Bishop booed at Mackinac Policy Conference

Free market lecture against smoking ban turns pro-business audience against Republican senator

[COMMENTARY] In front of a pro-business crowd attending the Mackinac Policy Conference Thursday at the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island, Senate Majority Leader and right-wing Republican Mike Bishop, R-Rochester, came across as callous to the health and well-being of hospitality, service and gaming employees in a stern, cold-blooded defense of free market philosophy.

Bishop was one of four Lansing lawmakers on a panel answering questions for a session titled, “The State Debate — Moving Michigan Forward.”

One of the panel’s moderators, WXYZ-Detroit Channel 7 talent Chuck Stokes, queried the panel:

This next question is one in which a lot of public polls show that there’s a lot of public support for. And it also shows that people want movement on this issue. One of our audience members writes, “The smoking ban bills remind me of last year’s tax battle, where good-faith negotiations seem to be lacking. How can Republicans and Democrats come to a consensus and lead by example, not war?”

When the question came to Bishop, he took the opportunity to “move Michigan forward” with an anti-regulation lecture that caught people aback when he ignored the health issue of employees at the majority of bars, casinos and restaurants that had not instituted voluntary smoking bans.

Bishop told the audience that going to bars and restaurants was a choice, unlike going to work, and that since we could choose to go to one of the few smoke-free bars or restaurants (or choose, one would suppose, to stay home), that regulation was uncalled for. “That’s something we do voluntarily,” he said.

Then the crowd started buzzing and whispering to one another that the bill was designed to protect service employees who had no choice but to go to those bars, restaurants and casinos and that the speaker was leaving them out of the equation altogether.

Overhearing their whispering, Bishop told the crowd, “I know that’s a concern, but it’s a small number of people.”

And people booed. And booed again after he attempted to defended himself by telling the crowd, “These people, in this state, have the opportunity to choose where they want to work as well.”

As if jobs are growing on vines in this economy. And as if one service job is just as good — and easy to find — as the next.

To apply the same logic to Bishop, if smoking was permitted in the Senate chamber and he didn’t like it (we all know how Republicans love cigars), instead of banning smoking to protect his own health and that of his fellow senators, he should, by his own philosophy, go find another job leading some other senate.

After all, freedom of choice reigns in the free market — the great solver of all problems.

The panelist who comments after Bishop is Senate Democratic Floor Leader Buzz Thomas, D-Detroit, a progressive voice who speaks words of wisdom about New York and California, which have flourished economically and culturally with smoking bans. What’s more, he’s a restaurant owner.

Could this be a sign that extreme right-wing Republican economic philosophies that fly in the face of common sense are out of touch, even with a right-leaning audience attending an event sponsored by the Detroit Chamber of Commerce?