Michigan House fails to wrangle votes for changes to university boards

LANSING, Mich. — An effort to change the way university boards are selected failed in the Michigan House even after Gov. Gretchen Whitmer earlier Wednesday endorsed changes to the way the governing panels are selected at the University of Michigan, Michigan State University and Wayne State University.

The resolution, which needed two-thirds majority support in the Legislature, failed in the Republican-led House with 52 votes in support and 54 in opposition.

"What is your solution, if you're not going to vote for this?" House Speaker Matt Hall, R-Richland Township, said ahead of the vote. "We're out of time. We're going to put up the best proposal we have, one that brings balance, one that allows for stability in our universities and we'll see what happens."

If the resolution had gained two-thirds support in the House and Senate, it would have appeared on the August ballot for Michigan voters to decide.

Whitmer, a Democrat who's in her eighth and final year in office, said earlier Wednesday that it would "be smart" for lawmakers to take action this week.

"Our process for selecting regents, trustees and governors does not work," Whitmer said in an interview Wednesday morning as she walked through the state Capitol.

Former Govs. John Engler, a Republican, and Jim Blanchard, a Democrat, have been lobbying lawmakers to alter the way the boards are selected at the UM, MSU and Wayne State through the upcoming primary.

In order for the potential proposal to make the August ballot, the measure needed two-thirds majority support in both the House and Senate by the end of the week. The House and Senate's last session day for the week is Thursday.

Senate Majority Floor Leader Sam Singh, D-East Lansing, said as of Wednesday morning, he was yet to see a plan that he believed could get the necessary backing in the two chambers. But a "healthy conversation" was happening, Singh said.

Singh supports the idea of changing the selection process, but he added that Hall has been interested in adding other revisions to the proposal that might make it more difficult.

“I would rather depoliticize these institutions and have them be appointed by the governor,” Singh said. “So I’m open to any conversation that makes that happen.”

Hall's plan that failed Wednesday would have discharged all sitting members of the boards at the three universities, allowed Whitmer to appoint half on Dec. 31, and allowed the next governor to appoint the other half on Jan. 1. The boards would have needed to include four Republicans, four Democrats, and one independent. The substitute, Hall said, would have explicitly applied the Open Meetings Act and Freedom of Information Act to university boards.

Hall has openly advocated for making Michigan's primary system closed, which generally means voters would have to register as a supporter of a party in order to vote in a primary election. But Wednesday's resolution did not include closed primary provisions or changes to the way partisan nominees for secretary of state and attorney general are selected.

"The crisis right now is really at the university boards," Hall said Wednesday when asked why those statewide offices weren't included in the proposed constitutional amendment.

Deadline approaching for the August primary ballot

The vote Wednesday was a shift from a plan Hall laid out at the Mackinac Policy Conference last week, when he said a constitutional amendment could not realistically make the August ballot and would instead be shifted to the November ballot should it pass the Legislature with a two-thirds majority.

"We'll put together something that can get the votes," Hall told The Detroit News last week. "I don't need all these outside people coming to me and telling me what the plan is."

Another topic of debate is how to institute the university board appointments. Some lawmakers want to make all of the positions appointments in a sweeping fashion; the House resolution would have done so. But Singh said he would rather have board members serve out their elected terms before the appointees take the position, meaning the change would effectively be phased in over eight years.

If lawmakers don't act this week, they could return later to put an amendment on the November general election ballot.

The proposed changes come as the three universities during the past several years have been beset by board-level controversies and scandals, including the handling of allegations regarding serial pedophile Larry Nassar at MSU, similar issues related to Dr. Robert Anderson at UM and perennial presidential departures at the universities.

MSU's president, Kevin Guskiewicz, announced last week he was leaving the university for the same position at Clemson. Guskiewicz said the behavior of several of the university's trustees was the reason he decided to leave MSU.

How attorney general, secretary of state and university board candidates are nominated

Currently, party members at political conventions nominate candidates for the three university boards. Then, voters pick the winners in races that garner little attention and appear near the bottom of the ballot in the November election.

The potential amendment proposal taking shape in the state Capitol initially included changes to how attorney general and secretary of state candidates are selected. Currently, they are nominated at political conventions and then appear on the November ballot.

Some prominent political figures, including Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, have supported moving the nominations to the August primary ballot, like the process for governor, to allow more people to vote on the selections.

While about 7,200 people participated in the Michigan Democratic Party convention in Detroit on April 19, about 1.1 million voted in the last competitive Democratic gubernatorial primary in Michigan.

The Democratic Party's April 19 convention, where participants endorsed Washtenaw County Prosecutor Eli Savit for attorney general and Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist II for secretary of state, faced a series of delays and vote-counting problems.

A progressive Democratic group, the People's Coalition, which endorsed Savit and Gilchrist, blasted the idea of changing how university board members are picked in a statement Wednesday.

"For generations, Michigan voters have directly elected members of the governing boards of the state'spublic universities," the coalition's statement said. "This system promotes transparency, public accountability and institutional independence.

"Replacing elected boards with appointed boards would fundamentally reduce the public's role in university governance and concentrate greater authority in the hands of political officeholders."

Any proposal to change the process would have to gain support in both the Republican-led House and the Democrat-led Senate.

Michigan Republican Party Chairman Jim Runestad, who's also a state senator, told reporters Wednesday it was possible a proposal could come up this week.

But Runestad said any amendment would be complex and other things could be thrown into it.

"I would be surprised if it was to get support right now," Runestad said.

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Staff Writer Sarah Atwood contributed.

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