Happy birthday, Governor Milliken!

There’s this gentleman.

If you’re lucky enough to meet him, you’re struck by what a gentle, modest, gracious, classy guy he is. He seems to exude integrity and warmth and sincerity and has that hard-to-describe aura by which some important people are surrounded. I only talked with him for a few minutes – I was at a book-signing at the Library of Michigan back in 2006 – but I left with much more than his signature in my copy of Dave Dempsey’s William G. Milliken: Michigan’s Passionate Moderate.

Dempsey and Milliken

I left with the happy memory of a brief encounter with a charming old man, a former governor who didn’t come across as a politician at all but rather as a smart, sweet, avuncular fellow who didn’t belong in today’s dirty political arena because he was too good for it.

Born in Traverse City, Michigan, on this day back in 1922 – when songs like "Way Down Yonder in New Orleans,” “I Found a Four Leaf Clover” and Al Jolson’s “Toot, Toot, Tootsie Goodbye" were popular – Milliken served in the Army Air Corps (forerunner of the Air Force) during World War II, earning the Purple Heart, and later graduated from Yale and married Helen Wallbank.

The tall (he’s 5’11”), slender man was elected to the Michigan State Senate in 1960 and become Governor George Romney’s lieutenant in 1966. When Romney left office to serve in the Nixon administration in 1969, Milliken became governor; he won the office in 1970, 1974 and 1978. He served until 1983 when my former boss, Jim Blanchard, succeeded him as the state’s chief executive. (Milliken was Michigan’s longest-serving governor.)

When I think of Governor Milliken, I think of how he strayed from the mold of the stereotypical Republican by demonstrating a commitment to public and environmental health:

• A major public health crisis occurred in 1973, during his watch, when it was discovered that cattle feed had been inadvertently contaminated with polybrominated biphenyls, or PBBs. An estimated nine million state residents had consumed contaminated meat and milk for at least a year; by the end of 1975, nearly 30,000 cows, 6,000 pigs, 1.5 million chickens, five million eggs and 27 tons of dairy products were destroyed. Milliken fought with agriculture officials to lower the risk to humans.

• Michigan’s renowned “Bottle Bill” – which diverts an estimated 600,000 tons of bottles from landfills each year – became law in 1976.

• The Wetlands Protection Act was adopted in 1979.

• His administration championed Great Lakes protection – he won limits on phosphates used in laundry detergents in 1977, which greatly enhanced the recovery of Lake Erie, and he led the formation of the Council of Great Lakes Governors in the summer of 1982.

• According to former aide Bill Rustem, Milliken is responsible for the Natural Resources Trust Fund, the Environmental Protection Act in 1970, the Inland Lakes and Streams Act, the Sand Dunes Act and more.

He also left his mark in other areas:

• His administration created an Office of Urban Affairs to underscore the importance of our cities and address urban issues throughout the state.

• He worked to improve mass transit.

• He advanced several economic development and diversification initiatives.

• He signed the Consumer Protection Act of 1976.

• His administration reformed education and restructured public school funding.

• He supported women’s rights and “Open Housing” (now known as “Fair Housing”) programs.

I learned from reading William G. Milliken: A Touch of Steel, a 1970 book by Dan Angel, that Milliken reads five newspapers each day – and, one assumes, could name them if Katie Couric asked – and identifies himself as a “pragmatic Republican.” Angel writes, “No desk pounder or brow beater, his weapons are persuasion and reason, united with facts and diplomacy.”

Sure isn’t what you think about when someone mentions John Boehner or Eric Cantor, is it?

Milliken, who walked with Martin Luther King, Jr. during a rally in Detroit in 1966 – another thing I can’t imagine today’s GOP leaders doing – once said, “I don’t believe civility is a sign of weakness.” He also said he believes good government is good politics.

Are you listening, today's GOP? Of course you're not.

Rubbing elbows with the Big Guys

I skimmed Milliken's 1981 State of the State Message – which is 96 pages long and was printed using quite a small font – and was struck by how far-reaching, substantive and compassionate it was. In it he wrote about rising above partisanship and taking care of the less fortunate. And he said, “The worst thing that could happen to us as a state is to let fear of the future overwhelm us, to give up and forget the bountiful and unique resources which have made this a great state for so long and which give us good reason to be optimistic about the future.”

This Republican politician tried to dispel fear back in 1981, not encourage and base his campaigns on it like so many do today.

Milliken strayed from the party line and endorsed John Kerry for president in 2004 because he didn’t think Dubya spoke for him or other moderate Republicans on most issues. He endorsed John McCain four years later but backed away from his endorsement after the McCain camp began attacking Barack Obama. He told a newspaper at the time, “He is not the John McCain I endorsed.” And he publicly chastised the GOP for its drift to the rigid right.

The guy is definitely near the top of my "People I Dig" list.

His life hasn’t been all rainbows and butterflies. On October 6, 1993, his daughter, Elaine Wallbank Milliken, died of cancer at the age of 45. He battled excessive drinking at one point. And he endorsed Rick Snyder for Governor two years ago – a serious and inexplicable mistake, in my opinion. (I know the loss of a child doesn’t equate to supporting a disingenuous idiot for governor but it’s hard to think of negatives when writing about Bill Milliken.) The Snyder endorsement notwithstanding, he is to me one of the greatest leaders ever to grace the public stage, someone worthy of emulation by other politicians and deserving of thanks and praise from all of us.

Thank you, Governor Milliken, and happy birthday.


Click here to read a short tribute by former Milliken press secretary George Weeks.