Gov. John Engler’s latest appointment to the MSU Board of Trustees has brought with it speculation about the lame-duck chief executive’s future political aspirations.
Within two years, Engler has bypassed the electoral process and changed the partisan powers on the MSU board from a 5-3 Democrat majority to a 5-3 GOP majority - a tilt that benefits his own party affiliation.
Engler has said he tries to keep politics out of decisions which will affect the universities.
“I’d look for the best person,” he told The State News prior to Tuesday’s appointment of Republican Randall Pittman to a trustee seat. “I don’t pay attention to party labels.
“Hopefully any trustee on the board functions in the interest of the university.”
While we would like to take the governor at his word, it’s hard given his latest decisions.
During summer 2000, Engler slotted Democratic Trustee Bob Traxler for a seat on the Mackinac Island State Park Commission.
Republican Trustee Scott Romney was appointed to fill Traxler’s vacancy. Romney was elected in a statewide vote that November.
On Tuesday, Engler gave Democratic Trustee Robert Weiss a judgeship in Genesee County. Pittman was named his successor.
Pittman’s appointment now makes MSU the only one of the state’s three major research universities to have a GOP majority on its governing board.
Michigan’s Constitution outlines that governing board members at MSU, the University of Michigan and Wayne State University be selected via statewide elections.
The governor is given the duty of appointing board members at the state’s 12 other public universities.
Given his executive power to fill vacancies on the elected boards between elections, Engler has changed the political makeup of MSU’s trustees without popular vote being a factor.
The shift in balance at MSU has promoted many political analysts to wonder if Engler is stargazing to become the next Spartan president. And we are left to ponder the same possibility.
MSU President M. Peter McPherson has pledged to stay at the university until at least 2005.
Partisanship generally doesn’t play a role in day-to-day board resolutions. But when big decisions - such as presidential searches - face leaders, party affiliation can easily come into play.
The last time a board vote split along party lines was in 1997, when it approved domestic partner benefits for the university’s lesbian, bisexual, gay and transgender faculty.
The vote was 5-3, Democrats over Republicans. What happens if issues like that arise again?
We are only left to wonder why the governor chooses to appoint Democrats from the MSU board to other plush positions across the state only to fill their seats with Republicans and why no other university but his alma mater has experienced similar fates.
We would like to take Engler at his nonpartisan word, but things don’t look good.
