Kwame Kilpatrick began talking about his plans for his new job as the mayor of Detroit on Wednesday.
“I think young people across the country can look at Detroit as a beacon of light,” said Kilpatrick, the Detroit Democrat who defeated City Council President Gil Hill in Tuesday’s election.
With 91 percent of precincts reporting Wednesday, Kilpatrick had 104,287 votes, or 54 percent, to Hill’s 88,992 votes, or 46 percent.
After serving as House minority leader for the past 10 months, Kilpatrick earned a narrow victory over Hill early Wednesday. Kilpatrick’s victory signals the end of his tenure in Lansing, and new leadership will take control of the Democratic House caucus.
Kilpatrick becomes the mayor of Detroit on Jan. 1.
“He is a friend, my Democratic Caucus leader,” said state Rep. Mike Murphy, D-Lansing. “I think it is the dawning of a new day in the city of Detroit.”
And Murphy suggested it is the dawning of a new day in the state House, too.
“We go into caucus to find a new leader to lead our caucus,” Murphy said. “We have candidates who have made their intentions known.
“I want to see someone who can bring a diverse caucus like ours together as we go into the 2002 elections. Someone that will put time, energy and resources into our elections next year.”
Murphy said those candidates may include reps. Julie Dennis of Muskegon, Jack Minore of Flint, Nancy Quarles of Southfield, Joseph Rivet of Bay City and Samuel “Buzz” Thomas of Detroit.
“They are all quite capable. Hopefully over the next several weeks, we will have our new caucus leader-elect in place before Thanksgiving,” he said.
Bill Ballenger, editor and publisher of the Lansing-based newsletter Inside Michigan Politics, said candidates to succeed Kilpatrick are scrambling to organize a platform for the party.
Ballenger said the next caucus leader might be more combative than Kilpatrick, who focused on building bipartisan ties.
“My intelligence most recently is that Jack Minore from Flint probably has it in the bag,” Ballenger said. “I think Kwame was a conciliator. He got along very well with (House speaker) Rick Johnson.”
But Johnson, R-LeRoy, said he is still holding out hope the parties will continue to work together.
“We are optimistic that the bipartisan ties we made during the first months will continue after Kilpatrick leaves office,” said Kendall Wingrove, a Johnson spokesman. “Speaker Johnson has worked with House Democrats on a wide variety of issues and plans to continue doing that in the busy months ahead.”
“We just hope that whoever assumes the leadership position will continue the spirit of bipartisanship started by Kwame Kilpatrick and Rick Johnson in 2001.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
