Political Careerists to Dominate Legislature

An article currently appearing on MichCapCon.org and Mackinac.org describes how 72 of the likely winners in 81 races for open Michigan state House and Senate seats are already members-in-good-standing of the bipartisan political class. These include 61 current or former office-holders, eight current or former political staffers, several relatives of legislators, and others who have been government or school officials or employees.

The breakdown by district is here.

The article goes on to describe serious negative consequences. Primarily, political careerists most often get ahead by serving the system over serving the people. With the explosive growth in recent decades of a massive, union-dominated welfare/regulatory state, "system-serving" means catering to a narrow special interest group - public employees. Political careerists serve them indirectly by protecting the spending programs they run, and directly with actions like refusing to veto a 3 percent state employee raise that went into effect on Oct. 1, largely gutting pension reform proposals like the ones from Gov. Granholm earlier this year.

Moreover, keeping this system fed means that taxpayers are now viewed by the political class as sheep to be shorn and, except for politically connected favorites, businesses as potential exploiters to be regulated into docile servility by swarms of unionized bureaucrats. Thus, political careerism is also implicated in the growing sense shared by many that government is now the master and the people its servants.

The full article is here.

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