By Zachary Gorchow
Executive Editor and Publisher
Posted: November 15, 2013 11:55 AM
Rep. Kurt Heise (R-Plymouth) is a clear favorite for re-election in 2014 in the 20th House District. He has easily won his first two terms in office, made no notable mistakes and will benefit from a district that leans Republican in northwest Wayne County.
Still, I would suggest Mr. Heise not take his Democratic challenger lightly. Scott Craig has some solid background to make him a viable candidate: He’s a member of the Northville school board, a longtime local Democratic activist and a teacher, which is a nice asset in an area where its public schools are very popular.
But beyond those factors, I know Mr. Craig fairly well. For my four years at Birmingham Seaholm High School, he was in fact “Mr. Craig” who was one of several teachers that ran an innovative interdisciplinary program that combined social studies and writing. He continues to teach at Seaholm.
Let’s flash back: It’s my freshman year, in early 1991. “Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)” was the No. 1 song in America, “Cheers” was the No. 1 show on television and John Engler was a couple months into his governorship in Michigan.
Seaholm at the time (and maybe still does) held an annual assembly that tended to focus on current events and policy with a guest speaker, who that year was Mr. Engler. And it came at a tense time for the nascent Engler administration.
At the time, Oakland County was still a Republican bulwark. But Mr. Engler was off to a rough start there. One of his top priorities was to address the chasm in per pupil funding under the school funding system in place at the time that relied on local property taxes.
The Birmingham Public Schools was among the best-funded districts in the state. And the discussions in Lansing about a “Robinhood”-type plan where richer districts would see some of their funds transferred to poorer districts had created a major uproar. I don’t know if that’s why Mr. Engler decided to come to Seaholm to deliver a speech on education, but what I do remember is that he gave a masterful speech that put much of the audience at ease in discussing his plans for education.
Then Mr. Engler came to the interdisciplinary class to speak to the 150-200 or so of us and answer questions.
Enter Mr. Craig, whose liberal political views were well-known. He stood to ask a question and there was a buzz among the students because we knew this was going to be good.
Mr. Craig critiqued Mr. Engler on several fronts, going after his proposed cuts to the arts, education funding policies and questioning his proposals to address the economy, which at the time was mired in recession.
I can’t recall Mr. Engler’s exact response, but he strongly rebutted each point and appeared annoyed to be getting blamed for the economy so soon after taking office.
Nearly 23 years later, Mr. Heise is well-positioned to win a third term. But if Mr. Craig is the same now as he was then, he is going to give Mr. Heise a fight.