Governing Magazine/March 2008 OBSERVER By Alan Greenblatt BACKLASH IN LANSING Michigan legislators may get some unwanted time off. Legislators are like college students. Most of the time, they put off their assignments as long as possible, saving the hardest work for a raucous all-nighter at the very end of the session. That's certainly how it works in Michigan. But some critics there think the legislative process could be made more efficient if deadlines were simply moved up--if one of the nation's few full-time legislatures were transformed into a part-time body. Last year, Michigan faced a big budget shortfall and also needed to rewrite its business tax code. The legislature took many months to do both, and the results made few people happy. About a dozen lawmakers are now fighting off recall campaigns. But there's also been a larger structural response, with three separate initiatives making their slow way through the process of winning a spot on the November ballot. A part-time legislature operating on a tight schedule would give the business community a greater sense of certainty, says Steward Sandstrom, president of the Kalamazoo Regional Chamber of Commerce, which is leading one of the initiative efforts. "By May 31, we would know what our financial climate and regulatory condition would be, at least for the next seven months." Michigan legislators receive the second-highest salaries in the country, after those in California, and so these initiatives would cut not only their time in Lansing but their pay, too. It's not too hard to imagine the public wanting to do that. But the bigger question is whether this would have the desired effect on legislative outcomes. It's true that some of the perennially dysfunctional legislatures are full time (I'm looking at you, New York), but part-time legislating certainly hasn't proved a panacea against careerism, partisanship, budget muddles or blown deadlines. In fact, while Michigan has not escaped scandal and conflicts in recent years, you could argue that full-time employment and decent pay for Michigan legislators have kept those problems down. Full-time legislators generally don't have to balance the public interest against the priorities of their insurance company or bank management. And it may be that legislators would have done a better job last year if they had stayed in session more, instead of taking so many week- long breaks--in other words, if they had acted more convincingly like a full-time body. "The problem in the legislature is excessive--almost extreme-- partisanship, and an unwillingness to do what has to be done to reposition the state for a new economy," says Ken Sikkema, a former Michigan legislator who now analyzes public policy. "Whether it's a part-time or a full-time legislature is going to make no difference in that respect." BAYOU BOOMTOWN Katrina crippled New Orleans; it's remade Baton Rouge. At a time when most cities are suffering from job losses and foreclosures, Baton Rouge is booming. Being at the center of the nation's petrochemical industry hasn't hurt, but the main reason has been the Louisiana capital's ability to successfully absorb tens of thousands of new residents following Hurricane Katrina. Over the past three years, Baton Rouge has gained 28,000 new jobs-- not just in energy and government but also in construction, the service sector and even manufacturing. Unemployment is below 3 percent. Home prices are up nearly 40 percent over the past five years--and still show no sign of slipping--contrary to what is going on just about everywhere else. "Developers are having a field day," says Mayor Kip Holden. Baton Rouge hasn't kept all of its post-Katrina newcomers: The population of 250,000 doubled virtually overnight in 2005, and that wasn't sustainable. Many of the initial refugees have gone back to New Orleans or moved elsewhere. But no one disputes that the long-term growth has been substantial and in some ways dramatic. Not all of it is easy to deal with. There are longer waits in emergency rooms, strains on schools and a big increase in the homeless population. For the most part, though, the newcomers have gone to work. Baton Rouge seems to have attracted fewer crime-prone Katrina refugees than did cities in Texas. Prior to the storm, the Baton Rouge economy and housing market each had some slack that new residents have helped the city to absorb. Federal tax and bonding incentives enacted after the 2005 hurricanes have helped to prompt more than $5 billion in local construction projects. The city is attempting to build on its gains, working with the Audubon Nature Institute on a riverfront redesign and with neighboring towns and parishes to promote a $4 billion interstate highway loop. The fact that Stephen Moret, the area's chamber of commerce president, has become Louisiana's new secretary for economic development shouldn't hurt. The chamber's most recent survey of local business owners shows they are convinced growth will continue, not just this year but over the next three years. Louisiana State University economist Loren Scott forecasts that Baton Rouge will gain an additional 15,000 jobs by the end of 2009. "We will never be the sleepy town on the Mississippi anymore," Mayor Holden says. COMMERCIAL GRADE "I would give the insurance industry an F, a dead F." --Florida Governor Charlie Crist, criticizing high property insurance rates Source: Associated Press FENCING MATCH A barrier to keep out illegals may sound good--but not if it's on your land. Do people dislike eminent domain more than they dislike illegal immigrants? This has suddenly become a relevant question on the nation's southwestern border. The federal Department of Homeland Security is planning to build 670 miles of new fencing along that border this year. In order to do so, it's filed dozens of lawsuits against landowners--including municipalities--in assertion of its authority to take the land it seeks. Not surprisingly, this has prompted a good deal of pushback. Locals in Texas and Arizona are skeptical that new fences will succeed in keeping out illegal immigrants. But more urgently, they are worried about the taking of their land and the resulting disruption of trade and transportation in their areas. The proposed border fence in Brownsville, Texas, for instance, would cut off most of the city from a park and the municipal golf course, and run right through the University of Texas campus. In other communities, some state and local government buildings will end up on the wrong side of the fence, essentially linked to Mexico rather than Texas. "It was the thoughtlessness with which the line was draped across the horizon that's a bigger problem than the idea of a wall," says James Goza, Brownsville's city attorney. "All of this was done apparently without regard for the city's geographical features and the streets that the wall would cross." While the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers does its local surveying, Brownsville is working on a legal strategy to block any actual fence- building. The city is looking into environmental-impact statutes and even international treaties that might define the border. Others are asking constitutional questions about the federal government's ability to go in and push municipalities off their own land. According to Carla Main, author of a recent book on eminent domain in Texas called "Bulldozed," the feds usually ask states to condemn municipal land for them, rather than just taking it directly. "This is a rather peculiar situation," Main says. And yet Main, like most eminent domain experts, believes that the federal government will prevail. It has won a string of victories in a series of quick injunctions forcing landowners to let the Corps come in and survey. Legally, there seems to be no question that, whatever the inconvenience, the fence project qualifies as a legal taking for a public purpose. "I don't have any doubt that a national policy set out by Congress is a public use," says James Ely, a law professor at Vanderbilt University. "The towns may be turning to courts to vent their frustration, but in terms of eminent domain, I can't see that there would be any real, serious objection that would be found compelling in court." CHARLOTTE'S CURSE Can a big-city mayor attract the down-home vote? Being mayor of the largest city in any state usually isn't a good way to get elected governor. No mayor of New York or Chicago has reached gubernatorial office for more than a century. A similar rule seems to apply in smaller states, as well. Out-state residents, resentful of the power concentrated in the dominant city, unite to keep politicians hailing from there out of statewide office. North Carolina is a prime example. The last four Charlotte mayors who aspired to statewide office all lost. Students of state politics sometimes go so far as to talk about a "Charlotte Curse." But Pat McCrory doesn't believe in the curse, or at least he thinks he has a chance to break it. Elected seven times as mayor of Charlotte, he is running hard this year to convince the rest of the state that his city isn't a place they have to be afraid of. With Democrat Mike Easley term-limited, North Carolina is home to one of the few competitive gubernatorial elections in the country in 2008. McCrory announced in January that he would join three other contenders in the Republican primary. McCrory has an impressive record to run on--a dozen years at the helm of a city that has experienced enormous growth with its emergence as a leading banking center. He claims credit not just for job and population increases but also for a big reduction in homicides and impressive investments in a comprehensive new transportation system. McCrory is too moderate for many North Carolina Republicans. He's recently signaled he'll take a tough line on immigration and same-sex marriage, but the other Republican aspirants keep insisting he's not conservative enough. Still, his appeal to the center and his geographic base could give him the edge over a divided field in the May Republican primary. But if McCrory makes it past the primary, that same geographic niche might hurt him in the fall. "The suspicion from easterners is that all the state institutions are set up with a bias toward shipping resources into western counties," says Eric Heberlig, a UNC-Charlotte political scientist. McCrory's record, which includes attracting help for big-money projects that include not only transit but also an arena, a NASCAR museum and other cultural facilities, could fuel such suspicion. In the end, being a successful mayor of Charlotte may not keep McCrory out of the governor's mansion. But it probably won't help him a great deal, either. TURNING THE PAGE Most and least literate big cities, 2007* MOST LITERATE 1. Minneapolis, MN 2. Seattle, WA 3. St. Paul, MN 4. Denver, CO 5. Washington, D.C. LEAST LITERATE 1. Stockton, CA 2. El Paso, TX 3. Anaheim, CA 4. Aurora, CO 5. Corpus Christi, TX* Rankings based on newspaper circulation, number of bookstores, periodical publishing, educational attainment and library and Internet resources Source: Jack Miller, Central Connecticut State University THE WRATH OF AGUIRRE San Diego's master of mayhem isn't dead yet. You don't win many friends in politics by vilifying your colleagues or calling them names. The funny thing about Michael Aguirre, the city attorney of San Diego, is he's made so many enemies in political life that he might just survive for another term. San Diego remains wracked with debt, the result of a pension fund scandal that led to the resignation of Mayor Dick Murphy three years ago, plus decades of disinvestment in infrastructure and, most recently, the implosion of the housing market. Aguirre has blamed many of the city's problems on malfeasance and cronyism. He has launched countless investigations of fellow-officials, called current Mayor Jerry Sanders "corrupt" and publicly accused the police chief of obstructing justice. "Certainly the establishment opinion is that he has to go," says UC San Diego political scientist Steve Erie. That opinion has been turned into action. The local GOP and downtown business community recruited Superior Court Judge Jan Goldsmith to run against Aguirre in the primary this coming June. But getting rid of Aguirre has not gone as smoothly as planned. The challenger has been surprisingly slow to raise money. What's more, Aguirre's apparent vulnerability is drawing other interested parties into the race. All of this plays to Aguirre's advantage. If no one can win 50.1 percent of the June vote, the two top finishers will proceed to the general election. Aguirre's bluster and willingness to rain down criticism on politicians and developers has earned him the core support of 35 to 40 percent of the electorate. In a divided primary field, that might be enough to get him onto the November ballot. The general election would be another significant hurdle. Plenty of people in San Diego think Aguirre is incompetent and an embarrassment- -he's the subject of a sexual harassment lawsuit, among other complaints--who has cost the city millions through litigation and administrative blunders. But several more months of political life will give Aguirre the opportunity to exercise his genius for winning media coverage. And his populist complaints about cozy doings at City Hall may resonate more strongly by November, when San Diego's dire economic picture--and its need to raise taxes--are likely to be more obvious than ever. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright 2008, Congressional Quarterly, Inc. Reproduction in any form without the written permission of the publisher is prohibited. Governing, City & State and Governing.com are registered trademarks of Congressional Quarterly, Inc. http://www.governing.com