Post-election headlines were on resounding Democratic victories in the presidential, congressional and Michigan House races -- as well as the surprise ouster of Republican Michigan Supreme Court Chief Justice Cliff Taylor and a sweep of state education board contests.
Overlooked -- in fact only recently compiled -- was Democratic success in gaining strength on county boards, including three in the Upper Peninsula and six in the northern Lower area.
In a Nov. 24 report on "Battle of the Boards," Inside Michigan Politics (IMP) newsletter said: "For the first time ever, Michigan Democrats have net-gained seats on the state's 83 county boards of commissioners in three straight general elections."
Among the single-seat Democratic county gains Up North: Benzie, Chippewa, Grand Traverse, Leelanau, Menominee, Missaukee (plus one independent), Ontonagon, Presque Isle and Roscommon.
According to Eric Scorsone, of Michigan State University's State and Local Government Program, Democrats gained at least one seat in 24 different counties, while Republicans made pick-ups in only four (including one in Kalkaska).
IMP said, "Democrats gained majority status in two counties they didn't have before the election: Menominee and Presque Isle. Republicans failed to pickup any they didn't already hold. Before the elections, Republicans boasted a 49-34 edge among the 83 panels (down from 59-24 just four years earlier). Now the line-up is 46 panels for the GOP, 36 for the Democrats, and the tie in Keweenaw Co."
There has been dramatic change in downstate counties that are pivotal in statewide elections. The 16-3 edge that Republicans had on the Kent County board in 2004 is now 11-8. In Oakland County, once a GOP stronghold where Republicans had a 19-6 majority in 2003-04, it's now 13-12.
In Macomb County, the bellwether land that gets national media focus for its "Reagan Democrats" and where Republicans were down on the county board 18-8, before Nov. 4. It's now 20-6.
Inside Michigan Politics concludes, "Republicans now constitute 54.5 percent of all board membership statewide, Democrats 44.9 percent, but that's a big change from the 64.5%-34.9% edge the Republicans enjoyed as recently as 2005-06."
Another Millard Fillmore elected
Whig Millard Fillmore of New York's Finger Lakes region and Republican Millard Fillmore of Michigan's Upper Peninsula have something in common besides the name.
New York's Fillmore became our 13th president in 1850 when he was the second vice president to ascend to the Oval Office upon the death of Zachary Taylor.
A vacancy also opened the way for the UP's Fillmore when, on Nov. 4, he was elected AuTrain Township supervisor in Alger County to replace a woman who was recalled.
Fillmore, who is retired from General Motors, told me he gets "raised eyebrows from most people" because of his last name. But he's "not much of a student of history (and) I'm not much of a politician."
Nor are most township officers in Michigan. Political affiliation is secondary to local service -- although they deal with hot political issues such as land use, including location of big box stores. (Item: Meijer's secret attempt in 2006-07 to recall the entire Acme Township board over a Grand Traverse County zoning dispute that ended up with Meijer getting a state fine.)
President Fillmore, at the outset of his less than four years in office, dealt with a defining issue in U.S. history: he opposed slavery and supported the Compromise of 1850.
Supervisor Fillmore faces a major local issue upon taking office: options on the future of the AuTrain Basin Dam at Forest Lake west of Munising. As quoted in the Marquette Mining Journal, he said, "it's like a great big jigsaw puzzle."
The presidency is the most powerful office in the land. But also the most remote. Not so with mayors, township trustees and county commissioners.
They are as close as the governing get to the governed.
George Weeks retired in 2006 after 22 years as political columnist for The Detroit News. His weekly Michigan Politics column is syndicated by Superior Features.
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