Either having a state senator is important ... or it’s not

In today’s edition of “Things You Never Thought Have Happened Before But Have,” I present to you the 1967-‘68 legislative session.

The Michigan House comprised 55 Republicans and 55 Democrats, but due to one maverick Democrat not liking his caucus leadership at the time, a Republican member won the vote for speaker.

Democratic leader Joseph Kowalski, of Detroit, was hot. He pledged to use every trick in the book when the Republicans were out a member to wrestle away control.

Kowalski never got a chance. He died suddenly on March 18, 1967.

Gov. George Romney, a Republican, didn’t have to call a special election to fill the seat held by the Democrat. The law reads that a governor “may” call one. It doesn’t say a governor “must” call one.

Romney could have left the seat vacant for an extended period to preserve the Republicans’ new 55-54 majority indefinitely. Republicans had a 20-18 majority in the Senate at the time. He could have used Kowalski’s untimely death to maintain the cherished “trifecta”: the same political party having control of the Governor’s Office, Senate and House.

Romney didn’t do that. Embracing the attitude that every Michigan resident is entitled to one member of the state House of Representatives and one state senator, Romney waited nine days after Kowalski’s death to call a May 23 election in the heavily Democratic Detroit district.

A twist to the story came on April 20, 1967, when freshman state Rep. James Nunneley, a Republican from Mt. Clemens, also died suddenly.

The dynamics suddenly changed. Not only was the House back to an even split, but once a Democrat presumably won in Kowalski’s old seat, the Dems would have a 55-54 majority. They could presumably use the procedural tricks Kowalski wanted to use to install a new speaker.

Then, the improbable happened. The Democratic nominee, James Hoffa, the young attorney and son of the Teamsters president, lost the special election to a 48-year-old Republican named Tony Licata, one of Michigan’s most shocking political upsets in history.

Romney reportedly was moved to tears after receiving news of the Licata win. Days later, Republican David Serotkin won the special election to succeed Nunneley, and the Republicans now had an undisputed 56-54 majority for the rest of the term.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is in a similar situation with the 35th state Senate District. Now-U. S. Rep. Kristen McDonald Rivet, D-Bay City, resigned from the Senate to take her Midland-Saginaw-Bay City seat in Congress, leaving Democrats with just a 19-18 majority.

Presumably, the odds of a Democrat defeating presumed Republican nominee Bill G. Schuette are long. The son of the former attorney general has strong name recognition in the Tri-Cities area and is every bit the tireless campaigner his father was.

If Schuette wins and the Senate becomes a 19-19 tie, Republicans would have the leverage to derail any legislation by not voting. Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist would be unable to cast the tiebreaker for policies the governor and Democrats hope to pass.

However, this is where Whitmer has made history. She has waited 158 days without calling a special election for the Rivet seat. No governor since the advent of a full-time legislature under the state Constitution that took effect in 1964 has ever waited this long to call the special election.

Again, Whitmer doesn’t have to call the special election, but she would be the first not to when the vacancy occurred more than a year before the next general election.

The governor is not only crossing into undiscovered reaches of the political stratosphere, but she is also making it clear that partisan control is more important than representation.

She seems to be saying that having a voting member of the state Senate for every registered Michigan voter is not as important as having a Democratic majority.

A Schuette victory or if a Democratic candidate pulls off a Licata-like upset should be irrelevant. Respecting the structure of our government and giving 270,000 residents a voice in the state Senate is relevant.

And if the politics work out, as they did for Romney in 1967, maybe that’s karma doing its thing.

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