A Bad Example

A few days ago, Michigan had its second round of primary elections, this time for local and state offices only. Unlike the disputed Presidential primary held early this year, the current election dealt with issues like who would be the major party candidates for such offices as Township Supervisor, County Commissioner, and of course, County Drains Commissioner. The titles sound strange to someone from Los Angeles, which has fewer elected offices and fewer levels of government oversight -- and which is located in a County with more residents than the entire state of Michigan according to the 2007 census figures. But there was some commentary in one of the Drain Commissioner races that struck me as a particularly bad example of what can happen when business and politics intersect...

The office may sound quaint to someone from the big city (particularly a big city where 15 inches of rain represents a wet year), but in Michigan the County Drain Commissioner is no joke; it's a critical local office that controls not only what goes into the drain system but also what CAN go into the drains. The Drain Commissioner has at least some say in every new construction project that takes place in the county, even things like roads, parks and other public works. When you consider that the county we're living in averages double the precipitation of our last city in rainfall alone (the snow adds much more), and does not have a convenient ocean to dump the storm water runoff into, it makes sense that this is a political race to watch closely...

In the current contest, however, the campaign became polarized and the campaigning became rather dirty, according to our local paper. It seems that the incumbent is being criticized for being too anti-business, which does not sit well in an area as economically depressed as Central Michigan, while the challenger from within his own party is being painted as an entrepreneurial businessman with no experience in politics and no clear idea of how things get done in local government. The incumbent survived the primary, beating his own party's challenger by a 66.5% to 33.5% margin, but the big winner was the other party's candidate, who ran unopposed and now faces a much weaker incumbent in the General Election in November. Meanwhile, the actual purpose of the office is being generally ignored...

Now, for the most part I don't comment on political issues; my degrees are in business and literature, not political science, and I don't believe I'm qualified to discuss the issues in a state I've only lived in for a month or so anyway. In this case, however, I can't help thinking that the situation is dangerous -- and has implications on a much larger scale. The County Drain Commissioner should not be pro-business OR anti-business; his or her job is to look out for the good of the environment, the community, and the people who live here. It does us no good to have many new businesses move into or start up in our county if they are all subsequently destroyed by flood waters (as happened in several other states this summer). Nor does it do any good to have a pristine drains system if all of the local businesses fail, everyone moves away, and no one is here to use it -- or pay the property taxes for its upkeep...

As any long-time reader already knows, I'm generally a pragmatist, both politically and also in business. Any regulatory office is going to have to strike a balance between the needs of the various stakeholders affected by its rulings, and attacking any candidate on the basis of how friendly they are (or aren't) toward business is not going to end well. In the case of our County Drain Commissioner's office, I suspect that whoever wins the upcoming election is going to be strongly motivated to do anything possible to improve the business climate in Central Michigan. I just hope we don't all find ourselves paddling around in the consequences a few years from now...