Carr took a bite out of doing government right

(This story has been updated to correct the date of the memorial get-together for the late Bob Carr. The event will be Dec. 12.)

Back when Todd Cook was a young staffer for U.S. Rep. Bob Carr, D-East Lansing, an MSU professor named Jim Anderson sent a package to Carr’s Washington office.

At the time, President Bill Clinton was pushing his budget proposal. Carr, who chaired the transportation subcommittee, hadn’t yet committed one way or the other.

Anderson’s son was involved with the Clinton apparatus and had a vested interest in making sure the budget was passed. He overnighted Carr a waffle, with the obvious message being to not waffle on the budget.

This was in the 1990s, before 9/11 and increased security, so the staffer who opened the package pulled out this Eggo-style waffle and looked at it, perplexed.

As Cook remembers the story, Carr came up to the young staffer and asked if the waffle had come from Jim Anderson, to which Cook said yes.

At that point, Carr took the waffle and bit off a piece.

Carr likely ended up voting for the budget, but that’s almost secondary to the story.

Cook said what he admired about Carr was that in a job where political favoritism can guide decisions on transportation projects, Carr put an objective weighing system to all of the requests and suggested moving ahead with those projects that had the most merit.

It wasn’t until later that Cook found out how admirable this was.

“He was serious about his role and his commitment to Michigan and the country,” said Cook, now director of the Michigan Senate’s business office.

Another Carr staffer, former Ingham County Treasurer Eric Schertzing, is putting together a local memorial for their deceased boss from 4 to 6 p.m. Dec. 12 at one of Carr’s favorite local hangouts, Beggar’s Banquet in East Lansing. The get-together is open to anyone who wants to celebrate Carr’s life, but Schertzing asked those interested to RSVP to schertzing@aol.com.

Carr died in August at age 81 after battling cancer.

A native of Rock County, Wis., Carr came to MSU in the 1960s for graduate work. He passed the Michigan bar in 1969 and started practicing law in Lansing the following year. He was an assistant attorney general from 1970 to ‘72.

While under the tutelage of “Eternal General” Frank Kelley, Carr got the bug to run for public office and made an unsuccessful bid for Congress in 1972. He ran again when the Republican incumbent, Charles Chamberlain, decided not to run. Carr wanted to approach a fellow assistant AG to come manage his campaign.

But the colleague — James Blanchard — had plans to run for Congress himself, Schertzing said. They both won. Blanchard went on to be Michigan’s governor for two terms.

Carr ran in the mid-Michigan-based seat and served from 1974 to 1980, when he lost in the Ronald Reagan landslide. But he won again in 1982 and kept winning until 1994, when he failed in a bid for a U.S. Senate seat.

Congressional candidate Curtis Hertel Jr. described Carr as a “force for peace abroad,” someone who worked to de-escalate the Vietnam War and a leader in the Cold War SALT II arms control negotiations.

As transportation subcommittee chair, Carr is credited with modernizing the country’s transportation system. Mid-Michigan and communities nationwide received the money they needed to fix their roads.

After losing his Senate bid to Spencer Abraham, Carr became an adjunct professor of ethics & Congress at the Graduate School of Political Management at George Washington University.

He spent countless hours helping new members better serve their constituents.

“Every step along the way, he has improved the political discourse and helped hundreds of civil servants get an inside perspective of this institution we love,” said U.S. Rep. Andre Carson, D-Ind., on Carr’s 80th birthday. “His career has helped set an example for all of us on how to work together to improve our government and our country.”

(Kyle Melinn is the editor of the Capitol news service MIRS. Email him at melinnky@gmail.com.)