Farewell Speech by Leon Drolet
Delivered on the Michigan House floor December 2006
When I ran for state House I told voters, friends and family that it was my goal to reduce the size, scope and cost of government.
I knew that I would fail to achieve those goals.
Why? Because it is a natural law that people, generally speaking, act in their interests. Voters act in their interest. Teachers do, as do students. Businesses, employees and unions all act in their own interests.
One interest that all people have is having more resources at one’s disposal with which one can better further his or her interests. Resources generally mean controlling money or people. People, all people, use control of money or others to further their interests. It is a part of human nature and it is usually beneficial to society when we all agree to a simple rule: no controlling money or people by using force. As long as force is prohibited, people must negotiate with others to acquire money or get others to do something for them. This facilitates productive human interaction that generally benefits most people.
Well, the government, including this chamber, is made up of people no different than any other in their nature. We are generally good people who naturally act in our interests to acquire more money and people under our control so that we can prosper. But, as a government, we have the power of force to obtain what we want. We don’t have to negotiate with anyone except ourselves. We can take property and decisions away from people as we decide and put people in jail if they disagree with us.
But what about voters! Don’t we have to negotiate with them? Don’t they agree to give us that power? Well, in a way they sorta, kinda do. After we have disenfranchised them by gerrymandering our districts and given ourselves franking privileges. Plus most citizens are too busy keeping track of their own lives to know much about what is happening to their money that we have taken.
But every now and then the voters recognize that their wallets and liberties have become the proverbial frog being slowly boiled. Every now and then they collectively decide that they must take action to protect and advance their interests. They realize that the writers of our constitution recognized that the power of force given to government must also be peaceably given to citizens when they believe their government is going too far. The force given to the people of Michigan to counter their government is called the citizen petition process.
The citizen petition process gave us term limits in an attempt to reign in what we as government people do all day: take away the resources that others have earned.
Why do people in government hate term limits? Because they take away our job and our job as lawmakers comes with the unfair advantage we have in extending our power over others. Now, nobody in this chamber believes me. We believe we hate term limits because we lose institutional memory. And we believe that we lose our newfound ability to work productively with each other that magically happens in our final term. We believe that Lansing used to be a better place before term limits. Well, Lansing was a better place before term limits for lawmakers because a lawmaker’s power could go on for so many more years.
I am here partially thanks to term limits and I have no problem moving on because of them.
Of course, people have limited government’s power before and after term limits. The Headlee Amendment is one such example to limit overall government spending. Another example is this past election’s Proposal 2, which took away the government’s power to prefer some people over others based on race or gender in government hiring, contracting and university admissions. I am sensitive to the fact that many people are deeply and genuinely concerned about Proposal 2’s passage by voters. But I believe that in 10 years when we have seen the effects of Proposal 2, we can look back at its passage on election night and realize that nobody lost when Prop. 2 passed. That we all won. I am optimistic that we will all conclude that in hindsight.
I realize that many hearing me speak today for the last time on the House floor will conclude that somehow I just don’t like people who are in government. That would be wrong. I very much distrust the institution while really liking most of you as people.
I want to thank those of you who have made my time here enjoyable. I really don’t want to mention names, but for anyone in this chamber who has shared with me with a laugh or muttered to me their frustrations: thank you.
