Jack Lessenberry: Snyder may face stiff opposition on the right

Jack Lessenberry

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Jack Lessenberry

September 18, 2011

By Jack Lessenberry, Local columnist ---- The Record Eagle Tue Mar 13, 2012, 10:41 AM EDT

LANSING — Gov. Rick Snyder has had no difficulty with the state's weak and demoralized Democrats since he burst on the scene barely a year ago.

He breezed to election and carried heavy GOP legislative majorities with him. He got almost all his early programs through the Legislature in astonishing time. The Democratic minority whined and feebly protested, but didn't even offer an alternative to his cuts.

But it's now clear that the real question is whether his future attempts at reforms will be sabotaged by his fellow Republicans.

Pinning the state's future on a bet that slashing business taxes would create more jobs, the new governor cut aid to education. He got the Legislature to extend the state income tax to pensions.

He cut revenue sharing to already financially desperate cities, and made it clear that some of the money they do get will be tied to adopting a "best practices" system of reducing benefits.

Yet while this has sparked opposition, and a recall effort that ignominiously fizzled, Snyder hasn't drawn the anger and hatred that his neighboring fellow Republican governors have.

That may be because Snyder hasn't come across as vindictive or ideological, beyond his deep faith in the private sector. He is opposed to trying to pass right-to-work legislation, possibly because he knows that would be certain to fire up labor.

When some GOP legislators talked about outlawing collective bargaining for teachers and other government workers, the governor said taking away their right to negotiate "is not on my agenda."

But many of his colleagues in the Legislature are considerably to the right of Snyder, especially on so-called social issues. Last week, to his dismay, a House committee voted to ban school districts from deducting union dues from teachers' paychecks.

Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Randy Richardville (R-Monroe), the governor's main legislative ally on the new Detroit River bridge proposal, threw his partner an unexpected curve.

He announced he was supporting a bill that would mandate a form of right-to-work for Michigan teachers. Currently, most are either required to join the teachers union or pay dues to them.

The new bill would require them to do neither. These bills, especially the one aimed at union dues, are clearly vindictive efforts aimed at punishing the Michigan Education Association, or MEA, and its smaller rival, the American Federation of Teachers, or AFT.

Republicans hate these unions, in large part because they are major financial contributors to political causes and campaigns they support, the majority of whom are Democrats.

These bills would undoubtedly weaken the teacher unions. Republicans have large majorities in both houses of the Legislature, and probably have the votes to pass both these bills.

But if they do, it could conceivably backfire. Not only will it harden opposition to the Republicans, it may make them look like hypocrites who are for local control ... except when they can score political points by being against it.

The governor got even more blatant pushback on Sept. 14, when he announced his long-awaited special message on health and wellness.

"We have a broken system," Snyder said.

That's something perfectly clear to any student of health-care statistics. The governor seems particularly concerned about children, and two fast-rising major problems: childhood obesity, and autism.

Snyder also called on the Legislature to require insurance companies to cover autism, noting that most states already do, and adding "if you look at the science, it's clear there are medical treatments now that make a material difference."

Yet the Michigan Chamber of Commerce instantly declared its opposition to required autism coverage. The Speaker of the House then contemptuously dismissed the idea.

That is somewhat shocking, given that the governor and the speaker are both Republicans.

The governor, who says he admires the pro-environment record of liberal former Republican Gov. William Milliken, also asked the Legislature to ban smoking on state-owned beaches.

It was not immediately clear how this will would play in the Legislature. But it was very clear that there is a vast disconnect between this governor and his Legislature on many of these issues.

That poses an interesting dilemma:

If Rick Snyder is to get much of his agenda through now, it seems likely he'll have to depend on a few moderate Republicans -- while winning over the vast majority of the Democrats. Whether or not he can finesse that could be the political challenge of his career.