One of the casualties of John Engler’s 1990 gubernatorial upset win over two-term incumbent Jim Blanchard was Bob Mitchell, Gov. Blanchard’s director of the Michigan Department of Agriculture.
Suddenly, Bob Mitchell had a career change to ponder. He resigned his Department of Agriculture post shortly after the Engler inauguration. Engler soon named Bill Schuette, who had served on the Agriculture Committee while in the U.S. Congress, as his choice to be the Agriculture director.
Bill Schuette had gambled in 1990 that he could defeat Michigan’s two-term Democratic U.S. Sen. Carl Levin. Schuette lost his bet and gave up his safe seat in the U.S. House. He had defeated incumbent Don Albosta in the Reagan landslide of 1984 and went on to serve three terms (1985-1991). While Schuette was running for the U.S. Senate, his congressional seat was filled in 1990 by his one-time aide, then one-term state Rep. Dave Camp. Camp would go on to serve in Congress until 2015, capping off his career as chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee.
In 1991, Schuette embarked on a career comeback that included a two-year stint as state Agriculture director, two terms in the state Senate, six years on the Michigan Court of Appeals, and two terms as attorney general before being defeated for governor in 2018 by Gretchen Whitmer.
Bob Mitchell in 1991 decided to take an idea from a former Michigander, Walt DeVries, who was the founder in 1974 of the North Carolina Institute of Political Leadership. In North Carolina, DeVries established a nonpartisan leadership training program that featured a rigorous curriculum that spanned such topics as campaigning and governing, providing 25 participants at no cost with a sound foundation, allowing those aspiring state and local public officials to take the next step and run. Faculty consisted of recognized experts in their fields. The program was designed to develop a network of alumni who would leave their mark on North Carolina.
DeVries was born in Holland, Mich. He earned his Ph.D. in political science from Michigan State University. In 1961, DeVries was elected a delegate to the Michigan Constitutional Convention. DeVries became the research director for George Romney’s three successful gubernatorial campaigns (1962, 1964, 1966), along with Romney’s failed 1967 presidential campaign. In 1969, DeVries co-founded the American Association of Political Consultants. From 1969-1972, DeVries taught political science at the University of Michigan. He was co-author of The Ticket-Splitter (1972), a book based on his experience where Republicans won in a solid Democratic state where the Romney, Robert Griffin, and William Milliken campaigns targeted ticket-splitters. DeVries left Michigan in 1973 to teach at a succession of North Carolina academic institutions, as well as relocate his political consulting business. Bill Ballenger interviewed DeVries shortly before his death in 2019 for a video for the Michigan Political History Society’s James J. Blanchard Living Library of Oral Histories.
Back in 1991, Bob Mitchell met with me and pitched me on assisting him in establishing a Michigan Political Leadership Program (MPLP). Bob said he needed a Republican wingman to go with him as he sought financial underwriters for this bipartisan program.
In 1991, I was the Michigan Chamber’s vice president, political affairs and general counsel. The Michigan Chamber’s Political Action Committee had for a number of election cycles conducted an 11-week political campaign institute for Republican legislative staffers held on Friday mornings downtown at the City Club near the state Capitol. The Michigan Chamber Foundation conducted a Leadership Michigan program with monthly sessions held across the state. Many local chambers also had leadership programs that exposed emerging community leaders to issues and networking opportunities.
I was intrigued by the North Carolina program and thought that a similar program in Michigan would not conflict with anything we had at the Michigan Chamber. I told Bob I would help.
Bob Mitchell established his own consulting firm to run the free-standing Michigan Political Leadership Program (MPLP). The inaugural MPLP class began in 1992. That also was the year Michigan voters amended the state Constitution to require term limits for the state House, state Senate, governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, and attorney general. Term limits made a program like MPLP even more needed.
Two years later, 1994 brought a major change to the MPLP. Michigan U.S. Sen. Don Riegle announced, in the aftermath of an Arizona savings and loan scandal, that he would not run for re-election. U.S. Rep. Bob Carr, who was first elected to Congress in 1974, announced he would seek Riegle’s U.S. Senate seat.
Debbie Stabenow in 1994 ran for governor. She lost the Democratic primary to Howard Wolpe but joined him in November running for lieutenant governor. The Democratic ticket ended up losing to the John Engler-Connie Binsfeld ticket.
Without Stabenow, what Democrat would run for Bob Carr’s open seat in Congress?
Bob Mitchell announced his candidacy. Republican Dick Chrysler also filed. How could the Democratic candidate for Congress continue to run the bi-partisan Michigan Political Leadership Program?
He could not. Enter Michigan State University’s Institute for Public Policy and Social Research (IPPSR), which in 1994 took over MPLP. The university named as co-directors Democrat Lynn Jondahl and Republican Bill Snow.
The following year, 1995 saw a major change in MPLP’s funding. Carol Conn and her fund-raising firm had initially focused on setting up one-on-one meetings with potential donors to back the MPLP. Carol and I both realized a better use of our time would be to focus on holding an annual fund-raising dinner. The focus would be on selling tables and major donor sponsorships. The program at these dinners, started in a more collegial era, featured two dinner speakers, a Republican and a Democrat. Later media personalities with contrasting ideologies served as dinners speakers. The MPLP dinners were held annually in metro Detroit in February. Later a West Michigan MPLP event was added, moving those speakers from metro Detroit to Grand Rapids the next day.
MPLP has over 700 graduates. Many of those MPLP alumni have put the skills and relationships acquired to get elected to school board, tribal, township, city, county, state legislative, and statewide office seats. The vision Walt DeVries had, and Bob Mitchell drew from, has grown into today’s success story.