Taking turns.

• Author: Weeks, George
• Position: Sharing of leadership of the House by Representatives Curtis Hertel and Paul Hillegonds - Includes related articles - Cover Story

In Michigan, a notoriously partisan state, a tie in the House has resulted in a surprisingly successful experiment in shared leadership.

Michigan is an unlikely place for shared power to work so well.

It has a long and turbulent history of divided government, partisan rancor and deadlock at the Capitol. But in the House cooperation has replaced confrontation under a highly successful joint operating agreement conceived and implemented by "stereo speakers." The success has astonished veterans and freshmen alike.

Representatives Curtis Hertel, a Democrat, and Paul Hillegonds, a Republican, became co-speakers, alternating control each month, under a plan to deal with the 55-55 split created by the 1992 elections that ended 26 years of Democratic rule in the House.

"I'm astounded at how well it is working," Hertel said. "It's, I think, a real tribute to the membership, the way they've worked together to make sure the system works. That's especially evident at the committee level."

He also said it helps that "the personalities of the two co-speakers--Hillegonds and myself--are compatible."

As speaker on the 87th Legislature's opening day, Hillegonds said, "It's time for this chamber to look beyond the last election and address the public's concerns. Resolution of the leadership question is the first step in restoring the House to its rightful role as a forum for open debate and problem-solving. Co-speaker Curtis Hertel and I are prepared to make difficult policy decisions and also restructure the process by which those judgments are made. We will work with both caucuses to ensure that good ideas get the hearing they deserve."

After several months of shared power, Hillegonds believes "it has worked surprisingly well."

He was optimistic right from the start, he says, based on the tone and results of the negotiations and on "the mutual trust we have for each other. But there have been a number of issues since then that have cemented that bond of trust." Most of them center on what Hillegonds regards as "openness" on Hertel's part.

In committees and on the floor, "much more open debate is occurring," says Hillegonds, who is far more moderate than would be expected of a Republican from highly conservative Ottawa County--just as Hertel is not as liberal as typical Detroit Democrats.

The Senate is in the firm control of the Republicans. They began the year with a 21-17 edge, and increased it to 22-16--their largest majority since 1965--as the result of a special election in March.

In rapid-fire order early in the 1993 session, the House, Senate and governor reached agreement on issues that languished in deadlock in 1992. Most notable were agreements to put a property tax relief and school finance reform proposition on the June 2 ballot, and to pass an auto insurance reform bill. Shared power also helped unravel and clean up a glaring abuse--a House Fiscal Agency scandal that was the Michigan Capitol's worst since the 1940s when a grand jury investigation produced more than 40 convictions. (See related story.)

"I saw more progress in the first three months [of 1993] than in the previous three years," observed Representative Michelle McManus, a first-term GOP lawmaker who worked for a Democratic senator and a Republican representative before winning her seat in 1992. Her district is solidly Republican, but she had a close call in a race that was targeted by Democrats.

The shared power agreement prompted Republican Governor John Engler to begin his 1993 State of the State address: "Speaker Hillegonds and Speaker Hertel, for your historic agreement to share leadership and end gridlock--congratulations!"

Engler has been part of the Michigan Capitol's history of periodic polarization between the parties and between the executive and legislative branches, regardless of party. Conflict between "dictatorial" governors and "obstructionist" legislatures is as old as states themselves. But, as legislator and now as governor, they don't come any more combative than Engler.

As Senate majority leader, Engler feuded with Democratic Governor James J. Blanchard, who was narrowly upset by Engler in 1990. Blanchard had strained relations with the Legislature, once including fellow Democrats in an assertion that lawmakers were spending "like drunken sailors." In the first two years of his own administration, Engler warred with the Democratic House where Speaker Lewis Dodak criticized Engler's "mean-spirited" budget cuts.

There was a relatively cooperative era during the 1969-82 administration of moderate Republican William G. Milliken, Michigan's longest-serving governor. Nonetheless, the mild-mannered Milliken had some celebrated battles with the Democratic House, as well as with Engler and other conservative Republicans.

Political polarization was so bad in the 1950s that state workers had a payless payday because Democratic Governor G. Mennen "Soapy" Williams and the Republican Senate could not agree on steps to deal with a cash crisis. As the Senate considered Williams, plan to shift funds to meet the payroll, a business lobbyist wired GOP senators, who were branded "Neanderthals" by Williams: "You have Soapy over a barrel. Keep him there till he screams Uncle."

Lansing's tradition of scream-uncle politics makes the smooth implementation of shared power in the House this year all the more remarkable. Even before reaching the historic agreement they signed Jan. 13, Hillegonds and Hertel acknowledged the difficulty of making it work.

Hillegonds noted that the parties had been "operating in a climate of confrontation." In checking with other states where power has...