As a Michigan taxpayer helping fund the state’s Web presence, I would like to think that I’m paying for efficiency, not kilobytes. One of the ways to cut down on kilobytes on a website is by taking full advantage of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS).
Those of you who were writing HTML pages twenty years ago remember the bad old days of the font tag. Younger Web designers would do well to try this little exercise: redo your favorite CSS design without CSS.
It can be done, but it might be very heavy on text as images, CGI image maps or JavaScript. In the best case scenario, it would require a lot of repetition, bloating the file size.
Suppose for example that you want all your headings to be dark blue in a nice sans-serif font other than Arial or Helvetica. You might have something like this:
(font face="Franklin Gothic, Helvetica, sans-serif" color="darkblue")(h2)Re-districting in the 1980s(/h2)(/font)
Because I don’t know the proper way to quote HTML source here on Daily Kos, I will be using parentheses to stand for the “angle brackets.”
So… not bad. You might only have three or four of those headings on a single page. But now imagine you want that same styling applied to every page on your site and that your site has more than a hundred pages. It sounds like a pain in the neck.
One of the good things about CSS is that you can specify several stylings at once in a central style sheet and then you only need to repeat the reference to the central style sheet.
In our perhaps contrived example, our central style sheet would include a line like this one:
h2 { font-family: "Franklin Gothic", Helvetica, sans-serif; color: darkblue }
Then, if you need to override it once, you can do it on the affected page, something like this:
(h2 style="color: red")How can you get involved?(/h2)
Notice you don’t have to put in the whole style declaration, just the part you want to override.
In my opinion, this should only be done for something that needs to be overridden exactly once. If you need to override something even just twice, you should think about declaring a new style class.
Though if you look hard enough, you might find one or two instances where I have not followed that guideline. The trade-off between making the same override up to three or four times and declaring a new style class is negligible.
Okay, so what does all this have to do with the Michigan website? I found a small but not negligible inefficiency on a page on the official Michigan website.
I was wondering about Michigan’s past governors. The search terms I used had Google bringing up Wikipedia up as the very first result. Ugh. Anything a little bit obscure and outside the Wikipedians’ normal range of interest is almost certain to have mistakes.
In this instance, maybe the information on Wikipedia is completely correct. But if there’s anything wrong, no one at all is accountable to me, whereas someone is accountable to me as a Michigan voter and taxpayer if there is any incorrect information on the Michigan website. At least theoretically.
I don’t remember what my original search terms were. Yesterday I used “past Michigan governors” and a page from the National Governors Association (NGA) came up as the first result. I trust the NGA on this topic a thousand times more than I trust Wikipedia.
After four “people ask” suggestions, Google gives the official Michigan.gov listing. Gov. Rick Snyder (R) is on this list of former governors, and that’s fine by me.
Then I looked at the source, and found this:
(td style="border: 1px solid black;")1(/td)
(td style="border: 1px solid black;")Stevens T. Mason(/td)
(td style="border: 1px solid black;")1835-1840(/td)
(td style="border: 1px solid black;")D(/td)
It’s like that all the way up to Gov. Jennifer Granholm (D) and Snyder.
Maybe you already knew that you can use CSS to automatically number the governors from 1 to 48. But if you didn’t know that, you can already think of one improvement to that page: include the following style declaration
td { border: 1px solid black }
and use mass replace to make each of the table rows look like this:
(td)1(/td)
(td)Stevens T. Mason(/td)
(td)1835-1840(/td)
(td)D(/td)
I might also add
table { border-collapse: collapse }
and maybe half an em of left padding to the table cells.
Just by implementing these suggestions, you can cut the 27 kilobytes of the page down to 21 kilobytes.
And you can shave off another kilobyte by using CSS auto-numbering. But I wouldn’t be in a hurry to make that change, it’s not a no-brainer like replacing all those needlessly repeated table cell style declarations with a single simple style declaration in the head section.
Six kilobytes doesn’t sound like much these days that you can buy a 6-terabyte hard drive for about $200. But on the Internet, with net neutrality under constant attack, 6 kilobytes could make the difference between a page that loads before a user’s patience runs out as opposed to one that doesn’t.
Presumably state government websites wouldn’t be relegated to the slow lanes, but with Republicans, you never know.
Of course this isn’t the biggest problem with state government. No one will die from an inefficiently formatted HTML page on the state website.
What I learned about Michigan's past governors
In the process of cross-checking the information about Michigan’s past governors, I learned quite a bit about Michigan’s history. Wikipedia’s presentation of the information looks the best, but I was very wary of its veracity.
This is not to say that I completely trust the information from the NGA website or even Michigan.gov. At the very least, the NGA has a mistake regarding Gov. Barry (D), whose term that started on January 7, 1850 ended on January 5, 1852.
But Gov. McClelland (D) started his term on January 1, 1852, suggesting he was co-governor with his predecessor for five days. Wikipedia has Barry passing the torch to McClelland on January 1, but the correct date could very well be January 5.
It’s a minor detail, to be sure, but one which any keeper of records ought to be mindful of. Another detail to be mindful of is that, with a few exceptions, every governor since David Jerome has been sworn in on January 1.
Perhaps to compensate for the bloat of the needlessly repeated table cell style declarations, Michigan.gov only gives the years of the governors’ terms, no months, no days.
It could perhaps be seen as misleading to give the end year of a governor’s tenure as the first year of his or her successor’s term, when he or she is governor for less than a full day that year, so Michigan.gov instead gives the previous year as the end year.
For example, the awful Gov. John Engler (R) stepped down on January 1, 2003, so Michigan.gov gives his dates as 1991 — 2002. For the most part I will do the same here as well.
At least Wikipedia says something about Michigan's territorial governors, the ones who were appointed by the president before Michigan became a state. But since everything on Wikipedia is potentially false, I made sure to check the sources cited.
In 1805, U. S. President Thomas Jefferson appointed General William Hull as the first governor of the Michigan territory. Colonel Lewis Cass was appointed as the second territorial governor in 1813.
Cass was later promoted to general, and in 1831 President Andrew Jackson appointed him Secretary of War. Cass understood he couldn’t continue to be governor, and in any case he had already been governor for as long almost as long as his eventual successor had been alive.
Stevens T. Mason was appointed acting governor, I’m not sure by whom. The “boy governor” was only 19-years-old at the time and would go on to become the first elected governor.
But before that happened, George Bryan Porter was territorial governor until he died of cholera in 1834. Mason was then appointed territorial governor but was removed because President Jackson didn't like Mason's stance on the Toledo question.
President Jackson replaced Mason with John S. Horner, but then Mason was elected in 1835. But since Michigan did not become a state until January 26, 1837, both Michigan.gov and the NGA consider that as Mason’s official day of inauguration.
In looking over the NGA biographies of Michigan’s past governors, I noticed a definite bias for the Republicans. Nonetheless, the Republicans of the 19th Century were definitely better people than the Republicans of this century, and I was impressed by many of them.
Quite a few Republicans of the 19th Century were war heroes who actually cared for the poor and the middle class. If any of them had a chance to visit Michigan today, they might find themselves in greater kinship with today’s Democrats than today’s Republicans.
At what point did Republicans lose their souls? At least in Michigan, that would be at some point after Gov. Milliken (more on him later).
In many cases, Michigan governors put in their military service before being governor. Gov. Moses Wisner (R, 1859 — 1861) presents an interesting reversal to that pattern.
After leaving Lansing, Wisner was commissioned a colonel in the U. S. Army, and organized the 22nd Regiment of the Michigan Infantry. But he died of typhoid fever before he could lead those men into battle in the Civil War.
For most of his time as governor, Austin Blair (R, 1861 — 1864) was understandably preoccupied by the Civil War. Here’s an interesting quote from the NGA’s Blair bio:
During his tenure, Civil War issues consumed the majority of his administration. Troops were organized and equipped with funds that were raised through private donations from Detroit bankers and businessmen.
Can you imagine today’s bankers and businessmen funding the troops directly like that? They are more interested in making money off our military industrial complex.
During the Civil War, one Russell Alexander Alger enlisted in the Union Army. The private would rise to the rank of major general before the war was over, and would later be governor.
It’s possible that Alger may have crossed paths with Hazen Stuart Pingree, an enlisted man in the 1st Massachusetts Heavy Artillery Regiment, Confederate prisoner of war and later governor.
And Aaron Thomas Bliss, another future governor who was also a Confederate prisoner of war. But I’ve gotten ahead of myself.
Henry Crapo (R) was mayor of Flint, he had a successful lumber business there. As governor (1865 — 1868), Crapo vetoed twenty “bills that would have authorized municipal assistance to railroads.”
Gov. Henry Porter Baldwin (R, 1869 — 1872) definitely strikes me as someone quite unlike Gov. Engler. During Baldwin’s tenure,
a state public school for dependent children was established; construction for a new state capitol was authorized; relief aid for the victims of the 1871 forest fires was secured; and a series of improvements were slated for the state's penal, reformatory and charitable institutions.
Under Gov. John Bagley (R, 1873 — 1876), the Michigan militia was reorganized as the Michigan National Guard.
Like Crapo, Bagley was also a successful businessman. Before Detroit was the auto capital, it had the dubious honor of being the chewing tobacco capital because of Bagley’s Mayflower Tobacco Company.
At least one street in a Michigan city is named after Bagley: Bagley Avenue runs from downtown Detroit to Corktown and Mexicantown (it is interrupted by Interstate 75, though at least pedestrians can take the Bagley Pedestrian Bridge).
The NGA credits Gov. David Jerome (R, 1881 — 1883) with the founding of the Travers City State Hospital for the Insane. It was not one of the mental hospitals Gov. Engler closed a couple of decades ago (its doors were shut towards the end of Gov. Blanchard’s tenure).
I still don’t exactly know what it means that Gov. Josiah Begole (1883 — 1884) was a “Democrat (Fusionist).” The NGA says nothing about that.
Gov. Alger (R, 1885 — 1886) signed into law the Michigan legislature’s bill to create the Michigan Soldiers Home in Grand Rapids. It was completed and dedicated just a couple of days before Alger stepped down.
Gov. Edwin Baruch Winans (D, 1891 — 1892) instituted the “secret Australian ballot,” and other election reform bills. I had to look up that term, didn’t know what it is.
Today we take things like voting booths ballot folders for granted. The idea that men should be able to keep their votes secret is a relatively new one that started in Australia in the 1850s, hence the term “Australian ballot.”
Of course this also applies to American women once the United States recognized their right to vote. But that’s a lesson Trump and Trump Jr. did not learn prior to 2016.
Gov. John Tyler Rich (R, 1893 — 1897) sounds more like today’s Republicans. According to the NGA, during Rich’s “tenure, a railroad strike, as well as an iron mine strike was dealt with.” Dealt with? An ominous choice of words that’s actually an euphemism for sending in state troops.
While Rich was governor, Hazen Pingree was mayor of Detroit at a time when unemployment in the city was up. The Republican instituted a public works program and used vacant lots as potato farms, auctioning off his saddle horses to raise money for that project. I emphasize Pingree was a Republican.
Pingree did have some hubris. For one thing, he tried to be mayor of Detroit and governor of Michigan at the same, as terrible an idea today as it was back then, though for different reasons.
It wasn’t until the Michigan Supreme Court ruled Pingree couldn’t hold both positions that he stepped down as mayor, succeeded in that post by William Richert.
Pingree was disappointed to see that Richert was not mayor for long, quickly replaced by William Cotter Maybury. Dan Austin writes for HistoricDetroit.org that
Saying Pingree and Maybury were mortal enemies is an understatement: They hated and loathed each other. ... Pingree had hand-picked a GOP successor, Capt. Albert E. Stewart, as his candidate, perhaps hoping that he could control him from Lansing. ... Maybury won easily and spent seven years in City Hall with Pingree roaring obscenities at him from Lansing.
From the NGA bio:
During [Pingree’s] tenure [as governor], the direct election of U.S. senators was promoted; an eight-hour workday was endorsed; a regulated income tax was supported; and railroad taxation was advocated.
The next governor was much less colorful. The NGA bio credits Gov. Bliss (R, 1901 — 1904) with another soldiers’ home in Grand Rapids. The railroad taxation that was “advocated” under Pingree was “sanctioned” under Bliss.
The railroad and insurance industries got more regulatory scrutiny under Gov. Fred Warner (R, 1905 — 1910). Looks like old Republicans set up a lot of regulations today’s Republicans want to dismantle. But of course now they usually blame Democrats for those regulations.
Gov. Osborn (R, 1911 — 1912) eliminated the state’s budget deficit and signed workmen’s compensation into law. His 1910 campaign used the newfangled automobiles.
Osborn also wrote books. His autobiography, The Iron Hunter, will be reprinted by Wayne State University Press next year (it’s currently available as an eBook).
Gov. Woodbridge Ferris (D, 1913 — 1916) also “dealt with” a mine strike, specifically the copper mine strike in the Upper Peninsula. The Michigan State Police was founded under Gov. Albert Sleeper (R, 1917 — 1920), but I’m guessing it was still up to the Michigan National Guard to “deal with” mine strikes.
I’m starting to get suspicious that only Republican governors get streets named after them. Groesbeck Highway, M-97, which starts in Detroit just south of Eight Mile Road and ends about a mile shy of 21 Mile Road, is named after Gov. Alexander Groesbeck (R, 1921 — 1926).
The workmen’s compensation law was fine-tuned under Gov. Fred Green (R, 1927 — 1930), and appropriations to build state hospitals were approved.
Michigan first instituted a sales tax under Gov. William Comstock (D, 1933 — 1934), at 3%. It was raised to 4% in 1961 and to 6% in 1994. There was a recent proposal to raise it to 7% in order to fund badly needed road repairs, but it went nowhere.
Gov. Frank Murphy (D, 1937 — 1938) also “dealt with” strikes, though these were not at mines, and he did not send in troops. According to History.com,
Despite GM’s enormous political clout, Michigan Governor Frank Murphy refused to use force to break the strike. Though the sit-ins were illegal, he believed, he also believed that authorizing the National Guard to break the strike would be an enormous mistake. “If I send those soldiers right in on the men,” he said, “there’d be no telling how many would be killed.” As a result, he declared, “The state authorities will not take sides. They are here only to protect the public peace.”
Meanwhile, President Roosevelt urged GM to recognize the union so that the plants could reopen. In mid-February, the automaker signed an agreement with the UAW. Among other things, the workers were given a 5 percent raise and permission to speak in the lunchroom.
Frank Dwight Fitzgerald (R) was not the first Michigan governor to serve non-consecutive terms, but he was more like U. S. President Grover Cleveland (D) in that there was only one intervening office holder between his two terms (whereas there were three governors in between Barry’s second and third terms).
Luren Dickinson (R) had been lieutenant governor for both Democrat and Republican governors. The Twelfth Amendment to the U. S. Constitution, which was ratified in 1804, meant that the U. S. president and vice president had to be of the same party. The concept of running mates would not come to Michigan politics until much later.
So it was only when Fitzgerald died in 1939 that Dickinson finally became governor. The next year, Dickinson appointed Matilda Dodge Wilson (R) to be his lieutenant governor, making her the first woman to hold the position (there would be another woman lieutenant governor before the first woman governor, both Democrats).
Gov. Murray Van Wagoner was another Democrat who had to “deal with” a strike, but I can’t quite find any information about it. And, in a confusing coincidence, his lieutenant governor was a man named Frank Murphy, a different man than the governor between Fitzgerald’s two terms.
But if you only remember one detail from Van Wagoner’s NGA bio, I would prefer it be one of these:
During his tenure, a 27 million dollar deficit was eliminated; the state mental hospital was reinstated; a consolidated tax collection department was established; ... the Michigan civil service system was reorganized; and measures were secured for the war effort.
Teacher salaries were improved under Gov. G. Mennen Williams (D, 1949 — 1960).
Romney (R, 1963 — 1969) was the last governor to have a lieutenant governor of a different party: Democrat T. John Lesinski was lieutenant governor for Romney's first term, and was replaced by Republican William Milliken, who himself went on to become governor.
Romney resigned as governor to be Nixon’s Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.
Perhaps Gov. Milliken (1969 — 1982) was the last great Republican to be governor of Michigan. From his NGA bio:
He was the principal leader of the state GOP and a national force in the moderate wing of the Republican Party. His bipartisan, alliance-building style led him to court labor, occassionally [sic] appoint Democrats to state jobs, and support pro-choice legislation on abortion. Milliken led the state during a conflict-ridden era that frequently tested his ability as a crisis manager, including the General Motors strike of 1970, two Arab oil embargoes, contamination of the food chain with the toxic chemical PBB, and a controversy surrounding the state mental health system. He was admired for a firmness of conviction on issues that mattered greatly to him, such as the responsibility of government to cities, the arts, the environment, and the poor. The state revenue-sharing program that helped Detroit during troubled economic times was adopted largely through Milliken's efforts. His administration was noted for its commitment to conservation and the passage of the Environmental Protection Act of 1970, which served as a model legislation throughout the nation; the budget stabilization fund and efforts at economic development; and, in the last days of his term, worker and unemployment compensation reforms and enactment of a transportation package.
Thanks to gerrymandering, the Tea Party lunatics and the so-called conservative Christians have been able to purge sane Republicans like Milliken out of the party. There are still a few good people in the Republican Party, but they are more and more coming to realize they’re really Democrats now.
The more recent governors
Maybe I've met Gov. Jim Blanchard (D, 1983 — 1990), I can't remember for sure. I’ve definitely met Gov. John Engler (R, 1991 — 2002), and even had the chance to ask him a question.
I don't remember what my question was, but I do remember thinking it was a simple, innocent question needing just a nice, short answer. But somehow, in answering, Engler made several pivots and for some reason mentioned Martin Luther King, Jr.
I doubt Rev. King would have been impressed by anything Engler did in office. Tax cuts for the wealthy and for big business, closing down mental hospitals despite increasing need, etc.
And on his final day in office, Engler pettily vetoed the Detroit Area Regional Transportation Authority (DARTA) bill despite bipartisan support. Some say Engler was pissed off about the failure of his charter school plan.
Comparing the Blanchard and Engler bios on the NGA website it’s very clear the NGA is biased towards Republicans. Blanchard’s bio seems flattering enough, but it leaves the impression that Blanchard was an accomplished man who accomplished nothing in his eight years as governor.
However, the NGA does seem to be fair towards Gov. Jennifer Granholm (D, 2003 — 2010):
During her tenure as governor, Granholm was also faced with the loss of manufacturing jobs in Michigan, most significantly in the automobile industry. She addressed the problem by successfully promoting a plan to both provide education and training for unemployed and displaced workers and diversify Michigan’s economy by attracting renewable energy companies to the state.
Following his 2008 election to the presidency during one of the worst economic crises in American history, Barack Obama selected Granholm to become a member of his economic advisory team.
The NGA website understandably does not yet have a “during his tenure” paragraph for Gov. Snyder. I could write it, but they wouldn’t like it.
“Right to work” and Flint. No progress on fixing the roads. And several other things. Perhaps the only good thing about Snyder is getting a badly needed, publicly owned new Detroit-Windsor bridge started.
But that’s more because the Canadians are bending over backwards to make it happen, and it still faces tough opposition from the Morouns, who, in their short-sighted greed, fail to see that they too need the “government bridge.”
The next governor
Neither Lt. Gov. Brian Calley (R) not Attorney General Bill Schuette (R) are anything like the celebrated Republican governors of the past. Anyone who honestly expects either of them to turn out anything like Milliken would be sorely disappointed.
But neither of them should be allowed that opportunity to disappoint. Any of the Democrats, even the young and inexperienced Kentiel White would be a far better choice for the next governor of Michigan.
The presumptive favorite of the Democrats right now is Gretchen Whitmer, but there is a lot of interest in Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, M.D. Or who knows, maybe El-Sayed becomes Whitmer's running mate and then the Democratic Party decides that running Dana Nessel for attorney general is a good idea after all...