Welcome back to OTR.

The Republican vice chair of the House Oversight Committee, Representative Matthew Bierlein discusses alleged morale problems in the state police.

So sit in with us as we get the inside out.

Off the Record.

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

Welcome to Off the Record.

Studio C on a chilly, chilly, spring is coming folks, so hang in there.

The Michigan Senate said yes to cellphones.

Here's what was going on yesterday With an overwhelming 34 to 1 Senate vote.

It looks like clear sailing ahead for a two year legislative effort to take cell phones out of the hands of all public school students, grades K through 12 except when they are in the classroom.

The devices are permitted at lunchtime and in between classes.

The House Republicans sponsor wanted a bill to bill law that would ban cell phones from the beginning to the end of the school day but in order to get Senate votes Representative Tisdel compromised.

That was an example of bipartisan cooperation as Democratic Senator Polehanki worked with Mr.

Tisde to move this along successfully.

If this bill package passe today, we will have passed two very solid schoo policy bills in the past month indicating that yes, we can come together across the aisle and across chambers to do the right thing for kids, parents and schools.

In the wake of the Oxford School student deaths many parents told lawmakers they wanted their children to have access to their phones.

In the midst of another possible shooting Senator Polehanki notes that those protections are in this bill.

Plus, if schools want to go further, they can.

These bills reflect the minimum that schools must implemen regarding school cell phone use.

But schools can implement more strict policies if they so choose.

The House speaker, Matt Hall, is behind this effort and all the key players point to success in the end sending the package to the governor and she has indicated her support.

If so, starting next school year, kid can take their cells to school, but in the classroom, it's a no-no.

All right Beth, what do you make of this?

Well, I mean, it was bipartisan cooperation to start out the year.

Ca-ching.

Yeah, we'll see if it ends there or if it continues but it is going to be an uphill climb from here because we are in an election year and we are in a, stiffly divided House and Senate right now.

This was a no brainer, was it not?

there was some resistance from some corners especially parents who have concerns about the current state of security in our public schools.

They're worried that, you know, should an emergency happen they won't be able to get in contact with their children even though that might not be the safest thing for their kids to be doing which is texting their mom and dad in the midst of say, a security incident.

Right?

and I think that there was also some disagreement about whether or not the onus should be on school board staff to implement the particulars of this policy as well.

Well, there was also a school of thought that says let the school districts decide this on their own.

Well, if that was the case nobody would have done squat, right?

I mean, what there was the sort of the pressure campaign of the legislature doing it.

So then school officials can say look, we're just following suit.

Following the law.

We have no choice.

You know, look, this is to best point this is a early win.

But I'm thinking about last year and I throw myself under the bus for this too.

And there was sort of th the early bipartisan compromise over minimum wage and paid sick time.

We were like, oh my gosh, divided Lansing can can work together and still get things done.

and very quickly, we found out that that was not necessarily the case with the the legislature passing the fewest number of bills.

Sort of on record.

So we'll we'll see.

I think to Beth's point, we are now leading into just a tremendously huge election year and we'll see how much more bipartisan compromise there really can.

Well, you know wha if both parties are smart okay.

We're about to find that out working and getting stuff done for the people to go back home and say, we did something for you is that not a ticket to reelection?

Oh, I mean, absolutely.

And I mean.

Well what's the?

Well, because.

So, so, Tim I spoke with.

Yes Zoe.

Poopsie.

I spoke with both speaker of the House Matt Hall and Senate Majority leader Winnie Brinks and both of them have this, this ide that they want to work together.

It's the actual makings of what does that look like?

And I we asked the speaker exactly that vis-a-vis about the budget.

Right.

He would not promise on our show that a budget will get done on time.

And I said, that can't be a good thing for your members to be out in, you know, September without a budget done, knocking on doors and having a repeat of what happened last year.

And I think it's also important to point out that the bipartisan compromise making that happened here wasn't driven top down.

This wasn't like leadership coordinated.

It wasn't Matt Hall.

When you bring sitting in a room and working together it was the co-sponsors of this legislation and each chamber deciding what the compromise should be.

So I don't think it's necessarily while they're getting sort of maybe perhaps the easiest numbers off their docket first I don't know if it's indicative of where the relationship is that the senator and Representative Tisdel Dell, certainly deserves some cooperation awards for working together because they were not always on the same page.

If you there was a little Niffy gnawing going on there, but they put those differences asid and came up with the solution.

100% and especially after last year with the sort of machinations remember, it got put up on the board and then no Democrats decided to vote for it because it was a Republican bill to come back out so quickl in the New year and get it done.

What I think it'll be really interesting to see, too, is how the governor framed this in her state of the state.

This, of course, was one o the things that she talked about wanting to get done in last year's state of the state speech.

I mean, Rick Pluta was talking about does she just decide to do something just very sort of almost Trumpian and like and sign the bill, you know at the dais during the speech?

See, this is what can happen when we get things done.

Well, she starts with a big thank you.

I think it should be noted to Tim.

You said this is sort of common sense, right?

Like that a lot of different states have, have, have passed this this took three years to get through.

So I mean, you know, yeah, it was it was a quick start to the year of passing this.

But it it took a long time to get there.

this didn't happen overnight.

And I, I don't know, there there are a lot of policies ou there that that may take equal amounts of time.

Let me just put that in perspective.

Years ago when they were working on property tax it only took 20 years.

So, you know, three years looks pretty good.

You know, it's all relative.

But like I the damn roads it's it's it' all in the eye of the beholder.

Yeah.

I'm speaking in the eye of the beholder.

John James has some ads run by Republicans against him because he's not loyal to Donald Trump.

Goodness gracious.

Well allegedly by Republicans, right?

This is a no name 501(c)(4) group registered in December.

But there's not.

But while there is some sort of connections to Republican groups there is obfuscation of sort of the motive here, whether there's somebody waiting in the wings in terms of Republican candidates, the Detroit News reported or someone who's already in the race looking to sort of disrupt these candidates and looking to have an in or a lane in this primary where John James is the noted frontrunner.

I think remains to be seen.

I mean, basically basically they're blaming him for deciding to lead the Congress in swing district to run for governor and saying that this is essentially going against the president and his wishes.

And he responded with an ad that said I love Donald Trump, but, you know, you've got a what?

What did he say?

He he said, what you said.

That wa pretty much the message of it.

But I'm sorry, what I think is interesting and perhaps shouldn't be anymore but it still is to me, is that we're we're here campaigning to Donald Trump.

Right.

Like it's not really a campaign, for voters just yet.

It's a campaign for his his endorsement.

And I think nothing spoke mor to that then, you know, earlier this week, Speaker Matt Hall, durin a press conference, was asked, are you going to endorse in the governor's race?

And he said, I'll wait until after Trump does.

So you're going to wait until after a federal leader endorses in the race, when you probably know that person better because you live in that state?

I think it just speaks to to the nature of election right now in the state that that a lot of them are based on, on federal dynamics.

But you had the specter of Mr.

Czub on the program last week saying, if you have a Trump endorsemen and you're a Republican running in a general election, what did he say?

Right?

I mean, this is the issue.

There's a differenc between the primary electorate and the general electorate.

Tuition there is.

And we should also note here in Michigan, and this is similar throughout the country when Trump is not at the top of the ballot.

Right.

Republicans just do not do as well, this John James thing, this story's not over yet.

There's I mean we've got until August, friend.

So I think you're right.

And I think I think what what is so interesting to me about these races right now is, of course, you have the infighting in ahead of the primaries.

But the reorganization, even on the Democratic side, with Garlin Gilchrist stepping dow to the secretary of state race, you've got this infighting over James, and then you have another a third party thrown into this a of Mike Duggan and, you know, allegations on social media after those ads came out about who orchestrated i and, and who's to blame for it.

And Duggan got pulled into it.

And I think it just it complicates this dynamic even more in Michigan.

And it's hard to see how everything the Yankees come into that they, they claimed, I think that they somehow it was connected to Duggan or that I can't remember that that someone who has worked fo or sort of fundraised for Duggan in was one of the names, possibly, that was helping to put together these ads.

I do want to say with the Duggan name, though, like Beth is just 100% right.

And I don't mean that like all of us are sitting around salivating but like, it's this is insane.

Like this.

The Duggan running as an independent The Duggan running as an independent is going to completely upend what is a normal race.

And I mean, again, talking to Matt Hall just this week, he was going on and on about how well he works with Duggan and how much they can work together enough so that, again, my co-host Rick Pluta said, well, are you going to endorse him like it was tha nobody wants to do well enough so that the Democrats can't get the governorship?

I mean, that's what's going on there, right?

It's not that he likes Duggan and he likes the idea that Dugga and sucks support away from the D's.

Well, and he said just that, that he thinks that's what's going to happen.

But if you're talking about, Richard Czubas polling, I mean, what he says is it's not as big of a draw that that there could even be, well, really what she says is independents are going to make or break this race and that you've got about 20% of folks who, at any given point could look at Duggan and go, you know, wha a plague on both their houses.

And, I mean, I think the fundamental thing is that for Duggan and to have a lane of victory, he needs messy primaries.

And on the Democratic sid with Gilchrist, is that noted, moving to the secretary of state's race?

That clears the lane for her.

She has one opponent in Genese County, Sheriff Chris Swanson.

And so while that's about to become less messy and less of a contest, he wants to see infighting in both of these primaries and I mean, while he has to go for these independents, we have an unpopular president in the white House right now.

And forcing the front runner who's skipping mind you, party hosted debates, primary debates among his competitors to run that, you know, forcing hi to defend an unpopular president and his allegiance to this and defense of that person, I think, plays to the favo both Democrats and Mike Duggan and the other thing, the legislature not getting a budget done on time is an in-kind contribution to Mike Duggan's campaign.

Absolutely.

Because what he used all last year, right, is the, you know, Lansing it's broken.

Lawmakers can't do this.

he he can do that exact same thing again depending on what Lansing does or does not get done this.

But the what the Republicans are hoping for is that the big package that cleared will turn the economy around as we move deeper into this year and when.

So and they point to the gasoline prices.

Okay I can't remember the last time I paid 285 a gallon for gas, boys and girls.

so they got their fingers crosse that the things will look rosier as we move down the line.

But you're right, Mr.

Duggan takes all of the tea leave that we used to read accurately.

Forget it.

Throw out the playbook.

Exactly.

All right let's call in this guest today who's going to talk about the Michigan State Police and the problems over there.

Representative, welcome to (laughing) Welcome to Off the Record.

Nice to have you on board on this chilly morning.

Let's start out with a due process question.

If you were the state police director and you knew that the House committee was looking at what you were doing and interviewing people privately, wouldn't you sort of hope that at some point you might call him up to respond to what those folks said, and you did not?

Correct?

Well, he did have an hou and a half of joint testimony, but that was way before this report came out, sir.

It was during the process of investigating.

he knew about the depositions.

He was made aware of those, he knew what was going on.

The report just came out.

So not to say that he won't come back to answer.

I don't know if he wants to come back and answered.

Sure.

If he said, let me come in and talk to you folks.

You're welcome him in, I believe that I think the chair would absolutely welcome him in.

I think there's more questions to be answered as a result of what came out in the report.

But you haven't already concluded that he's guilty as sin?

I think his troopers concluded that he's guilty as sin in their assessment of the job that he is doing and the confidence they have in him.

But that's that's, that's their decision.

You know, I think the report speaks a lot about the leadership at MSP.

What would you say the sort of arguments that institutional cultures in large organizations are difficult to change and that if you come in with a reform mindset that that mean that you're always going to hit resistance in people who are, you know, would prefer things to say the way they are?

Change is hard.

I think we see it at every level.

At, at somethin like a law enforcement agency, change shouldn't ever be fast.

There's, there's reasons even the legislative process, like it's supposed to go slow for a reason.

We need to be deliberative.

We need to make sure that what we're doing is, accurate and correct.

We have good information.

I think at a police agency, it's any kind of command structure.

Agenc like that.

It it should go slow.

People, people do resist change.

But that doesn't necessarily mean that they're resisting just because it's change.

Yeah, I the things that came out in deposition, the the reports through the, the employee, process both that the report that the troopers did themselves and then the one that's the actual state, survey that they conduct on employee satisfaction.

you know, they said the same things.

there was a lot of repetitiveness that people fear retaliation for even just speaking up.

You know, that's a lack of leadership.

That's not a we're resistant to change.

It's a I'm afraid that I'm going to lose my job because I disagree with the way things are headed.

What would you like to see happen next?

Well yo know, lieutenant colonel retired or announced their retirement.

I don't know if that' the right step for the colonel.

But I think you know him and the governor should have a real conversation about the results of this.

He answers to her, and the state depends on the state police.

Every law enforcement agency in the state depends on the state police to be, professional, to conduct themselves, at the highest level.

And if the troopers themselves don't have confidence in that leadership, how should you know?

The local sheriff's department have confidence i that would like to see happen.

What would I like to see happen?

I'd like I'd like answers to the results of this.

This, report.

I think the colonel should com back into oversight and explain how these how ho do these statements come about?

How does your how do your staff, the people that answer to you say that we are afraid to speak out.

We don't understand the decisions that you make.

we don't understand how someone who had multiple violations was almost put on a probation where she couldn't have a promotion in two years.

And then right after that two year period is over, she becomes the second highest ranking person in the organization.

Like, how does that happen?

What what drives that decision?

oh.

And I think that's what the membershi and especially the, the middle, the middle management level really wants to know how does that happen?

We're getting to the en of the Whitmer administration.

She has a year left.

Arguably, the next governor is going to put a new state police commander in.

Is there an argument to just keep in Colonel Grady in his spot?

Because a change would be too disruptive at this point, with just a year left?

Yeah, I don't think so.

Is it ever is it ever too late to make a change?

I, I don't think that's the case.

I agree, whoever the next governor is, they're going to come in and you're probably going to see mass department head changes.

That's, that's pretty typical.

But if you have a known problem, I don't think that it's.

Well, let's just wait.

We can we can afford to wait another year.

I want to, if I can remember correctly, from the testimony 500 vacant trooper positions.

Can we wait another yea to start addressing that issue?

I don't think we can.

And if there's no confidence from the current troopers, how are we going to recruit new ones?

Who's your candidate for governor?

I was ready for that question.

Oh, darn.

Okay, let me withdraw it.

So for me, it's, you know, we were talking a little bit earlier about how I got started, in volunteering and things.

It's a the first time I worked on a statewide campaign, it was Mike Cox for governor in 2010.

Wow.

Tom Leonard is one of my best friends in the world, and I go hunting with Eric Nesbitt.

I know where this is going.

Right?

So, it's.

You do realize you'll have to vote for one of them.

I'm going to have to.

I'm goin to have to vote for one of them.

But I certainly, I certainly don't plan to But I certainly, I certainly don't plan to to endorse anybody.

I think you do this long enough, and you're just I think you do this long enough, and you're just you're legitimately friends with these people.

you're legitimately friends with these people.

And when I go into the the voting box, like every citizen, I get to make my vote.

But I don't have to.

But I don't have to.

Should it matter who Donald Trump endorses?

You heard us talking earlier.

Yeah, I, I think the president gets to make whatever decisions he wants, but that doesn't have to affect mine.

I think, you know, I know all these people on a personal level.

I think they all have strengths and they all have probably some weaknesses.

And I'm going to pick who I think is going to do the best job.

And that doesn't necessarily have to be who the president thinks is going to do the best job.

I noticed that you didn't use John James name in there.

He's the person I know the least.

I really don't know him.

I know the other people on a personal level.

I could pick him up the phone and call him.

And.

Oh so it was a student of politics.

What did you think of his decision to run for governor and not hang on to that seat, which the president said, we need to keep control?

political decisions are hard.

I, you know, you have to do what's best for you, what's best for your family.

and I and I think that's has not always been probably John James's plan was to eventually be able to run for that governor.

So you think that's been a, you know, long term?

You don't think it was selfish?

I don't you have to do what's best for you.

you know, if if my wife said my definition of something, you get to do what's best for me.

Let's put it this way.

here's a young family.

He's in Washington, D.C., 3 to 4 day a week, flying back and forth.

He ran for Senate twice.

Absolutely I did, yeah, but I think even we run for these offices, and then we get down here and it's a stress level that you don't.

You think you know what you're getting into, but maybe you get down here and it that travel that back and forth you start missing sporting events.

You're missing ballet class whatever it is.

you have to start making decisions.

Maybe I can offer you an out here by going back to the topic of the MSP report.

I'm curious, you know, to the extent to which the House oversight committees demonstrate that there's a controversy here, that there's some substanc to the allegations against him.

It's like workplace issues.

Colonel Grady, that is, this is sort of a slow rolling issue.

I think some of the allegation of incidents, insular culture, personnel complaints, these go back more than five years.

what do you think it says about the oversight performance of the legislature?

in prior sessions up until now that it took an outside agency conducting a survey of troopers and commanding officers to finally bring to ligh and flag for people that there is perhaps an issue here.

I think that's fair.

you know, in the in the previous term, this is my second term.

So my first term, I don't think oversight and ethics may be a couple times over a two year period, to review these kinds of things.

but some of these complaint also happened under Republican oversight as well, and that should be addressed.

I, I don't think it's we shouldn't just say, well, we forget about what happened in the past, right?

If we have deficiencies, we nee to correct those deficiencies.

So as a legislative body if we can do better, we should.

I think the current oversight process is working.

It's been pretty bipartisan in the way that it's, the committees reacted.

it hasn't been most of the votes for subpoena or bringing people in or asking for documents have been bipartisan Maybe one dissenter, maybe not.

But how do you find out tha there's issues in state agencies as an oversight committee, outside of waiting for the results of union service?

So when we first started this, last year, last year, we put together a website that people could email in and send in, you know, their complaints with state government, hundreds and hundreds of emails start looking through.

Are there common themes?

And some of them there was.

You know, I think one of the first things we talked abou was, was EGLE and EGLE overreach and how it was affecting business and farms.

Those were generated from our constituents calling and saying they had these problem and that, that website process.

And so it gave us direction to say, okay, it looks like there's maybe is a problem here.

Let's start asking questions and investigate.

Representative I think you're one of the reps.

Correct.

Who's publicly, said that you're unhappy with the unilateral cut of $645 million of work projects?

That was cut late last year.

A surprise to many.

Something that we just really have not seen in Lansing in recent memory.

What's the plan to fix this?

I mean, you're unhappy about it.

What are you going to do about it for your district?

and so you're running for Senate?

Of course.

Yeah.

Well, so I was unhappy about it because it's just I'm.

And I think I've expressed this, a little bit more of, like, a I'd rather use a scalpel than a hammer kind of person.

I think we could have done better in the way that it was implemented.

I don't agree with it.

Everything that was cut.

But I think there were some probably things that should be reevaluated.

I mean, that's I think that's the bigger question that we get to ask from all of this is if we had that money that was appropriate to be spent in 25 and it wasn't, why wasn't it?

If it's a grant program, why did only $2 million of the $20 million get spent?

Is it because we overfunded it or is it because the state's bureaucracy makes it so hard to access those funds if they're not being utilized?

So I think it gives us a really good opportunity to reevaluate how we're distributing funds and where those those dollars are going.

I wanted to like something to still try to find the positive move forward with it.

Representative would you call yourself like relative to the rest of your caucus, would you call yourself a centrist?

No, I just think I can find the... We're in a divided government.

I can't do any.

Very littl things can get done unilaterally or just with one party.

And so, trying to concentrate on the things that we can do instead of, the things that maybe, you know, I'll throw it out there.

I'm not a big I, I would love to see, our, zoning restored to the locals and solar and wind siting.

Right.

That's not going to happen.

So what can I work on?

What things can we do that we can get across the finish line?

Maybe a little bit more willingness to try that instead of just, well, I'm going to I'm going to pound this very Republican idea that's not going to get done.

But I wouldn't see myself as a centrist.

Why do you want to leave the house?

it's more about wanting to help take over the Senate.

I think that's the way that we're going to be able to get things like solar and wind siting fixed.

The district that, I'm running in is a district I know really well.

It's a big piece of my current house district.

I've lived and worked there my whole life, both professionally and personally.

I have connections in the entire area, and I know the people.

It's a good district.

Very similar to the one I currently represent.

Let's be clear here.

You learn that the need of Roger Kahn, right?

Yeah.

He was an irascible player on both sides.

Correct.

He was he had a little bit of you in him or vice versa?

I there's opportunity to do work.

And I think taking that opportunity and making good change is totally acceptable.

And you have to wor in the constraints you're given.

So in other words, you're not about to join the Freedom Caucus in the House?

I don't think they'd take me.

That perhaps is true.

Representative, good to see you.

Thank you for having me.

nice.

Nice to have you on board.

See you right here fo more off the record next week.

Stay tuned.

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