By John Lindstrom
Publisher
Posted: February 11, 2013 4:03 PM

Monday’s surprising announcement by Pope Benedict XVI that he will resign at the end of February recalls an odd juxtaposition of papal succession that kind of involved the Michigan House.

It happened after midnight on September 29, 1978.

With a pile of controversial issues before it, including an increase in the gas tax, and an election barely a month away, the Legislature decided to hold an all-night session to clear its decks in time for the last month of campaigning.

One of the issues lawmakers perpetually fought with then Governor William Milliken over with Medicaid funding for elective abortions. The Legislature was trying to find a way to block funding for the practice without engendering a veto of the Medicaid budget that Mr. Milliken had threatened to veto.

The resolution reached that night, and a number of other times, was to limit Medicaid abortion funding to $1, which allowed Mr. Milliken to veto that line item and not affect the rest of the budget. But anti-abortion legislators wanted a stronger message, and wanted to challenge Mr. Milliken on the issue.

Barely a month before, in Rome, Pope John-Paul I had been elected following the death of Pope Paul VI.

Sometime after midnight, a frustrated Rep. Ed Mahalak (D-Romulus), frustrated because efforts to make the anti-abortion language stronger in the budget had failed, stood on the House floor and began his critique, in his distinctive high-pitched nasally voice: “Well, I guess we’ll never have an American pope.” He went on to complain about the action to create a line-item that Mr. Milliken could veto.

Perhaps 15 minutes later, then-Rep. John Maynard (D-St. Clair Shores) stood up to announce he had just gotten a call that Pope John-Paul had died, ending one of the shortest reigns in papal history.

An Associated Press reporter bolted off the floor and then brought in the wire bulletin confirming the pontiff’s death. And so, at about 2 a.m. that day, the House stood at attention in memoriam.

But for the rest of the session, which went on for another hour, reporters kept hearing House members whispering to get Mr. Mahalak’s attention: “Eddie, hey Eddie.” And when Mr. Mahalak turned from his desk, he would hear: “What do you think? Can an American win this time?”

A clearly furious Mr. Mahalak never bothered to answer.