Thanks for joining us for this special correspondents edition of Off the Record.

As we update the U.S. Senate race and the possibility of 5000 layoffs in school districts around the state.

Around the table, Jonathan Oosting, Simon Schuster, Beth LeBlanc, and Chad Livengood.

Sit in with us as we get the inside out.

Off the Record.

Production of Off the Record is made possible, in part by Martin Waymire, a full service strategic communications agency, partnering with clients through public relations, digital marketing and public policy engagement.

Learn more at MartinWaymire.com.

And now this edition of Off the Record with Tim Skubick.

Thank you very much.

Welcome to Studio C on this ugly looking Friday morning is let's talk about a story going on next week can't control of the Michigan house is not on the ballot but yet it is.

What's going on Beth?

Well, for the past several months, the House has been in a 5454 tie because two Democrat won their races for mayor in Warren and Westland.

So next week that that tie may be broken, It will likely be broken with the special election that take place Tuesday in Warren in Westland.

It is Democrats are highly favored to win those seats at this point.

And so Democrats could get their 56/54 majority back.

So what?

I think if there's any blessing for Democrats in this, is that it's giving them sort of a berth of time to figure out what they want their strategy to be moving into the second year of their majority.

Now, the question is, what are they going to do with their time when they obtain it?

Well, look, just because they have 56 votes, assuming and I think you are correct, that the reason we're witnessing that's not a gimme for the governor on stuff that she wants out of this legislature because she still has problems in that Democratic caucus, doesn't she?

Yeah, no, I mean, one of the big issues staring at House Democrats right now is an overhaul of the state's business incentive program.

And that's one area specifically where some of the more liberal or progressive members of the caucus have some heartburn over what Whitmer's doing and aren't going to align with her necessarily on that.

And they have not communicated with her on this.

And she says we need to talk.

Yeah, that was a real eye opener when that bill passed and she acted like she hadn't been briefed, which.

Had been up on the island for the last six months.

Right, exactly.

And and so this line of communication, particularly between her and Senator Mallory McMorrow, seems to have got a little frosty.

And and they they really have sort of made some, you know, suggestion that things have been, you know, kind of cleared up a little bit.

But but the way the governor kind of took a little, you know, kind of a broadside to the Senate over this bill was was it was an interesting overture.

But then the other their big thing is the budget is not anywhere near a done deal.

In particular, the governor's controversial proposal to transfer some or divert some $600 million away from retirement benefits for public school employees and spend it elsewhere in the K-12 budget.

There's a lot of heartburn over this, and there are, including among some Democrats.

On the business issue.

The senator wants to give more money to locals and take some of the money away from the governor and her people to decide where it goes.

No, you know, I think this speaks to sort of some of the generational divides in terms of visions for how they want the state to move forward.

Obviously, this is an issue in terms of where they want Michigan, the economy to go, where Governor Whitmer is in lockstep with President Biden, where there's a clear emphasis on revitalizing manufacturing and that public subsidies are the way to do that.

And when you look at like where the where Senator McMorrow and some of these other more progressive Democrats are going, this is much more about trying to address some of these population issues, making more livable cities.

This is where they want these public funds to go, and it's a fundamental difference in vision.

Yeah, it's not just some of the money to local communities.

It's half of the money to local communities that at least out of the what was previously called the saw fund.

So it's a big deal.

It's, you know, Democrats saying we don't want to be seen, especially, you know, for House Democrats in an election year, necessarily throwing money at corporations.

We want to be giving an even match to local communities to help regular people there as well.

Well, yeah, I mean, if you're playing crass political politics, you want to take money home to your folks and not give it to General Motors or Ford or anybody else.

If youre senator McMorrow and you see issues of just transporting people's access transportation in metro Detroit.

And then you see the governor handing out checks of $666 million and General Motors to create essentially $20 to $25 an hour jobs to subsidize these these battery plant jobs.

I mean, this is big cash checks to big corporations, and you have all these other priorities in your community, busses that don't run well, streets that still need fixed and all all that and and you just you're trying to reprioritize and we're talking about essentially cutting the governor's big fund in half and giving the legislature $250 million a year additional money to to spend in communities.

And I think, Tim, if I think it's important to note that if she's experiencing these issues in the Senate, it's it's a far worse picture in the House where you have a slimmer majority and you also have people who have been much more vocal in opposing this kind of economic incentive package.

So she's she's got her work cut out for even if she has a majority in the House now.

So does she call in the House progressives and say, ship up or shape out if that's the backwards.

Right.

Did she call them?

Or does she work with them?

What do you think?

I mean, I think she can try and work with them, but they've made some pretty public statements about their opposition to this.

And so it's hard to backtrack from that.

And and to tell you the truth, as they move toward the budget right now.

I mean, things are tight.

They don't have the extra cash they need to kind of horse trade like they could before.

You know, I'll give you $1,000,000 for your community here for a vote on the budget.

They don't have that kind of disposable income anymore to to be thrown around.

It's an excellent point.

And it also leads into our next story, which is the Citizens Research Council issued a report that said there could be 5100 layoffs among personnel in the school districts around the state.

Let's take a look at that story.

If this report is correct, Michigan school districts around the state may be forced to send to the unemployment lines some 5100 employees, including some teachers, due to a lack of federal funds to pay their salaries.

The widely respected research firm Michigan Citizens Research Council has done the math.

And unless some other ways are found to avoid the layoffs, local school boards will have some tough decisions to make in the fall.

Here's the rub.

During the peak of COVID, the federal government pumped $3.7 billion into Michigan schools.

The problem is, the schools have until the end of September to spend what money is left over, and after that, the one time federal money is gone.

Never to be seen again.

But the head of the School Board Association reassures parents that 5100 classroom teachers will not be laid off.

Absolutely not.

Not even I would be shocked if it was even close to that.

Local school boards did use the federal money to pay for other so-called enrichment employees, and they could be at risk of losing their jobs this fall as well.

We've, you know, brought in reading coaches, math coaches to deal with kind of mental health aspects of COVID.

We've won.

We could find them.

Districts have brought in social workers, mental health providers, counselors.

Those are positions.

And some of those were temporary.

So schools are already planning and knew that they would eventually bring them on and then lay them off.

He says that local schools don't have any way to raise the money to keep those people on board.

And he knows that state lawmakers will not be sending that much money either.

So layoffs are inevitable.

But for parents and their children, the question is how deep do those layoffs go and at what cost to the quality of education students are now receiving?

So so I mean, how serious is this?

Is this a financial crisis ready to happen at school board level?

I mean, when you look at 5100 jobs, it's a significant number, but it's also spread along a very large state.

But I think what's really important here is that so much of what we've seen during the COVID era and, you know, the years that have followed it is a papering over of some of the long term structural issues that Michigan has seen because of this glut of federal funding, that there's just a wash the state.

And so this is also going to damage, I think, a significant Democratic talking point, which is the idea of public schools as a center for wraparound supports for students coming out of this pandemic.

Although classroom teachers may not bear the brunt of this, the people that are part of that talking point bringing social services to students.

They're the ones who are going to get hit and you will see a decline in the supports.

And that's a dangerous thing.

Yeah.

Assignments point.

What's been papered papered over is the fact that, you know, schools get a lot of their funding from the state, from students.

Student counts and enrollment fell sharply at the beginning of the pandemic and has never recovered.

So once that federal funding goes away, which was great for schools, you know, they got all this extra money.

Some of them did better with it than others.

Some of them built up their rainy day funds to be prepared to weather the inevitable COVID cliff, as people are calling it.

Some did not.

Some spent a lot of money on human capital resources.

Teachers support staff, folks that represent ongoing costs for a district that is not sustainable once that money goes away.

So it's a big issue.

It also points to what Chad mentioned earlier, the governor's proposal to divert 600 million roughly from the pension fund to sort of, again, cover over some things, you know, give some extra funding back to schools to make this less precipitous of a cliff than it's going to be.

But it remains to be seen whether the governor will get away on.

All these sweeteners that they put on all of the people that he listed in that report.

You know, you get used to that.

It's nice to have a counselor.

It's nice to have math tutors if those folks are gone, parents and kids are going to suffer yay or nay.

Well, I mean, I think it's, you know, kind of what Jonathan was saying.

How much of that additional support was implemented in such a way that it was permanent or that it was, you know, looking ahead in how to fund it in the long term?

So I think it's it's we're probably going to see a district by district difference in terms of how they spent it, how they invested it.

And, you know, I think, you know, over the past several years, we've heard, again and again as the budgets have come out, that there's record funding for education and there's there's record funding K-through-12 and record funding for for special needs.

And I think this year might be a little bit different.

And we'll see how schools fare depending on how they spent that record funding in the past.

Well, inevitably, Tim, you've got to sober up.

And this was this was this day was coming.

Was a COVID drunk.

Well, they they did get to, you know, kind of spend money like like it never existed.

I mean, and and so these things, you know, are going to eventually happen.

We're not even in a recession.

And this is happening.

I mean, and our schools has a $25 million deficit.

And if you start thinking about 5100 positions, that's roughly nine positions for every school district in the state.

That's nine and counting the 230 some odd charter schools in Michigan as well.

So just just if you sort of think about it, it's not that too far off or to to think that they might have to reduce the personnel by by nine positions per district.

And when you think about Ann Arbor, where they're talking about dozens of jobs, they have to get cut in order to cut $25 million out of the deficit.

I think that this also refocuses attention on the funding mechanisms that locals have.

I think it's important to point out that there's going to be some differentiation between individual districts.

When you look at the communities that have really remained economically rock solid throughout, in communities like Ann Arbor that have really done well economically throughout the pandemic, facing down a deficit, they have limited means with which they can decide to raise funds on a local level because of proposal and other means.

One last point.

We're talking about Ann Arbor, one of the largest and most affluent counties in the state.

Yes or not.

River Rouge.

Another local story of this recent is West Bloomfield Schools.

They're they're tearing down an old school, much to the chagrin and cries of local historical preservation as the Roosevelt School 100 year old school, because they don't want the possibility of someone coming into Kiyo Harbor and building and sending up a charter school and create more competition for their school district that is already essentially in managing its own decline.

And this is, again, one of the most affluent districts in the in the state and in Oakland County.

There is problems everywhere for school districts right now.

And this is just starting to really surface here now.

Well, I think this is in some ways a fiscal ticking time bomb.

And also you have to put this discussion in the fall in the context that most school districts and school boards will be in contract negotiations for the first time under a new rubric, thanks to the House Democrats and legislative Democrats, which basically says, teachers, if you don't come to a deal with a contract, you still get your health benefits.

You get all the stuff that in the previous laws under the state administration were taken away.

So the leverage to get the teachers to concede to concessions is going to be tougher.

Yeah, I mean, employment costs have already risen and probably will continue to.

You know, part of the challenge, for instance, schools got a lot of money, as you mentioned, to hire counselors and other health officials to address mental health issues.

It turned out there was like all industries, it's very hard to hire those people probably had to pay more than they wanted to and didn't actually hire as many as they wanted to.

So already the dollar is not going as far as it did.

I mean, for years under this better administration now, where every year it's record funding for K-12 schools.

That doesn't mean much in a high inflation environment.

I think I think when you look at inflation, we're really more treading water than we are making record investments in a year over year basis.

Well, you have to put it in the context that they have a ways to catch up from where the cuts were before to where you are now.

All right.

Talk to us about the US Senate races at the hours or days.

What's the lead story on that issue?

U.S. Senate race right now and where we're going to start seeing some campaign finance reports next week to see who's really kind of at the front of the pack.

We know Elissa Slotkin is the front of the pack when it comes to the Democrats.

And we know Mike Rogers seems to be at the front of the pack with his Donald Trump endorsement.

And then with, you know, his competition is not leaving the race.

There has been you know, there are some there were some signs that Sandy Pants there was was cutting down on his television ad spending and whatnot.

But Justin Amash is really serious about running against and certainly trying to take out Mike Rogers any way he can.

That seems to be his campaign.

And Peter Meier, the former congressman, he he seems to be trying to long still and raising money and and wanting to offer himself as a generational alternative to to Mike Rogers.

Yeah.

I mean, I think to your point about Justin Amash, you look at two candidates you could not find, I think two individuals more diametrically opposed on a single issue than Justin Amash or Mike Rogers when it comes to national defense and the national surveillance apparatus.

And so Donald Trump, I mean.

They're going to label they're going to label Mike Rogers, Mister Patriot Act, and and say this is a guy who has long supported essentially snooping in your in your in your deep state.

But I would say at the same time, Justin Amash and Peter Mayer are both individuals who are able to tap into the West Michigan fundraising base that has proven so crucial for successful Republican primary efforts in the past.

And so because they're both there and both kind of in that lane, that can be difficult in terms of a primary challenge against Mike Rogers or Charlie Pence or.

Mike Rogers, who is definitely the frontrunner for the GOP nomination.

He's got the Trump endorsement.

I suspect he's going to have a pretty good fundraising lead over folks.

But the question is, how much flak does he take in the primary?

You know, is he if he wins the primary, how much damage has he taken in the process and how much of his money that he raises does he have to spend defending his record at this point as opposed to preparing for a general election matchup against Elissa Slotkin?

The Democrats are very happy to have a competitive U.S. Senate race because the more they pick away at Mike Rogers, the more picking he will have to be to clean up his act to go to the general election.

That's true, although when it comes to national defense and national security, Mike Rogers and Elissa Slotkin are very much in the same category.

They are they're in the same hawkish lane, essentially.

And and they have some of the same positions on international affairs, which, you know, in this election, international affairs are actually going to be an issue when it comes to the war in Gaza and and and other and Ukraine aid for Ukraine and our stance towards Russia and China.

And so there's going to be a lot of of those issues on the ballot this year.

And so they like the Slotkin campaign likes likes of matchup against Mike Rogers because that sort of neutralizes a lot of those issues.

I think that this also might portray a little bit the extent to which sort of a MAGA ideology can exist outside of the man in Donald Trump.

Because Mike Rogers, you know, someone who provides pro aid to Ukraine and these are things that Donald Trump and some of his leading ideologues within Congress have moved away from.

And so despite his endorsement that he's received from Trump, if that can depress enthusiasm for him among the Republican base, it could prove a significant liability.

Donald Trump wants to win and Donald Trump wants to pick winners because he did not have a very good track record doing that in Michigan in the 2022 election.

I think maybe later in the show, Tim, we're going to talk about his latest stance on abortion.

Again, Donald Trump is trying to win the presidential election.

That's his key focus right now.

He will change his positions.

He will endorse a candidate like Mike Rogers, who does not share his positions on several issues because he wants to win and he wants to pick winners.

Well, you were reading my script because that's my segue way.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

I owe you one.

Has Mr. Trump's stance on abortion complicated this race?

He's trying to take the safest route out of the of the of the subject.

And by by essentially saying I want the states to decide now that Roe v Wade has been overturned.

I'm going to let the states aside.

And there's to let you know, obviously, the news this week that Arizona's going to revert to a an abortion ban from the the last couple of years of the Civil War.

And then last week's headline that Florida is going to have to have a six week ban in place until there's a vote this fall on a constitutional amendment on right to abortion, up to 24 weeks.

And he knows that that that being on the ballot, he he does not want to take that take a stance on it.

When he was in the state, he was shouted a question in Grand Rapids a couple of weeks ago and he was asked what his stance was is like, I'm going to make an announcement next week.

And this was the announcement.

He's he's he's going for the states rights around here.

But, Beth, there's a political risk in taking that stance because the Democrats will come back and say, here's what happens if you leave it to the states.

Arizona being Exhibit A, Florida, Exhibit B, you don't get your rights protected.

Sure, that might work in other states, but I think that'd be a hard argument to make in Michigan in particular.

I mean, if it is left to the see, I mean, Michigan has one of the most permissive constitutional amendments in the US.

So I think in Michigan, where Biden is looking to make gains and to gain ground, in that sense, that would be a difficult argument to make because if it is left to the states, it's kind of already resolved at this point.

Go ahead.

I would agree to an extent, but I would also push back slightly because I think it's important not to underestimate the nationalization of our elections.

And so for for especially voters who are really activated about this issue, they're not just going to go and look and see Arizona and Texas and say, well, so sorry for them that they can pound sand because things are great here in Michigan.

I think that Democrats, especially pro-choice activists, have worked really, really hard to cast this as a national issue, where there needs to be sort of an interstate solidarity among the people who care.

Well, plus, they also want to broaden the discussion about not on abortion, but to reproductive rights for women in general, which leads us into this story as to what is the issue that the Democrats use here in Michigan to get people to the polls like Proposal three did the last time out.

The outcome of the November 2022 election, in part was driven by a large portion of the electorate that was upset that the US Supreme Court had taken away the right for a woman to make an abortion decision.

And Democrats in general here in Michigan and specifically Governor Gretchen Whitmer, got votes from those voters that she says were, quote, furious.

We had people who never voted before but were furious that rights that they've come to expect and had been there for 49 years were now being ripped away from their children and their grandchildren.

But the abortion question is not on this November's ballot.

And with control of the Michigan House up for grabs, the question is what do the Democrats do to motivate the citizens to become furious This time around, the progressive group known as Progress Michigan ordered a statewide survey and found the following by a 57 to 33% margin.

A majority do not want the US Supreme Court to ban an abortion pill from the market by an even wider margin of 78%.

They want families to have the right to use in vitro fertilization to start a family and by a 69 to 22% margin.

They want a druggist to have the right to sell birth control pills over the counter.

The governor has urged President Biden to focus more on these female health issues on the campaign trail.

But here in Michigan, will that be enough to drive those voters back to the polls in large enough numbers to help the Democrats win again in 2024?

Good question.

The Republicans are hoping the answer is a resounding no.

So do those issues resonate and reach the same level of debate over abortion?

Well, Democrats Democrats are certainly going to try to make them.

We saw with great fanfare, more than a typical bill, the governor signing the surrogacy bill package recently here in Michigan that updated laws to make surrogacy pregnancy no longer contracts.

Anyone is illegal in the state.

We did see, however, though, Donald Trump in a statement on abortion also, you know, began that with the defense of in-vitro fertilization, IVF, saying he supports it.

You know, no matter what happens in any other state, he supports it on the federal level.

I mean, Trump is trying to take the sales out of Democrats, what Democrats viewed as, again, a likely winning issue for him this year, abortion and all of the surrounding reproductive rights issues around that.

It was huge in 2022, of course, in Michigan.

Donald Trump said in his statement, Follow your heart on this.

But also we need to win elections.

And when Senator Lindsey Graham, when the Susan B Anthony list came out and said, come on, Trump, you're not standing up for folks that elected you who want a national abortion ban.

He said he lashed out at Lindsey Graham, saying, this guy's going to cost us the election.

So it's a political calculation.

But there was also people in the abortion, anti-abortion community who said, Mr. Trump, you know, we may may not like what this is, but we're going to win.

Exactly.

They're going to vote for him anyway.

And I think on a divisive issue like this, where there's so much it's such a wedge issue for and we're in an election right now where there's so much mudslinging and there's so much character assassination on both sides of the aisle.

There's nothing preventing Democrats from just saying, why should you believe Trump when he says he wants it to be a states rights issue?

What's to prevent him from getting into office and taking executive action anyway?

Why should you take him at his word?

And I think with the amount of money that's going into this election, they can hammer that message home until the cows come home.

And they're going to use this in the congressional and Senate races.

There will be ads that say, don't trust Donald Trump, don't trust John James.

If John James goes back to Congress and Donald Trump is president, they're going to put a 15 week ban in or whatnot, or they'll find.

A way to do it.

Yes.

And so there's going to be, you know, a reminder that, again, the supremacy clause here discussion, the federal law will will trump these state regulations and laws.

And so that's going to be you know, that's going to be where the Democrats come back and remind people.

I mean, we just saw this week Biden rolls out an ad, Biden on camera saying, I'm going to fight like hell.

Now, where have we heard that phrase before when it comes to this subject?

What's her name?

It'll come back, you know.

Yes.

Governor Gretchen Whitmer, she even has a PAC name that now.

And she's going around the country raising money for it and helping congressional candidates.

I mean, we we can speculate about what she's trying to do to boost from national profile.

But but it is it is going to be the phrase of the campaign season use Watch and you're going to focus on this and they're going to this can be reminding people like Donald Trump, put those three conservative justices on the Supreme Court that took away Roe v Wade.

They can take away IVF, they can take away on, you know, the pill.

I mean, they're going to hammer that home.

All of all of.

What Trump did this week is argue and make their job a little harder in that sales pitch.

I think, you know, he tried to stake out more popular position with voters.

And now Democrats have to come back and say, well, he's probably like, you know, if he had just come out and supported a 15 week abortion ban, Democrats would have been very happy about that.

On that note, thank you.

That went by fast, right?

Okay.

More Off the Record right here next week.

See you then.

Production of Off the Record is made possible, in part, by Martin Waymire, a full service strategic communications agency, partnering with clients through public relations, digital marketing and public policy engagement.

Learn more at MartinWaymire.com.

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