Lansing — At least three lawmakers, backed by two former governors, are pushing to change the way Michigan picks members of the top three university boards as well as candidates for attorney general and secretary of state.
Currently, the Republican and Democratic nominees for attorney general and secretary of state and the board nominees of the University of Michigan, Michigan State University and Wayne State University are chosen at party endorsement conventions and then appear on the November general election ballots.
But the joint resolutions introduced Thursday in the House and Senate would ask voters to change that process by amending the Michigan Constitution to place the secretary of state and attorney general nominating votes on the August primary ballot and to move the university board election process to a gubernatorial appointment system.
The Senate joint resolution was sponsored by Sen. Ed McBroom, R-Waucedah Township, and the House joint resolution was sponsored by state Rep. Greg Markkanen, R-Hancock, and former House Speaker Joe Tate, D-Detroit.
The board appointment process outlined in the resolution resembles the process used to appoint board members at Michigan’s other 12 public universities — a setup, McBroom argued, that yields vastly better outcomes.
“There’s been controversy and turmoil from all three of these universities over the last couple of decades,” McBroom said of UM, MSU and Wayne State. “The other universities seem to be far more stable.
The proposed changes come as the universities, over the past several years, have been beset by various board-level controversies and scandals, including the handling of allegations regarding serial pedophile Larry Nassar at MSU, similar issues related to Dr. Robert Anderson at UM and perennial presidential departures at the universities. Both Wayne State and UM are currently operating with interim presidents.
On Sunday, the MSU board hastily held a virtual meeting to pass new “duty of loyalty” rules to punish trustees who “undermine” board decisions. They also voted to nearly double MSU President Kevin Guskiewicz’s salary.
“We know this system’s not working very well and we know what does work well. Let’s change over to that,” McBroom said.
Markkanen argued that the current system for the university boards has resulted in a lack of diversity in terms of geography and experience, with 24 members of the three university boards residing in just six of the state’s 83 counties. Six of the eight UM regents, Markkanen added, are lawyers.
“I think our three great research universities would benefit from a more diverse membership,” he said.
Likewise, the April 19 Michigan Democratic Party convention has spurred calls for audits and reform from multiple top Democrats after problems with the vote-counting system and questions about whether the party’s own rules for the candidate nomination event were followed.
In addition to the legislative push, a separate ballot committee, Voters Not Insiders, has formed to try to get the Legislature to place a proposal on the ballot to shift the attorney general and secretary of state nominations from the conventions to the primary election.
“We are open to anything that will get the bipartisan support and two-thirds vote needed to put the AG and SOS on the ballot,” said Lon Johnson, a former chairman of the Michigan Democratic Party, who’s working on the Voters Not Insiders push.
Former Michigan governors Engler, Blanchard get involved
Tate, a former Michigan State University football player, said he’s been disappointed by the “fractured relationships” displayed by the current MSU Board of Trustees.
“Too much time has been spent on internal board disagreements and distrust for one another, and it does not benefit the university or students,” Tate said.
Former Govs. John Engler, a Republican, and Jim Blanchard, a Democrat, have been lobbying lawmakers for a couple of years to change the way the boards are selected at the University of Michigan, Michigan State University, and Wayne State University.
The issue is now “ripe” due to the very public dysfunction on display within the university boards and the acrimony surrounding the 2022 Republican nominating convention and the 2026 Democratic nominating convention, Blanchard said.
Blanchard called on lawmakers to rally around the proposal and stand up for the “three crown jewels of higher education in Michigan.”
“I run into people all the time who say, ‘What is going on with these boards?’” Blanchard said. “I think the political parties have really let down the universities by letting special interests hijack their nomination process. It’s time to move into the future with something positive.”
Engler, who served as MSU’s interim president during the fallout from the Nassar scandal, was spotted Wednesday speaking with lawmakers for some time on the House floor. Engler did not immediately respond to a request seeking comment.
The lawmakers are hoping the proposal, backed by the former governors, would make the Aug. 4 ballot, which would require an extremely tight turnaround to rally support for the proposal in the state Legislature.
Voters Not Insiders is aiming to get the issue on the November general election ballot, giving the Legislature until Sept. 4 to put the proposal up for a statewide vote.
A tight timeframe
In order for the matter to make the August ballot, a proposal would need two-thirds majority support in both chambers by the end of the first week of June, almost immediately after lawmakers return from the Detroit Regional Chamber’s Mackinac Policy Conference next week.
The possibility appears far-fetched based on House leadership’s recent statements on the matter.
House Speaker Matt Hall, when asked about the issues recently, indicated the university board changes were not a focus, though he was aware of Engler and Blanchard’s efforts to push the resolution.
“We do not have a plan to take that up at this time,” Hall said last week.
On Wednesday, Hall said he hadn’t taken a position on moving the attorney general and secretary of state races to a primary vote, and believed the recent push for it was due to Democrats’ problematic nominating convention last month.
“We’re not engaging in any conversations to change it at this time,” Hall said.
However, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, who is widely expected to be the Democratic nominee for governor, has endorsed the idea of shifting the attorney general and secretary of state nominations to the primary.
“I would move it to a primary,” Benson said at a press conference Tuesday.
The primary election would allow more people to vote on the nominations. While about 7,200 people participated in the Michigan Democratic Party convention in Detroit on April 19, about 1.1 million voted in the last competitive Democratic gubernatorial primary in Michigan.
How the proposals work
The resolutions introduced Thursday in the House and Senate would require the secretary of state and attorney general candidates after Jan. 1, 2027 to be nominated during primary elections, not at partisan conventions.
When it comes to the university boards, if adopted, the proposal would discharge the entire boards of UM, MSU and Wayne State on Dec. 30.
From Dec. 31 onward, the boards would consist of nine members appointed by the governor for eight-year terms, with many of the initial slate of appointees serving shorter, staggered terms. The board appointments could not contain more than five people from the same party and would be subject to the advice and consent of the Senate.
Additionally, at least one member of each board must be chosen from a list of three nominees submitted by the university’s alumni association. And, at MSU, the state’s land-grant university, at least one member “must have practical farming expertise.” All board members would be subject to state ethics laws, according to the resolution.
For the first round of appointees this year, members would be appointed for staggered time periods: Two for two years, two for four years, three for six years and two for the full eight-year terms.
Whitmer would appoint four of each board and the next governor taking over on Jan. 1, 2027 would appoint the other five for each board.
eleblanc@detroitnews.com
cmauger@detroitnews.com
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Lawmakers push for changes to university board, AG and SOS elections
Reporting by Beth LeBlanc and Craig Mauger, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
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