My Favorite Career Pol
Novak, Robert D.
My Favorite Career Pol Gov. John Engler has brought conservatism to power in his home state, but is there life for him after Michigan? by Robert D. Novak W henever I am asked, out on the lecture...
...The governor's hide was torn off by two usual admirers—the Wall Street Journal editorial page ("A Governor's Gimmick") and the Mackinac Center, a conservative think tank based in Midland, Michigan—for engaging in an industrial policy...
...The rest of the agenda—several bills affecting auto insurance reform—is expected to pass this autumn...
...As a Legislature, as a Governor, we are unable to heal that brokenness...
...It is rather in our families, among friends, and through our faiths that we must seek true healing...
...He stunned state capitol reporters when he concluded the 1995 State of the State Address with this admonition: "Of all the things I've addressed tonight, the most significant is the need for moral leadership...
...But the trial lawyers paid for enough signatures to force referenda, where a "no" vote was easy to win on a complicated issue after an expensive campaign...
...As such, John Engler is the ultimate political anomaly: a career politician who has improved, not degenerated, over time...
...But if they happen to be living in Section 8 public housing and on food stamps, since those programs are tied to income, they'll get more money, offsetting our sanction...
...He and a fellow student wrote a term paper on how to defeat the 14-year incumbent state legislator who had defeated his father...
...The set-up is being challenged in the courts by the -Michigan Education Association, the teachers union...
...Michigan Republican politicians note that, since his daughters were born, the governor is now the first to leave political events rather than the last...
...A month later at the non:paAilan National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, Engler was the only participant to even hint at the abortion issue in his prayer...
...Has the governor gotten more conservative as he has gotten older...
...He never left Lansing...
...He went nights to Thomas Cooley Law School, across the street from the state capitol, to earn a law degree...
...And Engler or frightening his listeners...
...At this writing, a product liability reform bill is nearing final legislative approval...
...When anti-Milliken right-wingers backed Reagan for president in 1976, Engler joined the party leadership in sticking with their fellow Michigander, President Gerald Ford...
...Whether or not Republicans ever use his enormous talents on the national scene, his performance at the state level over the last five years is a model for molding seemingly discordant elements into a genuine majority party...
...He also is planning other projects, including the end of state operation of liquor sales...
...Such loyalty allowed the union voices to dominate the Democratic Party and state government for most of the past half century...
...In 1990, not a terribly good year for Republicans, nobody expected Engler to be elected against heavily favored two-term Democratic governor James Blanchard, a close friend of Bill Clinton who is now ambassador to Canada...
...In contrast, his usual liberal detractors applaud him for MEGA...
...Describing his Michigan agenda to an annual Boca Raton economics conference hosted by Jude Wanniski's consulting firm, Engler quickly put at ease a room full of free-market corporate executives and supply-side entrepreneurs, many of whom were fietrtarians unfriendly to social conservatism...
...So, now," Engler said, "we're looking at approaching it on more of a piecemeal basis"—which will make the reforms more difficult to override by public initiative...
...18 The American Spectator July 1995 Michelle Engler, a lawyer, gave birth to triplet girls last year, five days after his re-election—making him a father for the first time...
...Even so, when he was nominated for governor in 1990, Engler looked like a sacrificial lamb—as late as election eve...
...The compacted primary schedule could also be expected to argue against running...
...Pudgy and certainly not handsome, he could pass for a good deal older than his 47 years...
...Engler was among Michigan Republicans who for the next four years nursed the grudge that Reagan's challenge had spoiled Ford's re-election chances, and consequently in 1980 supported George Bush for president against Reagan...
...If Reagan was the Great Communicator, Engler is the Great Confidence-Builder...
...To that end, he has set up a system of charter schools—a dozen chartered now and as many as -fifty more in the pipeline...
...Tort Reform: Engler has taken on the mighty trial lawyers' lobby, the state's biggest source of funds for liberal politicians, and won passage of comprehensive auto insurance reform bills...
...I think we have the potential for an unleashing of the innovation and creativity that's present at the state level, the likes of which have not been seen in the last forty years," said Engler...
...With the advent of the Republican 104th Congress, Engler has become a national leader in the movement to send back responsibilities for social programs to the states...
...The glazed look that usually follows implies a further question: Who is he...
...Engler won 61 percent of the vote, the second-largest plurality in the state's history...
...The conventional wisdom in Michigan politics is that John Engler's career will end with his second term as governor in January 1999...
...A lot of us tried to be supportive," he recalled, "but there were issues where we simply couldn't go with the governor...
...Milliken neither wanted to make the party work nor would allow anyone else to fix it...
...With the end of the proper- consequently in 1980 supported George Bush ty tax, Engler proposed a for president against Reagan...
...So he gave a lot back to the community, in public service...
...Tax Reduction: At the outset of his governorship, Engler called the bluff of Democrats daring him to repeal the state property tax...
...On Aid for Dependent Children (AFDC), the Engler changes include requiring twenty hours a week of "productive effort" (jobs, volunteer work, training, education) for welfare recipients and permitting them to keep $200 a month earned, as incentive to work...
...The resulting firestorm removed two Democratic state senators from office in recall elections and replaced them with Republicans, giving the GOP a majority and making John Engler the Senate majority leader...
...His second wife, Robert D. Novak is a nationally syndicated columnist, a television commentator, and editor of the Evans and Novak Political Report...
...I did that not so much to be a practicing lawyer as for selfdefense around the legislative process...
...Engler moved on to the state Senate in 1978, where he attracted little attention as a member of the Republican minosiky under liberal Republican Gov...
...That's the kind of mixed-message, counter-productive, federal micro-management that we have to eliminate...
...by Robert D. Novak W henever I am asked, out on the lecture circuit, who I would like to see the Republicans nominate for president next year, I reply: John Engler...
...His first marriage to a prominent Republican state legislator, Colleen Engler, who was the party's nominee for lieutenant governor in 1986, ended in divorce...
...With the legislature in nearly year-round session under Democratic control, it was a full-time job...
...Engler insists that this is the only way Michigan can compete with its neighbors...
...House Speaker Newt Gingrich cites Engler as an exemplar of steadfastness to buck up the faint of heart...
...Engler has lived on his government salary these past twenty-five years, starting at $15,000-a-year...
...In talking about cooperating with the Salvation Army in helping the homeless ("We're really talking about disconnecting the poverty industry from the controls in Washington," he says), he sounds as though he is trying to help rather than punish the poor...
...In the same article, Engler shows a social conservative side in contending welfare reform "must ultimately go beyond government and the political process...
...Engler retains his loyalty to Bush, despite being "disappointed" in his presidency: "There's really been no other president who was so poorly served by the people around him," he says...
...But as an only son, he could never get off the farm...
...He was written off as a fluke, too fiscally conservative for Michigan...
...By the end of last September, private Democratic polls showed such defections for Engler by UAW members that a landslide seemed likely...
...He never used it...
...Engler was frustrated as a member of the legislative minority, left out as the nominally Republican Milliken cut deals with Democratic legislative leaders...
...defends his reforms in similar terms: In a February article for Common Sense magazine, he cites Friedrich Hayek to claim that "the problem with centralized bureaucracies is that they cannot possibly acquire sufficient knowledge of the problems they have been charged to deal with...
...They tell parents that unless you're wealthy and can afford to move to another district where there might be a better educational opportunity, you have no choices...
...The 1970 Republican convention that nominated him was the first he had ever attended...
...Blanchard, a former Democratic congressman, immediately proposed a 38 percent increase in income taxes and forced it through the legislature with Democratic votes...
...Four candidates seeking the Democratic nomination for governor in 1995 all agreed that, if elected, they would not seek to reinstate general assistance...
...Engler proposed three new reductions, one for individuals and two for businesses...
...But by the time he sought re-election in 1994, Engler had become one of the most popular politicians in the state's history...
...It looked liked such a good plan that he decided to try it himself...
...But what sets Engler apart for knowledgeable Republicans is how and where he managed his reforms...
...Civil Service Reform: By appointing three of the four members of the constitutionally mandated state Civil Service Commission, Engler is trying to end a system that freezes the level of employment and bars new employment...
...This is Michigan, the citadel of social welfare liberalism, where the United Auto Workers until recently dominated the scene, with the rest of organized labor falling into line behind the UAW's admonition to "Make it emphatic / Vote straight Democratic...
...The son of a small cattle feeder, he grew up on a farm The American Spectator July 1995 19 in Beal City, Michigan, where he earned enough money to go to Michigan State University to earn a bachelor's degree in agricultural economics...
...Republicans who for the next four years • School Reform: In the past, funds for the public nursed the grudge that Reagan's challenge schools had come directly had spoiled Ford's re-election chances, and out of the property tax...
...In an age of television, Engler-for-president is not practical...
...hose in the news media who applaud Engler for T MEGA deplore his social conservatism...
...Like Reagan, Lincoln, and many of the other great leaders of the Republican Party, Engler comes from humble roots...
...Robert J. Dole---or anybody else...
...Like Reagan, Engler can propose a radical conservative program and still cut into traditional Democratic constituencies...
...At the same time, he was enthusiastically supported by the religious conservatives who had entered the Michigan GOP in 1988 to support Pat Robertson for president and were feared by establishment Republicans as a deadly threat to the party...
...Socially liberal New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani considers Engler a role model...
...To date, the AFDC caseload has dropped from 238,000 to around 200,000, with 26 percent of Michigan's AFDC recipients actually holding down jobs now, compared with a national average of 8 percent...
...He lost a three-way race, and his 20-year-old son got his first taste of politics...
...I think I've also grown in my understanding of what works and what doesn't work...
...I think so," Engler told me...
...Engler's late father, described by the governor as "very much a Republican," dreamed of going to college and becoming a lawyer...
...Instead, he became the first sitting legislator in more than a century to be elected governor of Michigan...
...Then we have other people who are unaccounted for, whether that's because they've left Michigan for someplace else that has a more liberal policy or it's because they didn't exist in the first place because we had fraud...
...ost remarkable is the road Engler has traveled to M his increasingly conservative politics...
...We want to free the poor and money that have been held captive in Washington—not to hoard them in our state capitols or city halls—but ultimately to return responsibility to where it belongs—to civil society—to our families and neighborhoods, churches and service clubs...
...We'd like to go faster," said Engler, "and 20 The American Spectator July 1995 part of what we seek out of Washington is the ability to have control so when we sanction somebody, the sanctions bite...
...I opt for permanent tax cuts...
...William Milliken...
...The word is spread that Michelle does not want the girls to grow up in a fishbowl and has laid down the law: no more political campaigns...
...For the next eight years as majority leader, Engler battled with Blanchard...
...The elder Engler spent twenty years on the local school board and in 1968 was talked into running for the State House of Representatives...
...Nobody's perfect...
...While Engler remains an unknown quantity to the vast majority of voters beyond the borders of Michigan, he has attained an almost mythic stature inside the narrow world of national politics...
...public school choice system whereby public schools, in order to receive state funds needed for survival, would have to compete for students...
...He has spent his entire adult life in politics—twenty years in the state legislature—without ever holding a job in the private sector...
...So much of what is failing, so much of what puts us at risk, so much of what afflicts us, reflects what is broken deep inside our souls...
...It was Blanchard's election as governor in 1982 that gave Engler his big chance...
...But if the next Republican presidential nominee is looking for a running mate who combines economic and social conservatism and who preaches the true conservative gospel without running off voters, Engler-for-vice president cannot be ruled out...
...A current darling of the conservative movement, he twice actively opposed Ronald Reagan's candidacies for the presidential nomination...
...One defection from Engler's free-market agenda is his sponsorship of the new Michigan Economic Growth Authority (MEGA), granting tax concessions and other benefits to businesses that relocate in the state...
...Engler scored the national upset of the year and quickly launched radical reforms that antagonized Michigan's most powerful political forces: organized labor, trial lawyers, school teachers, and the social welfare bureaucracy...
...Knowledge is dependent upon countless facts, upon a whole host of data inaccessible to bureaucrats...
...Eleven tax cuts contributed to an economic recovery and a large budget surplus that led Engler to tell the legislature in his 1995 State of the State address: "The surplus presents us with two options: either give taxpayers a one-time rebate, or enact permanent tax cuts that will benefit our citizens year after year...
...I've learned a lot...
...John Engler is the governor of Michigan and the secret weapon of the Grand Old Party...
...On bended knee," he said, "we beseech you to forgive our sins—against the old and young, against the born and unborn...
...By the end of February, the legislature had enacted them bringing the number of tax Engler was among Michigan cuts to fourteen...
...Currently, when we sanction someone on AFDC, we can reduce their cash welfare...
...What followed attracted the attention of the nation: • Welfare Reform: Engler made national news early in his governorship by eliminating the "general assistance" program—welfare for healthy, single, childless adults...
...Engler won the election by 116 votes, and he became a 22-year-old state representative...
...It was...
...His reputation was as a non-ideological party regular who did not rock the boat...
...What is a poor person's background, experiences and habits...
...What has made him poor in the first place...
...What I want to do, is break the hold that the teachers unions and the public education establishments have," said Engler...
...From looking at the campaign from the inside," Engler said, "I thought, 'Gee, this is pretty disorganized, there must be a better way to run this.'" So, when he returned to his ag-econ studies at Michigan State, he took an elective course in political science...
...Predictions that killing the $250 million-a-year program would result in misery, violence, or both turned out to be wrong...
...Ralph Reed, executive director of the socially conservative Christian Coalition, sees Engler as an ideal running mate for Sen...
...Privatization: Engler has accomplished the largest single privatization by any state, by selling Michigan's Accident Fund, which underwrites workers compensation, for $250 million...
...A believer in term limits, he is the exception that proves the rule...
...Engler has not appeared to suffer from lack of experience in the private sector...
...Wisconsin and William Weld of Massachusetts: tax He has the ability to take hard, controversial cuts, leaner government, pri- positions without seeming mean-spirited vatization, welfare reform, school choice...
...ngler's record as governor follows the same reform agenda Like Reagan, Engler can propose a pursued by such Republicans radical conservative program and still cut as Tommy Thompson of into traditional Democratic constituencies...
...Blue-collar workers gave him credit for taking principled positions and for the state's 4.6 percent unemployment rate—the lowest since records were kept in Michigan and currently the lowest of the industrial states...
...What is remarkable is the scope of his support...
...Supply-sider Jude Wanniski has been pushing Engler as a vice presidential candidate to team with publisher Malcolm S. Forbes, Jr...
...CI The American Spectator July 1995 21...
...He has the ability to take hard, controversial positions without seeming mean-spirited or frightening his listeners...
...In no time, Engler's popularity rating slipped to 19 percent...
...Apart from saving $250 million annually, said Engler, "a significant number of people went to work who wouldn't have gone to work had we not ended the program...
Vol. 28 • July 1995 • No. 7
