Michigan Votes Forum

Introduced in the Senate on August 19, 2009

The vote was 22 in favor, 13 opposed and 2 not voting

(Senate Roll Call 413 at Senate Journal 0)

Click here to view bill details.

 

Senator Jacobs’ statement is as follows:

I rise in opposition to this resolution. There is not a greater supporter of the arts than me in this chamber. I stand with so many of you who care so much about preserving our cultural assets, including the libraries. However, difficult times mean we have to make difficult decisions. This is one of those times where, while change is very, very difficult,

we have been asked not only by our Governor, but by our constituents to shrink government; that we have to reduce the bureaucracy.

Here we have an opportunity to do so, and if we can’t agree on this what is going to happen with the Lieutenant Governor, who as been charged with reducing the number of our governmental departments from 18 down to 7 or 9, which is something that all of us has said we must do to shrink government? Now this is an opportunity for us to think creatively.

We are not ruining our cultural assets, but we are just trying to figure out how we put our arms around a major problem. I think that the Governor has done so in a very creative way. We cannot talk out of both sides of our mouths. Either we don’t have the money to provide the kinds of services that we all want to provide, or we do. But if we don’t have those dollars, if we don’t have those resources, then we are going to have to make some very, very tough decisions, and this is one of them.

So I ask my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to let’s be honest with ourselves about what we really need to do here. This is a very tough decision, but it has to be made.

 

Senator Brown’s statement is as follows:

Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 18 disapproves of Executive Order No. 2009-36, issued by the Governor that would eliminate the Department of History, Arts, and Libraries and send its programs to six different departments. While many of us agree with the elimination of the HAL Department to streamline government and save tax dollars, in fact, Mr. President, we have legislation we will be voting on today to do just that. This resolution does not accept Governor’s proposal to separate HAL programs in some six different departments.

We have reached this conclusion upon hearing from many individuals and interest groups who oppose this executive order and asked the Senate to reject it, as it does not accomplish what the people want. The people of Michigan are concerned because they understand these programs in the historical center are interconnected and function more effectively together, rather than apart. Upon hearing these concerns voiced in HAL budget subcommittee hearings last spring, the Senator from the 20th District and I met with the administration to express the people’s concerns.

Unfortunately, none of the concerns brought forward by the people of Michigan were considered in the Governor’s executive order. Once the executive order was issued, it became apparent that the Governor’s plan could likely cost the state more money than it will save, which is the very reason the Governor points to for eliminating the department. The executive order leaves many open-ended questions and the potential for high costs with the transfer of collections to other entities, and the creation of an innovation and reinvention center adds more concern about added costs. The executive directive issued just yesterday makes no substantive changes regarding the location of key programs and does not answer the many unanswered questions that people have. The directive does not have the force of law and could easily be changed any day. The directive was a strategy, perhaps, by the Governor to placate certain groups with words that could change at any time.

I urge the members to vote with the people by rejecting this executive order, and vote for a more productive legislative plan that is before us today that would preserve the history and heritage of our state.

 

Senator Allen’s statement is as follows:

I rise in support of this resolution, and the reasons why are very diverse—as diverse as Michigan. I respect the commentary given by, especially, the gentlelady from the 14th District because I believe that she has some points that need to be addressed.

First of all, this executive order goes far beyond the realignment of the department. It potentially can provide for the elimination of access to countless relics and historical documents which are involved in Michigan’s research. As we studied cultural tourism, we studied our great state and the accessibility to these documents is very important.

When you look about the center for Michigan innovation, which I believe has a lot of merit, I believe it is also being discussed at the Henry Ford Museum that there needs to be collaboration going on with that. At least from the studies that were presented by Michigan State University in committee, they were not collaborating with some of the other organizations who are already working on this.

The restructuring of this center for innovation has merit because we know within our state we have to involve the next generation of entrepreneurs and the creativity for us to be able to compete with China, India, and other foreign powers. But it is also invaluable for us to have access to our history so that our students and our children will have an understanding of where Michigan has been so we can plan for the future. The new high school has a significant amount of merit, and I believe in that, but is it ready? Is it right for us to move this cultural and historical center?

The next area that I want to talk about is the synergies that have been created when you start taking a look at cultural tourism. Cultural tourism is part of the reason why people are coming to our area. If you take a look at the creative class of the individuals whom we are trying to bring to our state to create the next generation of entrepreneurs, they look at our history as part of the reasons why they visit. Take a look at people who are looking at lighthouses, historic forts, and historic understanding of the way our state went through with freedoms and fought for our freedoms. It is important to have all that coordinated. The lack of coordination within the departments is going to be a challenge. We asked the different subgroups yesterday in committee, and I was not pleased with their answers. 

I believe this realignment makes a lot more sense to move to the Secretary of State because, as the administration talked yesterday that $1.5 million would be saved, I believe, a significant amount of that cost reduction, as the gentlelady from the 14th District had talked about, is the administrative costs of administering those hundreds of employees who are under the History, Arts, and Libraries Department. The Secretary of State has over 1,600 employees already, so adding a few hundred more is not going to add that additional administrative cost.

I ask for the adoption of this concurrent resolution to reject the Governor’s executive order.  

 

Senator Clarke’s statement is as follows:

You know, I am probably the last speaker on this resolution. Because of my strong feelings about the arts and the libraries. I thought it would be better not to add emotion to this debate, but try to be logical about it. You know, I am an artist. I have a Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting. It is through the arts that I was the first member of my family to ever attend college. Painting is important to me right now; in fact, I look forward to doing more of that once I leave the Legislature. The arts have inherent value. Those of us who are artists understand that. Those of us who love the arts benefit from it, but the arts also have an economic value.

So here is a question I would ask this Legislature and all those who are out here right now. In this time of an unprecedented economic recession in Michigan of a high unemployment rate, where could the economic value of the arts be best leveraged with the Secretary of State? In election training and vehicle registration? Or the Michigan Strategic Fund whose commitment is to diversify and expand our economy?

The arts can redevelop a community. The arts alone transformed Manhattan from a run-down ghetto 50 years ago into and economic powerhouse through the development of Soho. It has done that around the country and around the world in cities like Paris and Tokyo. It can do the same in Michigan. If we want to help our economy, let’s embed the arts where we need it right now, in economic development that is with the Strategic Fund.

I am a lover of the library. I will say personally, when I dropped out of college and never to go back at 23 years old, it was my visits to the Detroit Public Library in the fine arts section that rekindled my desire to go back to school. Reading is a pleasurable thing. It is a great thing to enjoy. Also libraries now serve a critical role in retraining laid-off workers who have lost their jobs. We need libraries that better educate people in this state so they can get better-paying jobs and raise their families and avoid foreclosures and avoid shut-offs and pay these higher insurance rates and not go into bankruptcy because they don’t have health insurance. What better place to put the library to help train people than in the Department of Education, not the Secretary of State.

But yet, this is what pissed me off, and you know I respect everyone in this chamber, but to have the majority leadership of this Senate talk about the benefits of the synergies of keeping all these entities together, let me tell you, the people of Michigan, what these synergies have gotten us. The arts, which are so important to so many of us, the funding has been decimated because of this body. The largest library system in this state that benefited all of southeastern Michigan had all of its state funding—all of it—stripped by this body. How dare you say that the synergies of this current department are here to help preserve the libraries when you destroyed all of the state funding for the Detroit Public Library—how dare you. You know why the Detroit Public Library was allowed to be defunded—because the people who were hurt by it were poor, ghetto kids. They did not have family members who come up here on buses. They were not able to hire multiclient lobbyists to come here and say, "Let’s keep our library system." Why is the library system important to Detroit? At the time, this body cut the funding for the Detroit Public Library.