Jack Lessenberry Politics & Prejudices

What’s it like to actually be ON the Supreme Court? Michigan Supreme Court Chief Justice Bridget Mary McCormack was elected to the court in 2012 and became the Chief Justice last year.  In addition to having a key role in deciding the constitutionality of laws, she also has the job of overseeing all of Michigan’s other state courts.  Find out what goes on behind the bench, gavel, and black robes of the Michigan Supreme Court.

There’s no question that some people blame third parties – especially the Libertarians and the Green Party – for Donald Trump’s surprising election four years ago. Six million people voted for either the Green or Libertarian candidates for President, and the difference was more than Trump’s winning margins in most states, including Michigan. But the leaders of those parties say that not only do they have as much right as the Republicans or Democrats to run, they aren’t running to tip any election, they are running to let people know what they believe in and stand for and try to win support. Well, how will all that play out this year? Joining us now to talk about their parties and the 2020 campaign are two people who have been down this way before. Jennifer Kurland was the Green Party nominee for governor of Michigan in 2018 and polled nearly 30,000 votes. She is now the party’s communications director, and thinks that despite the conventional wisdom, the Greens might do even better this time, noting “we have some conservative ideas as well as liberal ones.” Bill Gelineau became the Libertarian Party’s candidate for governor two years ago after winning the party’s first-ever statewide primary election. He didn’t win but got nearly 60,000 votes. He’s been building the party for years and is a successful business owner in the Grand Rapids area.

Dana Nessel was elected Michigan’s Attorney General in November 2018. She is the first woman to hold that office in state history, the first openly gay person to hold that office, and the first Democrat to hold it in nearly twenty years. Since taking office, she has been a whirling dervish of activity and hasn’t been afraid of controversy or of standing up to interest groups in either party. Find out more about this gutsy Attorney General and her thoughts about the job, unemployment compensation, the MSU investigation and more.

Geoffrey Fieger is one of Michigan’s most fascinating personalities and Michigan’s most successful medical malpractice lawyer. He became nationally famous in the 1990s for his defense of Dr. Jack Kevorkian in five trials and before the world’s media. He defied the odds and the party establishment to win the Democratic nomination for governor in 1998 and beat what he believes was a politically driven attempt by the Bush administration to convict him of campaign finance violations. Now, he says what we need is a “Clear Vision for 2020.” As always, he tells it like he sees it and pulls no punches.

Women who shouldn’t be in prison -- and the effort of a few dedicated people to free them. The vast majority of Michigan’s state prisoners are men. Women inmates are all housed in a single prison, the Huron Valley Correctional Facility near Ann Arbor, which has been plagued with problems from overcrowding to sanitation issues. Some of these women were dangerous criminals. But an appalling number of them were sentenced to long terms, often life, for crimes they were forced into by people, often boyfriends or husbands, which whom they were victims in abusive relationships. Some were convicted of murder for killing their abusers, often to save their own lives or those of their children. My Guests: Carol Jacobsen - Director of the Michigan Women’s Clemency Project, has waged a sometimes-lonely struggle to get the authorities to see the injustice of these cases. Incidentally, she isn’t a social worker or a criminologist, but a professor and a documentary filmmaker who became aware of this issue while working in a film. Machelle Pearson - Accidentally shot a woman during a robbery her boyfriend forced her to commit when she was only 17. She was finally released on parole a year ago August, partly due to the help of the Michigan Women’s Clemency Project Anita Posey - Served years in jail for killing an abusive boyfriend to save the life of her 14-month-old son.

We have a President, Donald Trump, who often doesn’t appear to understand the nature of the presidency or its traditions. Nor does he seem to understand the central role of our Constitution. Mr. Trump also doesn’t seem to recognize that in our system, the President is not just a political leader, he is the head of state, the symbol of our nation and its heritage to our people and the world. It’s important to note that I am not talking here about his specific positions on the issues, but about his understanding of the nature of his job and our democracy. And beyond that, how much of a threat is all this to our system and democracy in America? Today I have asked three very intelligent people from wildly different professional backgrounds to examine these questions. Guests: Paul Eisenstein is the founder, publisher, and Editor-in-Chief of the TheDetroitBureau.com, also known as the Voice of the Automotive World. He has been covering all phases of the automotive industry on every continent and every medium for more than 35 years. Jamon Jordan is a historian, author, and educator who also runs the Black Scroll Network, which conducts tours of historic African-American sites both locally and nationally Robert Sedler is a Distinguished Professor of Constitutional Law at Wayne State University in Detroit, a frequent writer on constitutional questions, and has argued before the U.S. Supreme Court on more than one occasion.

We all know that Detroit has made a big comeback in recent years – at least we have been told it has. And it’s true that anyone walking around downtown or the midtown area will see streets that look better than they have in decades. But how deep does the comeback go? And what needs to happen next? Joining me to talk about all of this: Karen Dumas is a communications and media professional who has been well-known and respected in Detroit for many years; she has hosted a number of radio shows, served on many committees and boards and served as chief of communications and internal affairs for former Detroit Mayor Dave Bing. John Gallagher has covered architecture, urban development and about everything else connected with this city for the Detroit Free Press for more than 30 years; he is the author of several notable and award-winning books, including Reimagining Detroit and Revolution Detroit. John Mogk has been a law professor at Wayne State University for more than half a century, but he is at least as much an urban affairs expert as he is a legal one. He has served on more panels and boards than I think even he can count, and even ran for mayor twice, and has a very interesting view of what the city needs to do about eminent domain.

Metro Detroit is the place that put the world on wheels. Eleven years ago, there was a very real possibility that the domestic auto industry might not survive. Now, after billions to bail out the industry, a confusing landscape of what does “American Made” really mean, the growth of electric and driverless cars, and the far-reaching scandal in the UAW, where do we go from here and how will it impact this country and the “Motor City?” Joining me is Kristin Dziczek, VP of industry, labor, and economics for the non-profit Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor. She has degrees in economics, public policy, and engineering, all from the University of Michigan, and is one of the most quoted automotive policy analysts in America.

U.S. District Judge Avern Cohn has now been a federal judge for more than forty years, has served during the administrations of seven presidents and witnessed a lot of history – and is still on the bench and going strong at 95. But what does he think about the judicial system he has served so long? Does the system still work? Does the public understand it? And what does he think about what’s happened to politics and government in America today?

Charles Eisendrath covered some of the major stories of the 1970s as a foreign correspondent for Time Magazine, before returning to Michigan to reinvent and revitalize one of the world’s most prestigious journalist fellowship programs. He knew everyone from Mike Wallace to top fashion mavens and brought them to Ann Arbor to speak. But he had another life as an inventor, hunter, cherry farmer and very much a man of northern Michigan. Now, he has written a fascinating memoir, “Downstream From Here: A Big Life in a Small Place.”