Michigan Radio’s Senior Political Analyst Jack Lessenberry has been thinking about the recent decision by The State Officers Compensation Commission to cut legislative pay by ten percent. Hear Audio Story    There is something to be said for a spirit of shared sacrifice during hard times...

I still think of Michigan’s constitution as our “new constitution.� I suppose this is because I was still in elementary school when it was written and adopted, and there was a lot of hoopla surrounding it. Teachers told us that we should be proud that our state finally had a progressive new co...

Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated when I was sixteen years old. Unlike his brother, he wasn’t killed instantly, but lingered on for a little more than a day. Throughout the vigil, the press was given constant updates on his condition, which was critical from the start. Late in the afternoon of th...

The early 1960s version of today’s TV’s reality shows were shows about doctors and lawyers. One of the best of these was The Defenders, which starred the brilliant E.G. Marshall. I was a big fan of this show, which I watched when I was about ten years old. I remember little about it today, excep...

The sound and fury over the conversion from analog to digital broadcasting reminds me of something similar that happened in the history of radio. Notably, the rise of FM, or frequency modulation, which is how you hear everything broadcast on Michigan Radio Early radio, in fact, was all AM radio, and...

If you’ve been listening to my commentaries for awhile, you may have noticed that I am not shy about sharing my opinions. So here’s what I think about the situation in Flint. I don’t know whether the mayor should be recalled or not. I don’t live there, I don’t know enough about what’s ha...

I don’t know James Epolito personally, though people who do tell me he’s done a tremendous job as head of the Michigan Economic Development Corporation. Phil Power, who is on the MEDC board, knows Epolito well, and credits him with using $1.5 billion in public funding to lure $7.7 billion in pri...

The University Research Corridor is a great thing for Michigan, and the potential key to our economic future. However, it hasn’t done nearly enough to promote itself – at least within the state. I’ve run into development people and even state legislators who have only the haziest idea of its e...

In case you’ve forgotten, Chrysler and General Motors have only a couple months to file highly developed turnaround plans with the U.S. Treasury Department. If they don’t pass muster, the two automakers essentially will be finished. Not only will they not get any more taxpayer money, they will b...

Everything we know now suggests that when it comes to the economy, this is going to be a rough, batten-down-the-hatches kind of year. It may be even worse for state government. There is one big difference between the state and federal governments, by the way. Washington doesn’t have to live within...