State of the State speech greeted with protests, conflict

LANSING — As Gov. Jennifer Granholm took to the podium in the chambers of the Michigan House of Representatives to present her final State of the State address Wednesday night, the social, political and economic upheavals she discussed in her speech were mirrored on the lawn of the Capitol.

There, in the snow and cold, in a crowd that seemed larger than the 600 estimated by the Capitol police, were two very different groups of people.

The largest group was a mixture of Michigan Taxpayers Alliance and tea party movement members. They were there to protest any potential new tax increases.

On the South side of the Capitol lawn were about 100 hundred college students from Michigan State University. They combined with a group of about 20 from the Moratorium Now group from Detroit. The students wanted to make sure that the Michigan Promise Scholarship was returned and public education was protected; Moratorium Now wanted to put a halt to foreclosures.

And there it was, a state divided. On the Capitol lawn the two groups were screaming at each other, while legislators, lobbyists and locally elected politicians inside listened to each other. Peppered among the crowd outside were a few former state lawmakers — Jack Hoogendyk, Leon Drolet, Lorence Wenke — but none of the currently seated lawmakers who said they would attend were anywhere to be found. Those who confirmed their attendance with a Facebook event “State of the Citizen Address and Protest,” were Rep. Justin Amash (R-Cascade), Rep. Rick Jones(R-Grand Ledge) and Sen. Cameron Brown(R-Fawn River Twp.)

But representatives of the gubernatorial campaigns of both Mike Bouchard and Pete Hoekstra were present and accounted for. The Bouchard team was set up by the steps of the Capitol passing out “pastries for patriots,” and gathering signatures to put the Oakland County Sheriff on the Aug. primary ballot.

So it was citizens, rallied together by organizations, that took the steps of the capitol to push their message.

“The year 2010 is the most important year in modern Michigan history because it’s the year that all the accounting gimmicks run out,” boomed Drolet, head of MTA. “This is the year also that the taxpayer’s — the citizens’ money — has also run out.”

Drolet, who has spent much of the last decade in one public office or another, opined that the state of the political elite was good, but Michigan citizens were suffering. He warned the crowd of what he said would be Granholm’s attempt to raise taxes.

“The word tax restructuring replaces her old word revenues. But we all know that the word revenues mean. It means tax increases,” said Drolet to boos. “When Gov. Granholm presents her budget and says we need revenue restructuring or to modernize our tax code she means taking money out of your pocket and putting it in the government’s pockets. I’m not fooled. We are not fooled.”

Granholm’s speech, in fact, made no calls for revenue increases or tax restructuring. That, most political observers believe, will be held until she presents her 2010-2011 budget proposal later this month. Her speech did call for swift action to pass the next fiscal year budget and to address the estimated $1.8 billion deficit.

Drolet, and many of the protesters, said the only answer is cuts and more cuts.

But student protesters, who declined to be interviewed, had a different view. They were mad at lawmakers for eliminating the Michigan Promise Scholarship — a payment of $500 a semester for students who graduated from Michigan public schools while meeting certain standards and who attend Michigan universities or colleges — in the middle of the semester, leaving many of them scrambling to come up with the cash to pay their tuition.

They called for protecting the funding of public education as well. In the budget pass in October of 2009, public schools saw a massive cut which has many K-12 districts struggling with huge deficits.

It didn’t take long for tensions to mount between the two groups, fueled by the expression of extremist views on both sides.

Some students shouted into a bullhorn, calling for an end to capitalism, which sent some of the anti-tax protesters into a frenzy. One man, who declined to give his name, confronted the students.

“Education is the first problem,” he yelled. “You’re all socialists!”

Martha Levy of Midland agreed. “I think schools don’t teach anymore. They indoctrinate,” she said. She was proudly displaying a Pete Hoekstra for governor sticker on her jacket. And while she is frustrated with the way things are, she admitted she didn’t have the answers.

The tension continued to ramp up, with students accusing the tea party protesters of being racists. The tea partiers responded in kind, calling the students hippies.

One tea party protester named Mike, who said he was from Shelby Township, was accompanied by his eight or nine year old son, who carried a small white plastic jug labeled “Donations to save America.” Mike, who refused to give his last name, was passing out DVDs which he said every American needed to see. Among the five videos were two outlining the Jewish conspiracy to destroy America (Missing Link and Know Your Enemy) and one on the need to be a member of a militia or be tried and hung for treason (Constitutional Militia).

As the students and anti-tax protesters increasingly confronted each other verbally, Michigan State Police troopers moved in, creating a line between the two groups. Officers eventually moved the student protesters back about 30 feet and ordered them to stop using their bullhorns. When the officers moved in to separate the two groups, students responded by calling the cops “fascists.” Officers did not respond to the taunts and were restrained.

At least three different individuals found themselves in confrontations with police. And while each appeared to break the law, including assaulting police officers, no one was arrested. Officers also had a confrontation with a student protester once the two groups had been separated. She remained behind the police line with a bullhorn, claiming to be a tea party protester. But as soon as the police line had moved ten feet, she raised the bullhorn and started chanting about education. Officers swiftly moved in and she was told to return to the student group. A taut verbal confrontation ensued, ending with the woman returning to the student protest group.

Once the police had separated the two groups, the situation calmed down. At about 7:30, as Granholm completed her speech, the student group had trickled away and the tea party protesters were lined up on the steps of the capitol posing for pictures, the conflict and anger replaced, perhaps, by the search for a place to warm up after a cold night of protest.