Thanks for tuning in.

Our guest this week is the Democratic associate speaker of the Michigan House.

Her name is Representative Laurie Pohutsky.

Our lead story, the Governor's Grills Commission speaks.

Republicans aren't listening on the vote.

Our panel, Chad Livengood, Zoe Clark and Rick Pluta sit in with us as we get the inside out.

Off the Record.

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

Thank you very much.

Welcome to Studio C as we are taping on this Friday morning and the Governor's Growth Commission has issued a report.

Let's take a look.

The growth commission wants to fix the roads.

It wants to improve the education of our children.

And Governor Whitmer knows that those changes and more are needed to meet this challenge.

There's a crisis unfolding in Michigan.

The kind that.

Requires us to take.

Action now.

Before it's too late.

Our growth cycle is broken.

The report calls for more study on a new funding formula for education, and it appears that more revenue indeed will be needed for that recommendation and others.

But this lone Republican lawmaker on the panel and lone no vote on the report says this about that.

I also believe that this committee.

Did not fulfill one of the directives put forth by.

The governor, and that is finding.

New revenue.

The superintendent of the Detroit schools came close to calling for a tax hike, but used this language instead.

Through more equitable and stronger levels of funding.

But that has to be matched with more accountability, better systems of coherency and integration that frankly, are lacking.

The House Republican leader Matt Hall, criticizes the governor for spending $2 million on a report that allegedly repeats what other reports have already suggested.

And he says if all the revenue goals are met in this report, it will cost, quote, billions of dollars.

The lobbyist for the road building industry expresses this bipartisan hope.

I hope that the both sides of.

The aisle and Republicans.

And Democrats and and everybody.

Can kind of get behind this report.

It's a hope, however, that at this rate appears to be a bit of a stretch.

Yeah, hopes for bipartisan support and the holiday seasons are here, right, Rick?

Well, I mean, they actually went further than bipartisan.

They call this a consensus report, and it may have been a consensus on the panel, but if there was a consensus in the Capitol, then this particular panel would not have been needed.

Oh, I was.

I thought Rick was going to just.

You're so stunned by that analysis.

I was waiting for Rick to.

I thought Rick was just going to continue to talk and talk because.

Which is what he does at home.

Right, To.

Talk and talk about at home.

So I was really going to start by watching it like 5 minutes jump in.

Well, you've been you've been a little critical of the commission, Tim.

You also, I think, are are unimpressed with this.

I didn't see that.

You didn't say this.

Look, this is a commission that Governor Whitmer, of course, called for back on Mackinac back in June and basically got a bunch of, as we like to say, stakeholders from all across the state to come together and say, look, I mean, what we all can agree on is there is a fundamental problem when Michigan ranks basically second to last in terms of population growth.

You can see in this commission.

And so the idea was to bring everyone together and come up with some ideas about how to grow the state's population and how to actually keep folks here in the state.

And this is the report that finally came out yesterday.

So what knocked your socks off?

What one thing you could say, Oh, waffle.

That's great.

Well, I think what I was surprised about was the fact because early indications seem to be that there was going to be some kind of idea about how to build revenue around some of these ideas.

Right.

And I think I was surprised that in the end, there wasn't any real conversation about, well, what is this actually going to take?

And you heard the Republican representative who voted no, basically saying as much that there wasn't necessarily money that was.

It basically said this is above our pay grade.

We don't get paid to do this.

I don't want to do that.

This report is going straight to the shelf and it's going to be getting is going to accumulate, accumulate, just like the 21st Century Commission report on infrastructure and education that Governor Snyder impaneled.

It's going to continue to just create stagnation.

This is this was not a very serious effort.

There is there is no proposal to put something forward before the legislature.

No, here's a game plan.

Here's the fix it.

Here's how we will back you up as the do not the stakeholders.

This is this is the usual suspects were involved in this whole process.

It ended up being essentially, you know, another great thing for consultants, they got some work out of the deal, but there's really nothing I mean, the legislature is going to sit pat for the next five months historically and do nothing and little do nothing until they get the some seats filled.

And so and then they're going do the budget and then they're going to leave.

But but can we.

I mean.

What's up very quickly about two things that are going to happen before possibly this report goes on the shelf?

Well, I do think we should watch two things.

One is the state of the state address.

Right.

And see how much of okay, maybe that's not call them recommendations with money, but how much of the state of the state address looks back towards some of the things?

And then what actually gets called for, Because in state of the state addresses, there tends to be a here's what I'd like to see.

And then let's wait and let's see what the budget recommendation, what the exact wreck looks like and if there's some money in there for that.

And I guess that might be the only true purpose of this report is to, you know, is for people like the governor and others to say, we've done this report which establishes that we are facing a challenge.

But but but that was never in question.

As a matter of fact, this has been going on for so long that I would quibble with the characterization that when it comes to population, we're in a crisis because a crisis means that we need immediate action and that this is something that just came upon us.

This has been a slow rolling condition that we've literally known was coming.

You know.

And the commission did set a target date of 2050 for this to be done.

Well, you sure, folks, these people are going to be in positions of responsibility to do anything about it.

The part that I love, the report, there were 21 different sections where they called for more study.

I mean, to steal phrase from a former governor, in 25 years, you're going to be blown away.

I mean, this is just I mean, this is just preposterous that we're just going to kick this can out to 2050 and think about this.

The last three years, we have had more people die in this state than be born.

We are the only we're the second slowest growth state in the nation to West Virginia.

The crisis is here, folks, and people that are ignoring it and continue to essentially push it off to the next legislature, push it off to the next lame duck session.

They're going to look back and they're going to be responsible.

But you people are intelligent enough to know why the word tax increase was not in this document.

But it's going to come out at some point.

If you're going to talk about revenue, why you have it in the document Mr. Pluta.

Why didn't they put it in?

You just said it.

Nobody wants to talk about it and nobody wants to see this report, which is basically just a regurgitation of things that we already know to get slammed out of the gate.

Because if there was, that's everything we would be talking about.

But you can't deal with revenue until you start talking about revenue.

You go back to the I mean, you and I remember them, the school funding battles of the 1980s and 1990s is there were proposals being put on the table.

Almost all of them, you know, just withered.

But at least people were talking about the different possibilities these and this hasn't even opened the door to that.

One of the things I think a lot about, which I guess just shows what a dork I am, is, you know, at a certain point there was $9 billion, right?

There was this $9 billion surplus.

And I often like thinking about what would have happened if there was some of that money to be used with some of these recommendations in conjunction in parallel.

Now, obviously, The recommendations are study it more.

Can I finish?

One of the issues as some of these things would be long, long term funding would need to be continuous.

And that doesn't work when you have only one type of funding, right.

If you're going to put $2 billion a year into roads, you can't use this 9 billion for ongoing.

But there was this pool of money.

And if you're trying to think about something that really is game changing and we talked about this, right, that this could have been money, that really could have in some respects with one or two things, made some real change.

What's the elephant in the room here?

They didn't address it.

Why do people not want to come to Michigan?

Yeah, exactly.

Okay.

If we if we answer that question, don't we have the possibility of a solution?

What is so bad about us?

Reputation.

Reputation?

Weather.

I want to.

Just say.

Whats our reputation?

We're union state?

That the people that this is not a great place to live.

And every governor that we've covered has said we don't know what's going on here because we have an abundance of natural resources that the.

The Great Lakes are the number one thing that people say.

About us.

Its such a tired old argument.

This is a union state.

It's all torn down.

I mean, come on.

This is is a beautiful state, a beautiful place to live.

There is a lot of nice people here and a lot of people who are actually innovative and and have changed the world.

I mean, we are the state that put the world on wheels.

Right.

Well, like, right now, we are we we're losing our automotive knowledge economy to the south, to Austin.

There are thousands, hundreds of GM engineers sitting in Austin.

They're sitting there sitting in San Francisco.

Why are they there and not here?

Well, we have a whole lot of structural reasons why we're losing our young people and and the next the next generation to that that can create the wealth to sustain what we've built.

You know, there were surveys that that specifically asked younger folks.

Right.

Is part of this we should say Hillary Doe, the chief growth officer.

I mean, they really did go all over the state and did surveys and and talked to some young folks.

And I mean, it's not shocking to hear about what people want.

Right.

Like, they want affordable housing.

They want transportation.

They want vibrant cities.

You know, like they want.

They want bike paths.

Access to child care.

Yes.

Access to child care, which is they haven't done.

We're talking when we get into things like access to child care and schools.

And I wanted to return to this point.

There was one concrete recommendation which was and a couple of years of of state funded, you know, education.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I should say, too, I mean, you know, Richard Florida is someone that they they leaned on a lot, as did, you know, the governor.

Wait and you'll be blown away in cool cities.

But you know, one of the things Richard Florida is talks a lot about is the sort of corridor that should be something should be done more with when you're talking about Michigan State University in Lansing or East Lansing and then the capital, Lansing, when you're talking about Wayne State in Detroit and then you're talking about the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and having you know, we have the research university research corridor, but using that sort of regionality to do more to get incentivize folks who, once they come to school here or, you know, live here and then come to school to stay and to build families.

It would have been interesting if this panel had said this is just the first inning and you know what inning two, we will be in the state capital.

We will work lawmakers and convince them to get something done.

But the sense I got was, well, our hands are done.

Here's the report, Governor, and did.

They did say that.

But the thing is, you know that you need to work the legislature, you need to work the policymakers.

But they didn't say toward what?

Well, that's what I thought was going to happen, because when John Rakolta got involved in this.

He co-chaired that that coalition that saved the Detroit Public Schools in 2015, 2016 and recalled the like dived into all the finances.

He rode busses and he went to the legislature and said, You can't let kids live like this and you're going to have another flint if you if you don't do anything about it.

And that and the legislature said to another, Flint will write a check right now.

And and that's what it's going to come down to.

I mean, you're going to have to have a crisis essentially in order for the legislature to act.

But I don't know what you can.

Okay.

Population growth is not a crisis that you can get your arms around that's going to impact us and hit us in the mouth.

It's not a crisis.

It's a condition that needs to be dealt with over a long period of time.

A crisis is, you know, you you swoop in, you do emergency surgery or something like that.

A condition is you know, if you want to look at something that's really, really difficult to change, culture is difficult to change.

And that's what we're talking about here.

I did sit down with Hillary Doe again, the chief growth officer, who will say that she is the first, you know, not in just the state, but in the country to do this.

And and that was my question, which is for folks who hear this and say, you know, we need to grow the population.

And they're like, why?

Right.

And, you know, I mean, I think the answer right, is it's it's the way that folks are living that what you can see, particularly when they're talking about education, is it's just fact that the higher education, the more likelihood you are to, you know, throughout your lifetime be able to have to have more money to have a better health outcomes.

Right.

And so it is it is that sort of hard thing when you're talking about it, because it can feel a little esoteric, right.

Let's call in our guest... As population growth is is intrinsically linked to building the institutions that we need to be a successful state.

All right.

Let's call in our guest today and have her check in on some of this stuff.

Representative, welcome to Off the Record.

It's good to see you.

Thanks for doing the program.

Let me let me move to something completely different, as they say on Monty Python.

Oh 54 54 when we all come back in the New year, so can the rest of us around the table can take the next four months off because you folks will do nothing.

the next four months off because you folks will do nothing.

I'm hoping not.

You know, I think that as is often the case, the bipartisan work that we got done, particularly towards the end of the year, went unnoticed because the more contentious stuff gets better headlines.

But the majority of the things that we voted out did pass with a pretty wide bipartisan margin.

But that being said, there were also votes that I had to preside over where the Republican caucus went and locked themselves and their caucus room and refused to come out and vote until the very last minute.

So my hope is that we can all rise to this occasion and, you know, continue doing some of the bipartisan work that we've been doing.

That does mean that some things are off the table for the time being.

I think everyone can can attest to that.

But it is going to require that some of the theatrics on the other side of the aisle stop.

And it's going to require that, you know, my folks understand that the way that we've been flying through this first year is is probably not going to happen at the beginning of next year.

So you would concede, however, that anything controversial is on hold until after you get those two seats back, assuming you do?

Fair enough.

assuming you do?

Fair enough.

I hate saying controversial because I think a lot of the things that are deemed controversial are not.

They've just kind of become this political hot button issue.

But, yes, you know, I mean, I don't think that we're going to pass too many more abortion bills until after we're back at full strength.

Even things as simple as climate legislation, it turns out, passed along party lines.

So there are going to be things that are just off the table for the time being.

Lets see what Mrs. Clark has to say.

Hi Representative so we're talking about the things that aren't going to happen that in the first few months aside and you heard us say, you know, there is of course, just the lancing things that happened.

Right?

We're going to have state of the state.

We're going to have the budget.

We're going to have the revenue consensus estimate.

You know, we're going to figure out what the budget looks like, what are the expectations so that we can see the legislature doing in these first few months.

There are some bipartisan packages that we already have in the works, things that may have already made it out of committee, but we just didn't have time to get through the House chamber.

So, you know, I think.

Oh, sorry.

I was just wondering if auto no fault would be one.

That's one that, of course, the Senate passed.

But yeah, I mean, I know that there are folks in my caucus and folks in the Republican caucus that are very, very passionate about that.

So I think that that certainly has the possibility.

I know that there were some some hiccups that popped up through the executive branch shortly before it came out of the Senate.

So I think that we have the time to work through those.

And I do think that that is an issue that has bipartisan support.

What do you think that the negotiations on any of these ostensibly bipartisan things that you want to work on during this period are going to be attached to maybe trying to get particular results or holding back some actions on the things that we would expect to start rolling again once and if a Democratic majority is reestablished in the House.

I think that there's a possibility that that could be floated by, but I really don't see that happening.

You know, I mean, I we we've dealt with some of that even in this year that we're we're on our way out of, you know, request that things be taken out of the Elliot Larson Civil Rights Act other things like that.

And it wasn't something that we were willing to do then.

We weren't willing to to sell out, you know, marginalized communities for for the sake of picking up one or two votes.

We found a way around it.

And I don't think that we're going to operate that way at the beginning of next year either.

Representative, One of the last pieces of legislation that the Legislature passed before it adjourned early was the personal financial disclosure bill.

Why did the Legislature exempt the disclosure of of income and employers, of spouses of lawmakers?

I think that I mean, for the record, I was supportive of it.

I don't have an issue with that.

But I think that there were some folks who did have questions, did have concerns.

And I think that if we'd had a longer runway, we probably would have been able to address that.

And it wasn't just limited to the legislature.

You know, there were some executive concerns about that as well.

So I think that given the time frame and making sure that, you know, in all honesty, I think that the worst thing we could have done was blow past the deadline that voters gave us, you know, because I feel like it would have been immensely disrespectful.

We were given a very clear mandate.

And although I wish that we would have been able to get a more robust financial disclosure piece in there before the end of this year, I don't think that we had the time to do it.

And I think that getting something through now, given the fact that we have nothing at this point in time, was more important than blowing by that and continuing to work on it next year because there's nothing preventing us from working on it next year as it is.

And I know that there's a lot of pessimism about what we will do and what we won't get through.

But it's worth noting that we got really robust ethics packages through in a really widely bipartisan vote, you know, prior prior to this term.

So I, I know that the the a lot of folks think that, oh, we're just saying that.

And and, you know, there's nothing that's going to happen next year.

I'm actually unusually optimistic about it.

And I am not known for being a perpetual optimist by any stretch of the imagination, but I've been on ethics packages before that passed almost unanimously.

So I don't think that there's actually anything preventing us from continuing to work on it next year.

I know the schedule, the legislative schedule in election year, and I know that we are going to be operating under a 54 54 split.

But I really don't think that this is an issue that we can't work on.

You know, even prior to April, we've done it before and I don't think there's anything stopping us from doing it going forward.

What prevented us from getting further with those conversations this year is we ran out of time to address people's concerns.

Representative, I appreciate you giving us your story by calling the Republicans theatrical in their behavior.

You have theatrics in your own caucus.

You guys are not united, are you?

I wouldn't say we're not united.

I think, you know, Democrats are going to Democrat.

We are.

You know, So in other words, you're not you're not to fight on.

You just answered the question.

You were were, you know, the the big tent party.

And there are a lot of different opinions.

There are a lot of different strategies that by my Democratic colleagues employ on their own.

But that doesn't necessarily mean that we're we're not united and I think at the end of the day, the fact that we've been able to get things through, even when we did have, you know, tensions or people who thought we should be doing things differently or perhaps not at all.

We've still been able to get those priorities through.

So I don't look at it as not united.

I look at it as.

I. I don't even want to do the like, oh, we're a family and families disagree.

We're a political party.

And that doesn't mean that we are in lockstep every step of the way.

We are also a political party that is operating under a united trifecta for the first time in 40 years.

There's growing pains.

We have the largest freshman class in recent history that have never operated in the minority.

So, you know, I think that there's a lot of folks who are eager to get everything done that they possibly can.

But as it turns out, a Democratic trifecta is not a magic wand.

And sometimes that does lead to tensions and that does lead to frustrations.

But I certainly don't think that it makes us not united.

Representative, for folks who don't follow Lansing as close as as we all do, who are hearing this and going what?

There's a what's going on.

I mean, to easily sort of describe it, is it fair, in your estimation, to say it's sort of establishment Democrats versus more progressive Democrats within the caucus and right now who sort of is in charge?

I don't think that's fair because, I mean, so I think I think of myself as a progressive Democrat, and I think particularly if you go back to 2018 when I won an election that no one expected me to win, I was expected to be the biggest pain in the butt that the caucus had.

You know, I was expected to come in and throw fits constantly and try to lob grenades at everyone, my own party included, and that that wasn't the case.

You know, there were certainly times where where I did lob a couple of grenades.

Sometimes I still do.

But there's also an element of just being practical.

And, yes, you know, I would have loved to come in in 2018 and get everything done that was on my checklist, didn't happen, was never going to happen.

That doesn't necessarily change now that we're in the majority.

The steps that we take are far bigger now, but that doesn't mean that it's going to change overnight.

We are also still grappling with the change in term limits.

You know, having to to look a little bit further ahead is a really, really good thing, but it is a shift.

So all of that is just to say, I don't think it's progressives versus establishment because, I mean, I'm I'm part of the leadership team.

I'm, you know, on the speakers, you know, kitchen cabinet.

I don't think that it's progressives versus establishment.

I just think that it's a group of people who have a lot of the same goals and same values.

But just approach it differently.

And I really do think that having such a large freshman class has been really, really helpful, but has also at times been a source of frustration because we have half of our caucus that's never been there before and doesn't recognize that some of this is just normal.

You know, some of this is is learning to fly the plane, is building the plane while we're flying it.

So I don't really think it's progressive versus establishment because I think in even the leadership team, we have quote unquote, progressives and myself and floor Leader Aiyash and then we have some more establishment folks as well.

And I don't think that we're at odds nearly as as much as some folks might have expected.

What you're really saying is that the freshmen don't know that when the speaker says we're going to do something, we're going to do something.

we're going to do something, we're going to do something.

I mean, they're certainly part of that.

But I.

One thing that I really, really appreciate, Quickly.

About Speaker Tate, is that he doesn't really lay down the law like that as much as people might expect.

Yeah, he he really does value the individuality of our members but sometimes causes tension.

Representative, always a pleasure to see you have a holiday that it's nice and we'll we'll catch you on the other side.

Okay.

Thank you all.

All right.

Next week on Off the Record, a year in review of 2023.

What did they do to you?

And for you?

Join us.

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