Michigan Politics
Enhanced Role for Secretary of State
By George Weeks

Their names have been on licenses in our wallets, and their branch offices abound across our two peninsulas.

Most of the 41 secretaries of state had brief tours and toiled in obscurity, although two became 20th century governors, Republicans Frank M. Fitzgerald and Harry Kelly.

In the past five decades, only four politicians have held the office: Democrats James M. Hare (15 years) and Richard Austin (22 years), and Republicans Candice Miller (eight years; the first limited to two four-year terms) and Terri Lynn Land, nearing the end of the first year of her second and final term.

Given the times, Land is developing the most unique portfolio of anyone who has held the job. Beyond the traditional roles of issuing driver's licenses, overseeing elections, and policing campaign finances, she has an emerging post-9/11 border-state role on homeland security.

Land's 10-page year-end report last week had the usual annual puffery issued by officeholders in Lansing. Her headline: "Solid results for taxpayers; Land continues dedication to customer service in '07."

There were indeed significant accomplishments, some of them obscure, including removal of 200,000 abandoned vehicles under a law she championed. (Most were in urban areas, but included 363 removed under sheriffs' jurisdiction in Grand Traverse County and 11 in Marquette County.)

On the security front:

• Land met with U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and other federal officials, and is confident that Michigan can join Washington State in having a pilot project to implement a dual-purpose border pass.

Her plan, which appears to have a good chance of the legislative approval that is needed for Chertoff to designate Michigan as a pilot project, combines the requirements of a driver's license and a passport for the convenience of travelers.

• Waterway Watch: Land has issued about 300,000 wallet cards and other material on how Michigan boaters can "keep an eye on the state's waterways by reporting suspicious activity as part of the America's Waterway Watch campaign" in partnership with the U.S. Coast Guard.

Land's office says the Coast Guard reports "favorable" results, but as a matter of policy does not reveal results of investigations of boater reports.

• Land has instituted special training for her inspectors in assuring that commercial trucks are not carrying cargo that threatens security.

She's hardly a secretary of defense. But Secretary of State Land, as do others in state government, has homeland security roles never envisioned when the oldest department in state government was created.

DNR's $ Surprise

Having written last week about financial woes of the Department of Natural Resources (DNR), I was interested in protests by lawmakers who subsequently complained that the DNR had concealed the fact that it expected to end the fiscal year with a $10 million surplus in the Fish and Game Fund.

"We were given a false sense of doom and gloom," said Representative Tom Casperson (R-Escanaba). "Nobody was aware that there was a 'slush fund or rainy day fund.'"

He said the Natural Resources Commission also was surprised, and referred me to commissioners John Madigan of Munising and James R. Richardson of Ontonagon. They did not return calls as of this writing. NRC Chairman Keith Charters of Traverse City was in Florida, and unreachable.

Senator Michelle McManus (R-Lake Leelanau) said, "It appears the department's short-term budget woes have been greatly exaggerated in an attempt to ram through an ill-conceived fee increase. No one denies the long-term funding challenges the DNR is facing, but we need to be assured we are getting accurate information from the department about the extent of those problems if we are to find fair, sustainable solutions. How can we help if we don't know how big the problem really is?"

DNR Spokesperson Mary Dettloff said the NRC was advised in October that a better-than-expected balance was likely. The $10 million figure was later arrived at because the DNR slightly exceeded the savings that Governor Jennifer Granholm had ordered; its funds invested by the Treasury Department had better returns than expected, and there was a "small spike" in sales of licenses.

Even before the $10 million figure emerged, a deal was in the works to avoid hunting and fishing license fee hikes by transferring $5 million from the general fund.

All of this does not diminish the need, as urged by DNR Director Becky Humphries and acknowledged by Casperson and McManus, to come up with a plan for stable long-term funding for the DNR, which now gets only single-digit support from the general fund.

Michigan Art at White House

Scenes from Michigan's public lands are among those painted on ornaments from all 390 sites of the national park system decorating the Christmas tree in the Blue Room of the White House. All superintendents were given a blank, gold ball ornament on which the most recognizable feature of the site was to be portrayed.

Superintendent Dusty Shultz of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore enlisted her artist husband, Ken Shultz, who painted a sweeping view of the dunes with the Manitou Islands in the Lake Michigan background.

The ornament for Isle Royale National Park was painted by Tom Rudd, Margo McCafferty, and their son, Max, 2005 artists-in-residence at the remote island park. One scene shows a sunrise over Lake Superior.

The White House, which is also a National Park, chose the theme for this year's tree and other holiday decorations under the direction of First Lady Laura Bush, who said at a media preview of the decorations: "We think that our national parks are more precious than gold to the United States. They're our major and most fabulous and magnificent landscapes."

The tree, an 18-foot Fraser fir, came from a Christmas tree farm in North Carolina.

Michigan man throws hat in presidential ring

A University of Michigan economics professor announced last week he is a candidate for president - of the Czech Republic.

Jan Svejnar, who was born in the former Czechoslovakia and fled communist rule in 1970, was an economic policy advisor to former Czech President Vaclav Havel.

The February 8 election will be decided by the Czech Parliament. The only other declared candidate is the current President, who is expected to win reelection.

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