Most of you didn’t know Joe Schwarz. That’s former U.S. Rep. John “Joe” Schwarz M.D., who died last week at age 88.
That’s a pity.
An even greater pity is, with maybe a few exceptions in the U.S. House (thanks to term limits and age) no senior Michigan elected official worked directly with Joe, and learned from Joe.
Had they worked and learned with Joe, they would know, simply and profoundly: Always serve the people.
The people. Not the party. Not the party leader. Not the president. Not the governor.
The people.
A literal lifetime of service
They would also learn that serving the people sometimes means losing. Joe knew that. Didn’t like it, but stood up when he was knocked down, and still served the people. When you stand up for what you believe, someone always tries to knock you down. Don’t quit, Joe would say. Whatever happens, don’t quit.
Joe ― newspaper style rules notwithstanding, no one called him Schwarz, he was always Joe ― served the people every day of his adult life. Quite literally to the last day of his life.
The night before he died, he called a fellow board member (and the fellow member, former state Sen. Alma Wheeler Smith, is herself an outstanding public servant) to check on the time for the next day’s meeting.
Sadly, Joe got called to an eternal meeting instead.
When Joe Schwarz resuscitated a fellow senator
Joe was a Republican whom Democrats sought to emulate. Joe was a Lincoln Republican, a Teddy Roosevelt Republican, an Eisenhower Republican, a George Romney and Willian Milliken Republican. A Republican who never feared telling other Republicans where they could sit, and how fast they should spin.
His resume bubbled over with public service. After graduating from the University of Michigan, where he played football (well, speaking as a Spartans fan, nobody’s perfect) and getting his medical degree at Wayne State University, he was a combat surgeon in Vietnam, a Naval attaché in Indonesia, then in the Central Intelligence Agency.
He practiced medicine in his cherished hometown of Battle Creek, serving on city council, as Battle Creek’s mayor, then in the Michigan Senate, for a term in Congress; and in the remaining decades, was active in various campaigns and on different boards.
And he practiced medicine during virtually all this time. (He once brought a fellow state senator, who had a seizure on the Senate floor, back from the dead. No kidding. The man collapsed, another senator checked his pulse as Joe raced to the scene, telling Joe their colleague was dead. “NOT WHILE I’M HERE HE’S NOT, GODDAMN IT!!” Joe shouted, and he got the collapsed senator’s pulse restarted.)
Was he conservative? Sure. Was he liberal? Sure. It all goes back to Joe’s ideology: Do what was best for the people.
He knew how to disagree, and still be friends
If a Democratic idea was best, Joe supported it. If a Republican idea was best, Joe supported it. If it was a liberal idea, he supported it. A conservative idea … you get the picture.
Some might say Joe was indecisive. Joe would also tell those people where to sit and how fast to spin.
He understood, as too many now forget, it must always be country before party or ideology. Especially, it must always be people, the people, all people, before party and ideology. Whoever authored the idea, if it was best for the people, he supported it.
Of course, he backed the party, if needed to move an issue forward.
He wasn’t always happy doing so.
During the endless 1993 sessions leading to the Proposal A school funding system, the Senate GOP leadership decided to try a wacky proposal to force Democrats to move closer to compromise. When the vote was ordered, Joe called the proposal a piece of, um, excrement. But he voted for the crackpot scheme.
To ensure the Legislature or Congress did what was best, Joe knew one must build relationships with all members and parties. Today, neither party wants anything to do with the other. No one believes in a loyal opposition anymore. If you do not bow endlessly to the party leader or the moneyed controllers, you are the enemy, you are scum, you are worthless.
Not to Joe. He might disagree with you, but you were still a friend.
What all of us should learn from Joe
A physician, Joe believed strongly in the curative powers of beer. While in Congress, he sat one night at a bar next to liberal Democratic member from the California wine country , and they discussed issues over lagers and Chablis.
A henchman of then-House GOP leader Tom DeLay saw them together. The next day, DeLay ordered Joe to never meet with that member again. Joe told DeLay where to sit and how fast to spin.
His greatest legislative work was for Michigan’s universities. He was a fearless warrior for the universities. Leading the Senate Higher Education Appropriations Subcommittee, he drove furiously to secure more funding for the schools, both to drive more research and development at the universities, and to help hold tuition costs down. University funding has often been used as an easy way to cut spending because, hey, the students have to pay. I expect from the hereafter, Joe will tell those attacking college investment where to sit … you get it.
Joe knew how government could work, and he knew how to make it work. But he knew he couldn’t do it alone, that all those in office and out have to work together. Work together, fight together, take their lumps when they have to, but never stop fighting, never stop serving.
In the election upcoming this year, and years to come, evaluated candidates on the Joe test: Whom do you serve? The people? A would-be dictator? The party? The money boys?
If a candidate tells you anything other than the people, and how they will serve the people, for Joe’s sake, tell that candidate where to sit, and how fast to spin.
Free Press contributing columnist John Lindstrom has covered Michigan politics for 50 years. He retired as publisher of Gongwer, a Lansing news service, in 2019. Submit a letter to the editor at freep.com/letters, and we may publish it online and in print.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan lost a pragmatic Republican giant | Opinion
Reporting by John Lindstrom, Contributing columnist / Detroit Free Press
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