markets.

A week later, normalcy was restored. Snyder’s administration had undermined his articulated goals by instituting an assets test for food stamp recipients. Poor people with more than $5,000 in the bank will no longer, in the state of Michigan, qualify for food stamps.

To call the move short sighted is an insult to short sightedness. Some have called it cruel. It is that. Also applicable are words like boneheaded, needless, visionless and counterproductive. One thing it isn’t is a necessity created by a state budget deficit. Food assistance is a federal program, and the state of Michigan’s role is to merely distribute those federal dollars by way of EBT to state-issued Bridge Cards.

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