U.P. Politics Roundtable – 2020 Sonderegger Symposium

A roundtable discussion featuring David Haynes, the Director and Editor of our Rural Insights Institute, Pat Gagliardi, former member of the House of Representatives where he also served as the Democratic Floor Leader, and Mitch Irwin former Democratic member of the Michigan Senate. This discussion was part of the 2020 Sonderegger Symposium at Northern Michigan University, put on by the Beaumier U.P. Heritage Center and Center for U.P. Studies with the goal of bringing a sense of history to Yooper culture.

Transcript

Dan:

So our session now is the U.P. politics roundtable featuring David Haynes, former president of the Northern Michigan University. Pat Gagliardi, former member of the house representatives, the democratic Floor Leader, and Mitch Irwin, the democratic member of the Michigan Senate who we have on a taped interview. So these gentlemen have very, very long biographies. I don’t want to read them entirely. What I would say is that you should go to our schedule site, you can click on the bio link there, and you will be able to read all about them. 

But David Haynes was the former president here at the university. I worked with him. I’ve been working with him ever since I got here and a great supporter of our heritage and the Beaumier Center. I want to thank you, David, you played a major role in us having our wonderful home here in Greece Hall, just turned out to be a pretty darn good place to be for us. And I really appreciate your help with making that happen. And, Pat, thanks for joining us. There’s a lot to talk about here. So I’m going to turn it over to you, David.

David Haynes:

All right. Well, thank you. Good morning. I want to say welcome to my good friend, Pat Gagliardi, who is the current chair of the Michigan Liquor Control Commission, and resident of Drummond Island. Good morning, Pat. And Pat will be giving you a really interesting perspective from a live perspective of a legislator in the U.P. and matter of fact, at the age of Pat and I, I think I’m older, anytime you described as live, it’s a good thing. It means we’re actually making it. 

And then we’ll be joined by videotape with Senator Mitch Irwin, who is from the eastern end U.P. also and [inaudible 00:02:05], both graduates of Lake Superior State University and I am of Northern Michigan University. So what we all decided we would do when talking to Dan, was we would focus on a period of time about inside or outside to give you a perspective. 1975 to 1995, it was a different era. It was pre-term limits. It was a whole different world out there than we have now in some ways. In other ways, it’s very similar. 

The U.P. delegation was a very powerful delegation. The same amount of numbers as we have now for state reps to state senators. But they really specialized and focused in on networking and building coalitions on both sides of the aisle. I started my career working in the Michigan Senate as a staffer, and eventually in the administration of Governor Blanchard. I watched that networking, I watched when you were from the UP, how other people from U.P. took care of you. 

I wasn’t born or raised in U.P. but I am a graduate of Northern and I’ve spent 40 some odd years here. And I watched that cultural difference, but I also watched people like Pat Gagliardi, Mitch Irwin, and Dominic Jacobetti, focus on how they build coalitions with Detroit, how they build coalition with Lansing. 

I also want to say we’re beginning and I’m going to not spend too much time and turn it over to Pat, to talk about inside outside is, most of the Republican legislators from this era, we discovered are, as they say, have gone on to join the ancestor, they have passed on, otherwise, we would have asked them to join in. And as soon as I say that, and Pat says it, we’re going to hear from one of them that they haven’t joined the ancestors are alive living in Naples, Florida, something and we’ll have to eat our words.

But as far as we know, [inaudible 00:04:23], we did that as time progresses on. So let me just say that this is post-Watergate. This is a period of time when young legislators and young members of Congress were elected post-Watergate. It was a youthful time. Should also say to Dominic Jacobetti in 1975 after the defeat of the powerful chairman of House Appropriations, Dominic becomes the chairman. No one expected this defeat of this powerful man from downstate, and Jake assumes a new throne, a new power, and did it well. We often focus with Jake on stories about Jake. But then Jake was a substantive talented budget manager and political public policy craftsman. He understood it. He knew how to do that. 

And I think one of the great messages I would give is those of you who visit our campuses in the U.P. would have to say from the era of Gagliardi, Irwin, Jacobetti, Connors, Koivisto, Max, we built huge campuses here, but we built huge campuses here because the U.P. delegation built a huge coalition with Detroit legislator, the powerful chairman of higher ed subcommittee, Morris Hood, Sr.

And what they did was not just build up the campuses of the UP, they built up the campuses of Detroit around the state. They said, “Let’s join together because we only have four or five votes in the U.P. in the house.” And they built this huge coalition with Detroit legislators and later with others. So that networking is an interesting thing that Pat and Mitch will talk about. 

And the other thing I would talk about during that era is and we get into the 80s Dominic Jacobetti all of a sudden is faced with a… during this purge time we have Republican and Democratic governors, but the hot dates, the Senate, changed hands. And in 1983, the Republicans took control of the Senate. And the new chairperson of the Senate Appropriation Committee was none other than [inaudible 00:06:57] from South West Michigan. And he and Jake had a relationship in their days in the house. And they built a huge coalition, where they said, “We can move things through together, if we can build the votes.” And I think that is the message from this era when we listen to Pat and Mitch.

I just do want to say one thing about the power of being in the majority, whatever majority [inaudible 00:07:26], republican or democratic, and being in powerful positions. Pat Gagliardi was the second-ranking in person in the house as majority Floor Leader, down to Jacob Eddie, was the chair of appropriations. Mitch Irwin was chair of the DNR committees and a powerful player. I just want to tell you one story, and then I’m going to turn it over to pat. And after Pat’s done, we’re going to Mitch.

I was working for Northern, representing Northern and at the time, we had a capital outlay request. At this time, what we wanted was something different than Chairman Jacobetti wanted. Chairman Jacobetti took care of me and was my mentor. And I got a call in from the governor’s office where I worked and said, “Listen, you’re going to get your appropriation request.” And I said, “Great.” And they said, “But it’s not the project you and the president prioritized.” And I said, “Well, what is it?” And they said, “The new dome.” I said, “Well, that’s really not the board and the president priority.” Governor said to me, “Pay attention here. Listen, I just told you the chairman wants the dome and has the votes. You don’t want the dome, you get nothing.” 

We took the dome and the dome was a huge success that a big part [inaudible 00:08:49] but that is the power, what I consider constructive power, the positive power of a person like Dominic Jacobetti. It wasn’t about doing things to feather Dominic’s life, or Pat Gagliardi’s who would help us get back through, or Mitch Irwin, it was about what was doing best. What was they figured was best for the UP, and their understanding that people on the U.P. and listening to all of us. 

So let’s turn over to pat. I mean, Pat, obviously, elected in 1983, Mitch Irwin’s elected in 1979. They come out of the Sault. As I said, the new young Turks, if you will, of that time and power became major power brokers along with Dominic Jacobetti, representing Jacobetti, and understood how to keep the inside or outside a relationship, how to still represent the people of the U.P. and still be able to be a, if you will, a major important policy person and political person in the state legislature. So Pat, Mr. 

Pat Gagliardi:

Well, thank you, David. Nice introduction. And it’s always good to be with a group affiliated with one of our great universities and one of our great Yooper universities, Northern Michigan University. We have a great background here because I’m a big believer in promoting the place where you live, and I live in Michigan. So you see, [inaudible 00:10:32] United States, you see our flags because we are one country. And as we are taping this today, I hope we can stick together as one country.

Going back to when I was elected in 1982, the delegation was an incredible cast of characters and great politicians. Our congressman was Bob Davis, longtime congressman out of the area. I beat his son, Bob Davis, Jr in 1982, which nobody predicted. I had the support of three Yooper legislators, Mitch Irwin, Dom Jacobetti, and Don Koivisto, and pulled an upset and I walked into a delegation that had Bob as our congress person. We had Joe Mack in the Senate, we had Mitch Irwin in the Senate. Of course, Mitch and I went below the bridge too. We had Don Koivisto, we had Jack Gingrass out of Iron Mountain, and we had Dom Jacobetti and really learned so much from all of those people. 

Even Bob and I had a good relationship, even though I was able to beat his son for the [inaudible 00:11:50] seat and [inaudible 00:11:51]. And I think the key to what you said listening to your introduction of this program are different than it is now as people learned how to build coalitions. And I think one of the things that’s hurt us so much in the last 20 years, it’s been, I think, called term limits. 

Legislators don’t get to stay there long enough to develop the relationships that we were able to develop. And when you develop a relationship with another person, the opportunity to get more things done is terrific because you know each other. You have some friendship with each other. You know their families, you know what their interests are. And we had that opportunity and it was a great experience. Dom Jacobetti was my mentor. 1982 I get elected. 

Two days later, I come to the legislature, David, there’s a big election for Speaker of the House between Gary Owen and Joe Forbes, two people you know well. So I came down to make sure that the Yooper delegation knew I was going to be with them. And they were all for Gary Owen. But my last meeting was that night with Jake. And Linda Benedick found me, got me over to the old pig King, which is no longer there. And in the back booth of the pig King are Earl Nelson, former state senator from Lansing, Morris Hood Jr., the leader of the Detroit delegation, probably outside of Coleman Young, the most powerful politician of that era in Michigan, from Detroit, and Dom Jacobetti.

So I may have a sit-down and have a drink with him. And Jake pulls me over to another booth. And he says, “Well, I want to go over a couple things with you.” And he says, “I see that guy over there, that’s Morris Hood. He’s our friend. We vote with him, he votes with us.” At that time, they had about 18 votes and we had four. Well, that gets you towards half the votes you need a 56 to get something out of the house. 

So really early on, I understood what he was saying. We build coalitions here to help each other. And what I found out later, the city of Detroit and the Upper Peninsula, Michigan almost had the same type of statistics as the poverty, elderly, unemployment, real similar kind of stats, percentage-wise Detroit was much bigger, of course. 

So that’s just an indication back to what you said about how he worked. He worked at building coalitions. In that talk, all of us, younger folks, we can get more done if we try and pull people together than what we seem to be going through now or we split people apart, and you’re either a Democrat or Republican, you don’t vote for anything the other side has, it doesn’t allow for either side. That has good ideas. Nobody has the complete, what would you call it? The complete hold on all the good ideas. There are good ideas on all sides. And he was a great mentor that way.

The second thing you might find interesting in that conversation is he said, “You go in in the morning and talk to Gary Owen, and tell him you’re going to vote for him.” I said, “You bet.” He said, “Remember, this isn’t a done deal, and you want him to know you were with them before it’s a done deal, and he’s going to win.” Sure enough, the horse was right. About 48 hours later, it was a done deal. Gary was the speaker and he never forgot the Yoopers in that whole situation, we backed the right horse and, of course, that gave us the Speaker of the House as an ex officio member of our delegation.

So, is there anything else you’d like to cover? I’ve got Jake stories that won’t end. I’ve got stories of about all the people there. I’ve lived for four years with Don Koivisto, Mitch Irwin and I grew up together. So, whatever you’d like to fall into, I’d be happy to do.

David Haynes:

So, Pat, can you talk a little bit about the relationship of representing the interests of your district, which was from the Sault down below the bridge for several counties, and being a leader and having to step in to get things through that might not have been so popular in our district, the outsider insider. How do you balance that out? How do you keep the-

Pat Gagliardi:

I think [inaudible 00:16:45] after in the trust of the voters. When I became leader at… think about that, David, it was the end of my sixth year there. Now you would be term-limited out. And I was called too young to be majority floor leader. I went up against a guy named Lynn Jondahl, who had been there 14 years. And the whole run against me is Gagliardi had only been there six years, he hasn’t been there long enough. He’s too green. 

Now, well, think about it. We’re pumping people out the door after six years. This term limits thing has been bad for the state of Michigan, I’m just telling you. To get a good legislator, like the U.P. had and the public wants to keep them and keep them in, let them vote them in. You get term limits every two to four years in the state. The public goes in and votes. The President is learning that there are term limits. The term limits are at the ballot box. 

And so, to your point, I’m running against Lynn Jondahl, a majority floor leader. “Dominic, I said I would not run. I had a conversation with him unless he nominated me.” In caucus, he did and I won by one vote. So I become floor leader, inside outsider. My very first day officially as Floor Leader, we’re organizing in January of ’93. Everybody picks their seat, we do some perfunctory stuff, raise our hand, take the oath of office and oath to the United States, the Michigan constitution. And we have one vote, it’s a SOCC commission vote, the state officers compensation committee vote. They had given the legislature a race.

The only way it didn’t go into effect was if legislature turned it down. Legislature wanted to turn it down. It wasn’t popular with the people. So I put it up for a vote as a floor leader. And I vote against it. And the speaker at that time, my good friend [inaudible 00:18:44], reaches over and says that, “Patti says you’ve got a vote green on this.” I said, “Why [inaudible 00:18:50]? This is a terrible vote. The people don’t want it.” He said, “No. Now that you’re a leader, you have to show that you believe that these people are worth the money. So, as leaders, we say yes, they’re worth the money, and it’ll go down anyway.” I said, “That’s a terrible vote.” And he said, “Patti, that’ll be the first of many shitty votes you will make as leader in this legislature.”

And so insider, outsider leadership, the only way I can make those votes and stay there is if the people back home believed I was doing the job for them. And they understood that you have to do things sometimes that doesn’t look like it’s in their favor to get something that is in their favor. Going back to your story about the Yooper dome, the Jacobetti dome, this superior dome. You and the president at the time had to make a decision that didn’t look good to your board, what was good in the long term, and people had to have trust in your decision making. 

David Haynes:

So, Pat, before we go to Mitch, and then we’ll get you to react to Mitch’s comments. But what do you think is besides term limits? It seems to me that you’re there for six years, term limits is bad. You have less incentive to build relationships and Coalitions because you’re going to be leaving unless you run for the next Senate or the Senate. [inaudible 00:20:21] What are the differences and challenges that you all in this era face than legislators from the U.P. and other places face today? What are the differences? What are the similar?

Pat Gagliardi:

I think, not only is term limits bad in general, but term limits doesn’t allow for seniority from rural places. Look at the leadership in the senate of the United States Senate, it’s Mitch McConnell from Kentucky, been there forever, been the leader. If you get seniority in our system, every other legislator will look at you with respect, whether they like you, don’t like you. If you can prove that the public you represent will support you and continue to support you, that gets a lot of respect. Seniority matters. Dominic Jacobetti, and 75 became the chairman of appropriations because he’s been there a long time, 20 years by then. And people respected him. They saw him coming back.

Remember when Jake was elected in the early 50s and then in ’54 that district that he came from was not a Democratic district. They put him up on the ballot to run a Democrat and he went on the ballot to win a district, which he did, and help start to get people to understand that Democrats had good ideas too. And he worked real hard-headed over the year by the time you get to the mid-70s, David, he’s got enough respect in Lansing that when Bill Copeland, the powerful Chairman, loses in the election. Once again, it all goes back to you have the respect of the people you represent. 

Jake is put in that chair because people respected him. You’ve been around a long time. People from the U.P. don’t have that time now. They’ve got six years or eight years in their respective places and they’re gone. And think about what I told you about working with Detroit, and Morris Hood. Morris had been there a better part of 20 years like Jake, in the mid-70s. They only been there 10 years.

And so, he had respect from the people he served with because he had proven that he could get the support of the people that send him there. And they would keep him there. And so you had to deal with them.

David Haynes:

Sorry about that. I had it on mute. Thank you. I think that’s really interesting perspective. One last quick question and then we’ll go to Mitch. What was the biggest myth about the UP? On our website, ruralinsights.org, we often talk about just like not all metropolitan areas that are saved, not all rural areas have the same issues, same people. The last panel was talking about this from a cultural, what was the biggest myth you had a fight? What was about the UP?

Pat Gagliardi:

One that we pulled all our women around by the hair, I say that jokingly. I think anytime a lot of people in urban areas look at rural areas, they think we’re a little less sophisticated. But I think the biggest problem you had to understand is U.P. is so large. You go from the east end of Drummond Island over to ironwood, you’re talking about going 380 miles. That’s as long as for me to get out of my car when I’m at the state capitol. I can drive past Pittsburgh, or I can drive past Louisville. I can drive way past Chicago from Lansing at 380 miles. 

I think the biggest problem we had was to try and tell people we had different regions. I can tell you to this day, I am in Lansing today. If there’s a snowstorm up where Mr. [inaudible 00:24:15] comes from, they’ll say, “Oh man, Pat, you guys got 20 inches of snow.” I said, “No, we had a bombing day over in the East End [inaudible 00:24:23].” They have no idea the enormity of geography to cover. They have no idea that each region so often our forefathers broke us into East, Central, and West for a good reason because there were different people, different cultures, different businesses.

And I think that’s why Michigan Tech, Northern Lake Superior have done so well. They really cover those regions. We’re big, massive area. Going back to what was being talked about before. We have a lot to offer, but it’s different in each area. And that’s a hard thing to get people to… they say, “I’ve got a cousin up in Calumet.” Well, from where I live, it’s about 350 miles to Calumet. “Okay. Yeah. Do you know my cousin?”

So it’s the enormity of our geography and the fact that all those areas from the western to the eastern area are all different. They’re different ethnic makeups, different business makeups, different cultures. So I think getting past that and understanding, that was so neat about working with the delegation when I came in. All of us were from varying backgrounds, and all people that you can learn from.

David Haynes:

Thanks, Pat. That was really interesting. I’m going to come back to you for more perspective after we’ve run the Mitch Irwin interview that I did with Mitch. Dan, can you run that for us?

Dan:

Yes, I will start that right now.

David Haynes:

You’re a great American. Thank you. It’s so amazing that we do this. [inaudible 00:26:05] Good afternoon, everybody. Can you hear that? 

Pat Gagliardi:

Yes, I can hear.

David Haynes:

Yeah.

Dan:

Okay, [inaudible 00:26:19] try to get better sound here just a second.

David Haynes:

We’re joined-

Dan:

There we go. 

David Haynes:

We’re joined by a very good friend of mine. We grew up together here in the UP. It’s the former senator from the 37th district in the Eastern U.P. and below, Mitch Irwin. And I will do a little deeper introduction of Mitch. Before you watch this video, you all heard it. But Mitch also, besides being a state senator, served under Governor Granholm as the director of Management and Budget, is the department. So he’s got a long history and experience in state government.

And he also grew up in [inaudible 00:27:06]. And so he understands the values of the Upper Peninsula and he understands how to function and how to protect the issues of people in the Upper Peninsula and what’s very effective for that reason in the political process.

So the theme of all of this is outsider insider. I’m just going to throw out the first question, and I’m going to let him go. And I may jump in with more questions. And the first question, Mitch is, first of all, is welcome and thank you for doing this. How did you balance out being… in order to get elected, you were at insider in the UP, clearly. And secondly, you were an outsider to Lansing. Eventually, you become an insider in Lansing, as well as an insider in the Sault but it’s outsider insider. 

So I’d like to have you just start talking about that, and how that era you were from, you were elected in 1978, I think.

Mitch Irwin:

Yes, correct. 

David Haynes:

And that was an era, by the way for everyone here that a lot of young men and women post ’74 Watergate era, both parties were elected in the state legislature, Mitch was part of that movement that they were from downstate, and up here where these new young men and women who were stepping into government. So, talk about that connection between the U.P. in Lansing and building it and how you did that.

Mitch Irwin:

Well, thank you, David. Opportunity is mine and appreciate your pulling this kind of a program together. I think over the years, I’ve been both an outsider and an insider. When I started in government, I was an outsider knocking on doors, and then got real close to and became elected myself to the [inaudible 00:29:00] process. And years later, back outside now, I be a true outsider. Now we do hotel development throughout the state. 

And watching it, it’s very clear to me that the key to that, the whole relationship between the insiders and the outsiders is communication through relationships. And I watched over the years when I got first involved in politics, government, we were represented by a group of lawmakers from the Upper Peninsula, who were there for a long, long time.

When I first got elected, I was the first new lawmaker in the Upper Peninsula in 16 years. There were members that served in the legislature, served very well, I might add, longer than I had been alive. So it was kind of new, new to them, new to me. We had some bumps in the road. But over time, it became very clear to me that the idea of governing good governance requires that coalition-building with variety of people from a variety of points of view, and quite frankly, in Michigan from a variety of communities throughout the state, it’s a big state.

But the Upper Peninsula has been served well over the years. And with the exception of the term limits that put a damper on the ability for members to be elected, men and women, to serve a period of time and gain more seniority and thus gain positions of power from which they can deliver what is needed for the Upper Peninsula. That has been a really good strong era that you speak of from 1975 to ’95.

David Haynes:

[inaudible 00:30:37] So it’s harder to become an insider today because of [inaudible 00:30:40]?

Mitch Irwin:

I think it is.

David Haynes:

Okay.

Mitch Irwin:

People have a shorter period of time to get things done and build relationships than they used to, which I don’t think and I’ve always felt this is not a good idea. To me, the election is the term limits. If someone’s not doing a good job, voters have that choice. That’s been taken away from them through the arbitrary term limits. We are going to have Dominic Jacobettis. We aren’t going to have Rusty Hellmans and people who over the years, built that seniority by building relationships and coalitions, that did things that needed to be done in a bipartisan way for the people of the Upper Peninsula.

David Haynes:

So, during that era, you described, there was a great deal of seniority from the upper peninsula delegation. And they held powerful positions, Dominic Jacobetti, chair of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, elected in 1954. And he becomes in ’75, that era, he becomes Chair of appropriations, I think it’s today. Rusty Hellman you mentioned was a powerful capital outlay. You are DNR committee. How did you all work to pull the U.P. and [inaudible 00:32:00] downstate Michigan together to get things through? How did that work?

Mitch Irwin:

Well, that’s a really good question, David, because the way we apportion districts, it’s per population. A one person, one vote. So, in my case, when I was first elected, I represented 19 counties in northern Michigan in the Upper Peninsula, part of the Upper Peninsula. And there were counties downstate… I had 19 counties. There’s one county downstate that had that many members of the legislature. So, it’s always more difficult. And it does require that you develop relationships, and work together in a cooperative basis. 

And I can recall my first term we had, and for a number of years, a Republican Governor William Milliken, and a democratic legislature, both the House and the Senate. That changed over time. But I think that forced Michigan and its leaders to work together. For example, in the Upper Peninsula, we had a couple of Republican members of the state legislature and from Northern Michigan, in the Upper Peninsula, Charlie Varnum and Amanda [inaudible 00:33:16], and we had a fella by the name of Ralph Ostling out of Roscommon area. 

And it was very clear that when we went into meetings to work on issues for the people in northern Michigan, you checked your partisanship at the door. And it is not always the case in some areas of the state. And it was also very clear that the long-term relationship that was built, and I credit people like Dominic Jacobetti, I credit people like Jack Gingrass, who served and I credit people that came along a little bit later like the Pat Gagliardi’s. 

All of us had an obligation to carry out a rich tradition of working with members of other communities such as Detroit, such as Lansing, such as Flint, and those relationships were long-term. And they were based on mutual respect. They were based on bipartisanship. And they’ll do a horsetrading here and there, in order to accomplish the goals that were set out by members of both the U.P. and downstate, and particularly the relationship with Detroit, where you had a mayor of Detroit for many, many years, who had been a state senator, and who knew the members of the legislature and was very strong with the Black Caucus, the members of the African American community who were in the legislature, and they often had a lot of things in common, such as often being ignored, such as having a great number of poor folks in their constituency and have an economic problems that required sometimes an incentive from the state of Michigan or a change in the law, to make sure that our companies could expand and grow jobs and that became synergistic.

And one of the interesting side notes of history is that a lot of people will say, “Oh, how come the Upper Peninsula and how come Detroit always work well together? I said, “That’s been going on, at least in my memory, historically speaking, in 1874, the city attorney of Detroit was none other than James Brown, who later moved to the North Country, settled in St. Agnes. And his son became the United States Senator, Prentiss Brown, and his other offspring have all been active in public service. 

And quite frankly, between Republican Governor George Osborn, and Democratic Senator Prentiss Brown tide with Soapy Williams. That’s how we got the [inaudible 00:35:49] Mackinac Bridge. So that synergy has been there. People forget too that people like Walker Cisler, who was chairman of Detroit Edison.

The Lake Superior State University and Sault Ste. Marie has its Student Center named the Walker Cisler Center. Why? Because of that synergy and interest between the community of Detroit and the Upper Peninsula. So not that we agree on everything, let me tell you, there was quite a few. But those disagreements pale in comparison to the relationship that Jacobetti had, for example, on appropriation, and we had in the senate side with our colleagues downstate.

David Haynes:

So Mitch, you mentioned to me the other day when we’re talking about this interview, and I like you to expand on it for our audience that one of the things that you did and other legislators did, Jake did it for years, and you continued and Governor Blanchard and Governor Milliken and Governor Granholm did this and that is push people from the U.P. to take leadership roles in state agencies, that placing them there, not only as directors today, we have I think two cabinet members from the UP, state police and agriculture are both U.P. folks. Talk about how that worked and why it was important.

Mitch Irwin:

When it worked on a simple basis of relationships between the lawmakers, and the governor’s office, and the communities. And whenever there was an opening, it was very clear that people would like to see Northern Michigan, and the Upper Peninsula represented. And over the years, whether it be Transportation Commission, DNR commission, you name it, there was always the question, is there someone from Northern Michigan in the Upper Peninsula placed there and earn an appointment to do the job to speak for the people of the North Country.

And Jacobetti was a master at this, as I learned in my first few years, because there were many northern grads and in the department transportation. I was surprised occasionally to run into someone who wasn’t a Michigan Tech grad, who had an engineering degree and somehow ended up doing major league work for the Michigan Department of Transportation. 

One of the famous meetings I went to, one of the leading engineers was at a meeting we’re working on a project in Delta County. Anyway, long story short, his name happened to be [inaudible 00:38:23]. And I’m usually one who make a small talk, ass someone, “Well, where are you from? Where’s your home? Where did you grow up?” He says, “Same town as you.” I say, “What? I’m from [inaudible 00:38:34], a little small town, 500 people including dogs, cats, and all of my family’s horses and cows when we were growing up.” And Sam says, “Yes, we lived on… didn’t even have a street name. But we lived in that little small log cabin there. And my mom… did you know [inaudible 00:38:51]?” And I said, “[inaudible 00:38:53], I delivered her newspapers.”

So, that’s the kind of thing you get in the Upper Peninsula and all the delegation, all the members of the House in the Senate will always when they learned from town meetings, from parents, or superintendents or principals or teachers, that someone had some promise and had some interest in serving, then they made sure that they got a fair shake at an interview for a civil service job, or in the case of a board or a commission, that they were given fair consideration. 

And quite frankly, there was a study done one time, I can’t remember the exact numbers. But when the former mayor of my [inaudible 00:39:30], who’s not with us anymore, Tom Baldini was the governor’s Upper Peninsula representative. There was a study done about what’s our population versus the number of appointments to boards and commissions by the governor. And I will say, without bragging, that it was a little lopsided, but our argument to that was always that’s because our folks have more experience and a wider region to cover. 

And it always worked out that way. Milliken was that way, Governor Blanchard was that way during that era. You’re speaking of it. So, I think the UPs always been heard. And like Jacobetti would say, we never have enough. We don’t have enough wheel bales to haul that cash across the Mackinac Bridge needed for special projects.

David Haynes:

So all those outsiders, they were these insiders from the U.P. in northern Michigan, were outsiders to Lansing. And by helping them get into civil service jobs and high-level appointment jobs, they became the Lansing insiders, which helped all of you bring the U.P. message to those insiders, who were from the Up.

Mitch Irwin:

Absolutely.

David Haynes:

It made a difference to get your thing done?

Mitch Irwin:

Absolutely.

David Haynes:

When you were in, I think, the democrats controlled house in the Senate, and then the governor was a Republican. And so, it was a forced… lot of people believed it was more bipartisanship forced by that. And during that period of time, having worked on the legislature during part of that time, [inaudible 00:41:17] it wasn’t very bipartisan. It’s a nice memory. From your perspective on the insider-outsider, it was an era when elected officials and appointed [inaudible 00:41:30] were more willing to work together. It was less confrontational. What was it that so much got done during that period of time?

Mitch Irwin:

I agree with you in this insider-outsider, it’s almost like having a shirt in basketball practice, you flip the inside of the outside, you hit a different color. Well, like I said earlier, we would take… when you get into the meeting room, you check your partisanship at the door. And absolutely.

And I think it has to do with partly the leadership style. You look at the leadership style of a Soapy Williams, who I served with when he was on the Supreme Court. You take Bill Milliken, couldn’t be a finer gentleman, more decent person. He’s a Republican, but he had a bipartisan spirit and worked well with everyone and Jim Blanchard was the same.

Once term limits came into place, that has been a tripwire for more partisan activity, but not to say negative things about it, wish it were different, but it’s not. I would say that people work at it. And people from the upper peninsula are almost forced. When you go into the legislative process, or you’re a member of a board or a commission, you’re usually outnumbered. So I’ve always said it takes more talent and more competence for someone from the north and Upper Peninsula, to be able to be effective maneuvering within the government on the inside because there’s only one of you. We got 15 counties in the UP. And that’s a lot for someone to represent. But they do it by staying in constant communication with their leaders. 

Lawmakers have town hall meetings. They have meetings with their mayors in the city council. They have office hours in the like where they keep in touch, and mostly the U.P. lawmakers that you have in the history, they were born and raised in the Upper Peninsula, very few carpetbaggers, so to speak, and that they knew their communities well. And because they were there a long period of time, they work hard. They got reelected, they had seniority of key committee structures and appointments, they were able to keep in connection with their leaders. And that’s why I think the issues of the region, whether it be in the Central Michigan, Upper Peninsula region or the eastern end, or the western end, whoever represented those areas, had some definite close relationships with those leaders.

And quite frankly, the U.P. is one of the few areas that had a lot of U.P. wide organizations that tried to bring together road commissioners tried to bring together mayors, tried to bring together church leaders, tried to bring together people that had a common interest in the forest industry or tourism. So, I think it’s pretty clear that the U.P. is a very special place. Because of that, geography being so far away and how we were forced to come together even when you weren’t sure you really liked someone all that well. You knew their heart was in the right place and you would forego any of that pettiness and say, “Okay, David, you may be an SOB but you know what, your RSOB and we’re going to work together to get the job done.”

David Haynes:

Well, Mitch, thank you very much. It’s a really great discussion of the insider-outsider in the world of Michigan politics and it’s good to see you and it’s good that you’re back home in the U.P. from downstate.

Mitch Irwin:

Thank you.

David Haynes:

You’re welcome. And thank you very much. 

Mitch Irwin:

You’re very welcome. 

Dan:

All right.

David Haynes:

So, Dan, if it’s okay, I want to ask pat a question. And then I don’t know if we have any questions from viewers. I don’t see any on the screen yet. So Pat will just watch his questions pop up. So that was filmed in my living room in Marquette thanks to COVID. And I should also point out that Mitch, for those people in the central U.P. as the new developer and owner of the new Marriott Hotel going up in Marquette. So he’s got a Marquette tie as well. 

So Pat, other than what struck me during the hearing is I can’t figure out how Com Mitch has more hair than I do after all these years. But other than his hair, and my lack of hair, do you have any reactions to what Mitch said or any further explanations?

Pat Gagliardi:

I do David. I knew that wasn’t filmed at your hunting camp judging from the background. Obviously, a very nice living room and you and Senator Irwin have done very well in life. Congratulations. I have so much respect for my friend Mitch. He sees just a great speaker and has great ideas. And he brought up some things that made me think so much when he talked about Yoopers being involved in boards commissions and the cabinet of governors. If you think about this governor, Governor Whitmer, one of her first appointments was department [inaudible 00:46:41], Gary McDowell, [inaudible 00:46:42], the state police, Gasper is there, Mike Prusi, the former state rep and state senator of Marquette was her first representative for the all of the U.P. and then I tagged along later as chair of the Commission. But there’s been a lot of appointments to the boards, like the university boards and other boards that always have a good solid Yoopers, U.P. man and woman to it.

To his point about more bipartisanship back then, the arguments back in the 70s and 80s, into the 90s were tough arguments. And then there’s no doubt about it. There were tough arguments, there were votes on the floor where all the republicans are one way and all the democrats are the other way. They were fewer and far between, I believe. If you couldn’t think of this in 1978, in your term here of ’75 to ’95, you had the first elected black Democratic mayor of Detroit, support a Republican Bill Milliken for re-election over a state senator from Mayor young’s own community Detroit Bill Fitzgerald. 

Now, I don’t think you’d see that today. And that speaks to a lot of changing that’s going on. And where we’ll be in the future, I’m sure will change some more. So I’m upbeat about where we go in the future. But I think hopefully, a style of coalition building, bringing people to the table. As senator Irwin said, checking your egos and your partisanship at the door, trying to get things done. We’ve watched it happen time and time again. And that’s why I think we have done so well as a unit from the upper peninsula even through now. I think that there are successes, and we hope for more successes in the future. 

David Haynes:

One other question I would have is a review from your era or our era and today is what do you think are an issue or two that has carried on from that period of ’75 to ’95 that’s still an issue for the people of U.P. as it relates to public policy. What strikes you as some things that haven’t been resolved that need to be resolved for rural areas? Whether it’s [crosstalk 00:49:14]

Pat Gagliardi:

I think the biggest need is technology. Without a doubt, I think you and Marquette have been leaders in it over the years Northern Michigan’s been involved in it. But there are vast areas of our region and vast areas of the rural area of Michigan that don’t have technology. They don’t have broadband. They don’t have broadband strength. They don’t have cell service. Right now when many children in urban areas and suburban areas are still going to school virtually. You can’t do that in many areas of our region because they don’t have good enough service in each and every home to deliver technology to children over the internet. 

I think that’s our biggest long-term need. If you look at the east end from where you’re at David in Marquette all the way through the Eastern, we’re still on a rural electric cooperative. There is no big private sector business that’s coming to the U.P. from the central end all the way through the east end to deliver electric service. We didn’t have the ability then. And this goes back to [inaudible 00:50:31] Franklin Roosevelt for rural electric cooperatives and the money that the federal government put in to lay all those lines over the 40s, 50s, and 60s. We wouldn’t have electricity and we still don’t in big areas. 

In my old district, north of Newberry over to paradise, that whole area up there, beautiful lakes, and a number of summer homes, there’s still no electricity, and there won’t because the cost of running it now. And that’s just one chunk of many in the UP. We need to have a rural electrification, a rural technological growth package by the federal government for this country. Why? So much is being done, just like we’re doing it right here. You can do your work from home, there would be so many of our children that would move back to the upper peninsula and work if they had the ability. And there are some areas like around Marquette, we have done a good job, you had a lot of help doing it. But we in many, many other areas need a lot of help. 

David Haynes:

Oh, one last thing. I know Dan probably wants us to end soon for the next session. But what would you say to young people in the Upper Peninsula who look at lives and careers, talk a little bit about going to work in state government, the local government and the advantages of that and how important it is to the culture of the UP? 

Pat Gagliardi:

Well, there’s a very simple culture of the UP, it’s called hard work. It’s taught to us early. And going back to my grandfather’s time, if you came down from the upper peninsula to the city to get a job, he told people you were from the upper peninsula, you just about get hired anyway because they know there was a good work ethic up there. 

So I think… And you can see it with the legislators. I look at Mitch, I think about Jake, Jake was going back and forth, Joe Mack and Rusty Hellman, those guys were going back and forth before there was expressways, before there was a bridge in Mackinaw city to St. Ignace.

When Jake got elected in the 50s, you went down to Lansing for three weeks and you went home for a week. You were gone a lot because of that. So it took a lot of hard work, to not only take care of your constituencies, but also work within the Lansing power structure to get something done. So I think what I would always say to the young people in our area, use what we are taught, and the basis of what we are taught is hard work. 

You can go anywhere with that ethic. You can do anything with that ethic. You will learn anything you want to learn with that ethic. But keep your nose to the grindstone, outwork your competition, outwork the people that want your job, and you will be fine and you will become a leader. Because that ethic is so important now as important as ever before. And I think we’ve got it. I think it’s ingrained in us as we come from this rural area of the state. And I’m very proud to say that we’re tough. 

David Haynes:

Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I really appreciate your contribution and taking the time to do this. And I appreciate Mitch Irwin, former senator Irwin, but he won’t do it. He’s having some minor surgery today, which prevented him from doing it live. So that’s why we cut the tape. But thank you very much. And thanks for that perspective and we hope to do more of this to make sure we preserve some of the thoughts and comments and advice from past legislators of both parties. I’ll go ahead.

Pat Gagliardi:

Thank you. Let me end by saying when I talk about toughness, what Jake used to tell us all the time, when the going gets tough, the tough get going. 

David Haynes:

I remember him saying that. [crosstalk 00:54:33]

Pat Gagliardi:

Remember that David?

David Haynes:

I do remember that all the time. That’s a great line.

Dan:

We do have a few minutes left before the next session starts. And if anyone wants to type in a question, they can do that. But I have a question. We did an exhibit on U.P. statehood initiatives recently. And, of course, Jake pushed pretty hard for it in the late 70s. But the question that everyone had was was he really serious? Or was this really a bargaining chip he was using to get more funding from the state of Michigan? What do you guys take on that? 

David Haynes:

So my first take on it is I’d be interested if Pat was Jake. It was a great way for Jake to draw attention to the UP, not only with the media. It was a brilliant, [inaudible 00:55:22] the statehood made you think about the UP, it brought the U.P. to the front. Jake was a very sophisticated guy in the political world and policy and he knew the chances of becoming a state was mighty slim, just ask Puerto Rico and Hawaii and all the others that [inaudible 00:55:47] that want to be or have been in that, he understood that. 

But it was a very brilliant play, from my perspective, of making sure that it never was out of anybody else’s mind. If the issue went by in something else, we could always raise the statehood issue. Pat, that’s…

Pat Gagliardi:

I agree wholeheartedly with what you said, David, that’s a good analysis. I will tell you how important our delegation was and how important to the people that Mitch and I have talked about with you today. Don Jacobetti and Morris Hood Jr. from Detroit. For the last 20 some years, all quarter of a century since Jake has passed, little over maybe now in ’94. Since that time, they still talk about all the money that Jacobetti took back across the bridge for places like Northern Michigan University and other things. And it’s still being talked about in Lansing. That’s a long legacy, Dan, if you think of that, a long, long legacy. 

Dan:

[inaudible 00:56:54]

Pat Gagliardi:

And I agree with his assessment on the state what David had a… that’s good analysis, David.

David Haynes:

Thanks, Pat. Anything else, Dan, you want to ask? 

Dan:

Well, no, but I just want to comment. One of my favorite stories about Jake is his retirement party at Northern in the Great Lakes rooms and Fred Stonehouse says that at the very end, he said, “Okay, if anyone wants to present Jake with a gift,” and there was a line around the entire Great Lakes room of people [crosstalk 00:57:31]] remember giving things and he said it was [inaudible 00:57:35] Nero on the receiving the tributes. Which I just thought was funny. 

But the great thing is a lot of that stuff is now in our collection. Because we have the Jacobetti collection here at Northern and Beaumier Center has a lot, and a lot of them are plaques. So we had more plaques to Jake that you can imagine. Also, about 10 years ago, I managed to display in the dome that we have things for Jake there. And I got a call someday, he says “We have a plaque we want to give to Jake. Can we put it in there?” And I thought, “He’s dead. He’s been dead for like a decade.” “Yeah, but we want to give him a plaque.” 

So even in death, he was receiving plaques from various organizations for what he had done for them. 

Pat Gagliardi:

Thanks, Dan. I still remember real quickly the things he used to tell us like when the going get tough, the tough get going. He used to say things like God must have loved the poor because he made so many of them. We were so poor during the depression we couldn’t afford to go window shopping. Just the Jakeisms that I remember and he’s been gone a quarter of a century are incredible. But that’s the kind of impact important people have and important people.

I’m just so proud to say that he was a mentor to me, he was a mentor to so all of us, as Mitch has said as Mike [inaudible 00:59:05], Don Koivisto, or any of us that are still around. It’s just an oppressive legacy. But remember this, he was the longest-serving legislator ever in Michigan’s history. And with term limits, if that stays forever, that will never be broken. It will always be his.

Dan:

That’s great. Well, that’s a great way to end this. Gentlemen, thank you so much. David, thanks for getting Pat and Mitch involved. This has been just a fantastic session and could go all day. But we’ll have to call it there and move on to the next thing. So thank you so much for joining us.

David Haynes:

Thanks, Dan.

Pat Gagliardi:

Thank you. Thanks, everybody. 

David Haynes:

Adios. 

Dan:

Adios.

Pat Gagliardi:

Adios.