Cover Story

Jennifer Granholm

BORN: Feb. 5, 1959, in Vancouver, British

Colombia, Canada

RESIDENCE: Northville

FAMILY: Husband Dan Mulhern and three children,
Kate, 12; Cecelia, 10; and Jack, almost 5

EDUCATION: Phi Beta Kappa graduate, University
of California at Berkeley, bachelor's in political
science; honors graduate, Harvard Law School,
Cambridge, Mass.

PUBLIC SERVICE: Wayne County corporation counsel,
started 1994; attorney general of Michigan, 1998

WEB SITE: www.granholmforgov.com

ccording to Jennifer Granholm, Michigan's
attorney general and gubernatorial candi-
date, people want to move forward and
they want to see change.
"When somebody has grown up in an organiza-
tion, it is difficult to see ou t side the walls, to see
what's possible," she said, referring to her
Democratic primary opponents, former Michigan
Gov. Jim Blanchard and U.S. Rep. David Bonior.
"For people who have been politicians for a long
time, or who have been in big government for a
long time, sometimes you have a tendency to fall
back on what has always been done," she said.
That's why Granholm's candidacy appears to be
resonating with voters, including Jewish leaders who
once gave their support to Blanchard; Granholm
believes she can bring a new perspective to the job
of governor of Michigan.
"The Jewish community really wants a candidate
progressive on social issues and moderate on eco-
nomic issues," she said.
"Many people in Michigan feel that way, but the
history of the Jewish community is one to stand up
and fight for people's civil rights, having been victim-
ized themselves. When they see a candidate able to
articulate that progressivity on social issues as well as
a responsible economic message, I think they rally."
A defining moment in Granholm's life happened
when she was working with Amnesty International
in France, part of her junior year in college. The
organization sent her on a two-week trip to Moscow,
where she met a Jewish family trying to immigrate
to Israel.
"They were living in a tiny cramped apartment,
talking not just about how they were denied jobs,
but [how] when they applied for their visa to Israel,
family members were taken away and beaten," she
said. "It was such an amazing experience. They were
living in absolute fear and all they wanted to do was

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leave. It was a revolutionary experience for me, very
profound."
Meeting this family made Granholm want to be
someone who fights for people who have no voice.
She said she supports missions to Israel and was all
set to go on a Jewish Community Council of
Metropolitan Detroit-sponsored trip with other
Michigan legislators about 1V2 years ago, before the
U.S. State Department called off travel to the region.
"I love organizations like Seeds of Peace, and I
think the state could support other groups like that
where you start young to build bridges," she said.
"It's important to stand up for our friends. I think
that Israel has been a friend and we [in Michigan]
have been a friend to Israel."
Her stance on social issues like prayer in school, a
woman's right to choose and separation of church
and state is the same as Blanchard's, but her youth-
fulness is why some in the Jewish community have
thrown their support her way.
"We are a small minority in this country and we
need to make sure our civil liberties are protected,"
said Emery Klein, a longtime community leader and
Democratic Party supporter from Southfield. "We
need someone young and energetic who can win,
and she can win."

Jennifer
Granholm

photo by Krista Husa

Outlining The Issues

Education
Granholm is against school tuition vouchers. She
said almost 90 percent of the schools in Michigan
are public schools, and that's where the resources
should go. Vouchers only siphon money away from
the public school system.
"If people want to send their child to private
school, it's great. But I don't think the taxpayers
should have to pay for that," she said. "I'd love to
see a change in tone toward public education, to
have folks involved in public education who are val-
ued rather than kicked in the teeth."
Granholm wants to promote magnet schools with-
in school districts that specialize in different areas of
study. She also would propose to expand the
Michigan Education Trust to save tuition costs.
Mental Health
The mental health system is "in shambles," she said,
and Wayne County is about to explode.
"We are going to see a huge catastrophe in a few
months," she said. "The reimbursement to the
county has been chopped up and there has been no
ability to place people in treatment. We've seen all
these facilities shut down. People view mental health
and physical health as separate, but that's not neces-
sarily the case at all."
Detroit
Detroit is "the last industrial city-state to not have
renovated its urban core," she said. "Our young peo-
ple are moving to Chicago and other hip cities
because there's no place for them to go here.
"We end up subsidizing sprawl and allowing all
the development in green space, and we have not
given market-based incentives for developers to real-
ly consume the greatest resource that Detroit has,
which is vacant land."
She said an effort should be made to turn over the
abandoned parcels to people who can use it produc-
tively, including developers who can create neigh-
borhoods. "Providing economic incentives for peo-
ple to develop in, rather than build out, is critical,
and I'd love to see Detroit create itself in a way that
inspires young people to come live there."
Lansing
From Granholm's view as attorney general, Lansing is
rancorous and acrimonious. "It's such a waste of human
talent," she said. "People are spending all this energy on
trying to get the other party, not how to serve."
That won't be Granholm's style.
"We are going to serve, and serve in the most
streamlined and straightest line you can imagine. I
am the most impatient person you will ever meet,"
she said. "The whole Lansing scene has been a sur-
prising and novel experience and I think it needs an
entirely different perspective brought to bear."

