By Zachary Gorchow
Executive Editor and Publisher
Posted: January 18, 2017 4:27 PM

The most memorable line of Governor Rick Snyder’s State of the State address was a bad pun about how he wants Michigan’s productive cows, No. 2 in the nation for milk production, to pass the top state, Colorado.

“We want Colorado to moo-ove on over," Mr. Snyder said before a joint session of the Legislature on Tuesday night.

My Dad, who delighted in torturing my sister and me with bad puns when we were young, would say a pun has to be bad to be good (I cannot take credit/blame for the pun in the headline, having found it on the interwebs). And it’s good to hear Michigan’s important milk producing industry is thriving. Gongwer News Service’s resident dairy farming expert, retired Vice President Larry Lee, no doubt was amused.

But when Holsteinian humor is the most memorable moment of the biggest opportunity Mr. Snyder will have this year to address the state – massive social media coverage, livestreams everywhere online, wall-to-wall coverage on the state’s major newspapers and their websites, a live broadcast on public television and a gaggle of television news reporters making for most a rare trip to the capital city – Mr. Snyder’s speech left more than a few wondering what happened.

Mr. Snyder offered no new proposals, no roadmap for the year ahead other than essentially to stay the course. He barely mentioned the Flint water crisis, speaking for 97 seconds on it halfway through the speech (including breaks for applause). He did not address the other major fiasco that is hanging over his administration and state government, the tens of thousands of people falsely judged by a state-run computer his administration implemented to have committed fraud in seeking unemployment benefits.

It reminded one of Mr. Snyder’s widely panned 2012 State of the State address, where he offered one significant new proposal, to codify the Educational Achievement Authority for some Detroit schools.

Mr. Snyder’s job approval and favorability numbers have yet to recover from the hit they took as his administration’s handling of the decisions prior to Flint’s water becoming a full-blown crisis was revealed. A 54-minute speech chock-full of positive numbers about the state’s economy and other good developments in state government could be targeted at those voters who once liked Mr. Snyder but have since soured on him.

There will be significant issues this year – auto insurance, municipal employee retirement benefits, infrastructure, taxes, criminal justice and more. At least for now, Mr. Snyder either was not ready to offer a proposal or chose not to do so.

In 2012, Mr. Snyder said the style of his speech was in keeping with an older school model that was more of a literal State of the State, offering a report card of sorts and talking about where the state stood on a variety of fronts. Subsequent Snyder State of the State messages were meatier. In 2013, he emphasized his road funding plan. 2014 centered on his plan to bring Detroit out of bankruptcy. 2015 focused on his merger of the departments of Community Health and Human Services into the Department of Health and Human Services. And 2016 was heavily focused on Flint.

However, it should be noted that 2012 turned out to be one of the most consequential and prolific years for legislation in Michigan’s modern history, topped by Michigan becoming a right-to-work state. It’s also worth noting the Legislature drove that issue to become law over Mr. Snyder’s public disinterest. The same is true of the repeal of Michigan’s mandatory motorcycle helmet law and major changes to the law on recalling elected officials that were enacted that year.

Perhaps Mr. Snyder will do what he has done in past years and drive the legislative agenda with a series of subsequent proposals, offered via special messages or other means. When he has done so, it has left the Legislature with less time to pursue other issues.

When Mr. Snyder has stepped back, however, the Republicans in the Legislature have shown they will fill the void.