4A - Wednesday, January 6, 2010
The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
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JACOB SMILOVITZ
EDITOR IN CHIEF
RACHEL VAN GILDER
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR
MATT AARONSON
MANAGING EDITOR
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Rachel Van Gilder
Editorial Page Editor
erry Christmas, people of
Michigan. This is your par-
ents, the state government.
We've decided that
your New Year's
Resolution this
year will be to quit
smoking, and to "
that end, we pres-
ent your Christmas
present: astatewide
smoking ban in all
work places, minus
a few pesky exemp- ROBERT
tions, like cigar bars SOAVE
and smoking spe-
cialty shops. And,
oh yeah, Detroit's
three casinos. But all you smaller, more
vulnerable establishments, well, you
justhave to kick the habit.
Don't balk, dear readers, at this
patronizing tone. Now that the smok-
ing ban has Gov. Jennifer Granholm's
signature on it, the state has officially
taken on the role of the morality police.
And as lawmakers tread down the slip-
pery slope of regulating public health,
the biggest losers are private property
and individual rights.
After years of fighting over which
businesses to exempt, legislators
finally passed a statewide workplace
smoking ban that was signed into law
by Granholm on Dec. 18. In 4 press
release touting the bill's final approv-
al, the governor's office repeated the
misleading mantra of ban proponents,
claiming the ban "will make Michigan
the 38th state to ban smoking in public
places." But smoking is already prohib-
ited in most public places in Michigan.
And now it is private property owners
that, for the first time, will be required
to prohibit smoking.
This misconception stems from
state policymakers' gross misunder-
standing of the definitions of the words
"public" and "private." Their view, it
would seem, is that the private/public
designation depends upon the function
of the property, and if a building is open
to the public it is a public place. But
this is fundamentally flawed - private
property is private property no matter
what its owner uses it for or who is per-
mitted to enter.
In fact, a private place is simply
one that is owned by a private citizen,
whereas a public place is one that is
owned by some unit of government, be
it local, state or federal. The terms have
nothing to do with the number or type
of people that inhabit a certain space.
Nor does it matter what the space is
being used for. A restaurant or bar is
a private place in the same way that a
house is a private place. Police build=
ings, courthouses, state parks, etc., are
public places. Itis the ownership alone
that determines whether property is
public or private.
Because public property is govern-
ment owned, the state may prohibit
smoking in public places. Smoking
is already prohibited in most public
buildings - the University of Michigan
for example, banned smoking indoors
years ago, and in July 2011, will extend
the ban to include outdoor spaces as
well. This extension of the University's
ban is ill-advised for several reasons
- foremost, perhaps, that the Univer-
sity administration should not require
its students to make certain lifestyle
choices - but at least University prop-
erty is public space. The private prop-
erty of Michigan's restaurant and bar
owners, on the other hand, is not pub-
lic space, no matter how loudly (and
incorrectly) Granholm and state legis-
lators assert that it is.
Permitting the state government to
dictate whatsort of behavior is accept-
able on privately-owned property is
reckless and dangerous. Why not ban
smoking in people's homes as well?
It is not only in the workplace that
non-smokers encounter secondhand
smoke. While we're at it, why should
the smokers be allowed to suffer from
their bad habit? Certainly it follows
logically that if a healthier public is
the end goal, and the governmenthas a
right to intervene in individual behav-
ior in both privately-owned space
and publicly-owned space, smoking
should simply be banned completely
across the entire state.
And yet most people will recognize
that this would be too far for the gov-
ernment to go - that the government
has no right to compel healthy behav-
ior from its citizens. This is because
some people would rather engage in
an activity that they find pleasurable
(like smoking) even if it's bad for them.
But permitting the government to ban
smoking on private property is a bold
step inundermining both the right and
the ability of people to live their lives
the way they wantto.
The state shouldn't
dictate people's
private behavior.
While proponents of a ban cling
to numerous falsehoods, I'll touch
on just one more. It's absurd to claim
that restaurants and bars will benefit
economically from the enactment of
the smoking ban. If banning smoking
was beneficial for an establishment,
the establishment would prohibit
smoking on its own, as many bars
and restaurants across the state have
already done. But that's the owner's
call, not the government's. After all,
who understands the business better:
the owner whose life and livelihood
depend on it - who has likely spent
years improving it and is inextricably
linked to its success - or a bunch of
Lansing bureaucrats?
I say this every time I write a col-
umn against smoking bans, but I'll
say it again: I am not a smoker. I'm
not looking out for myself here. But an
important principal is at stake here.
With regard to private property and
personal behavior, lawmakers should
butt out.
- Robert Soave was the Daily's
editorial page editor in 2009. He can
be reached at rsoave@umich.edu.
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WANT TO BE AN OPINION CARTOONIST?
E-MAIL RACHEL VAN GILDER AT RACHELVG@UMICH.EDU
ALEX SCHIFF |
The federal filibuster flunk
Investing in ethics
This country's political system has officially
become more dysfunctional than the Thanks-
giving dinners of many American families.
And while watching our leaders attempt to fix
this country's health care system isn't quite as
depressing as listening to NFL commentators
ask, "Why do they still allow the Lions to play on
Thanksgiving?" year after year, it's pretty close.
I'm holding out for the day Mitch McConnell
challenges Harry Reid to a duel with pistols at
dawn, televised on C-SPAN - no, ESPN - and
sponsored by Budweiser.
In fact, this could be an improvement. At least
we would have finally acknowledged that poli-
tics has become less about improving our nation
and more about winning partisan points. It's this
growing polarization of American politics that
has paralyzed policymaking. One of the most
controversial things about the current health
care bill is that it forces insurance companies to
actually provide health care to people who pay
for it. For the most part, this bill is an expansion
of a bloated, subpar patchwork of public and pri-
vate insurers and providers - a bill I half support
because of what it could accomplish, and half dis-
dain for what it could have done and didn't. Yet,
somehow this incremental effort at reform has
been transformed into the decisive battle in the
war against socialism, communism and fascism
all at the same time.
If it were up to me, political parties would be
banned outright and all levels of government
would be dissolved. In my utopian society, all dis-
putes would be settled via steel cage death match.
It would be quicker and more effective than the
dysfunctional, polarized system we're currently
forced to endure. Unfortunately, if Democrats
can barely pass the reforms on which they were
elected with a filibuster-proof majority, I don't
have much hope for Congress implementing my
model of governance.
Luckily, I have a Plan B: get rid of the filibus-
ter. I've come to the conclusion that this archaic
rule is one of the greatest contributing factors to
the crippling inertia of the legislative branch. At
first, I thought the filibuster was written into the
Constitution and thus nearly impossible to elimi-
nate. To my surprise, I found that there is abso-
lutely nothing stopping the abolishment of the
filibuster but the Senate itself, as it is an entirely
self-imposed limitation written into the Senate's
procedural rules. Each party criticizes the other
vehemently when it threatens to use the filibus-
ter but neither will dare dispose of it in case they
need it later.
The common supporting argument for the fili-
buster is that it allows the minority party to pre-
vent the majority party from being too radical in
its legislative pursuits. But in the modern era, the
only thing the filibuster accomplishes is putting
an enormous amount of influence in the hands of
a few senators that feign uncertainty over a bill.
Because a simple majority can't pass legislation
anymore, party leaders have to insert special
provisions and make concessions just to appease
wavering senators.
It wasn't always this way. In the 1950s, there
was an average of one filibuster per year. Accord-
ing to research by political scientist Barbara
Sinclair, threat or actual use of filibusters has
become a staple of the legislative process - grow-
ing from affecting only 8 percent of legislation in
the 1960s to 27 percent in the 1980s and finally
rising to 70 percent since the Democratic take-
over of 2006, when Republicans found them-
selves in the minority.
Hyperpartisanship has made it a political
imperative to oppose all action of the other party.
With the need for a supermajority to move a bill
through each step of the legislative process, the
filibuster ensures that the policies enacted by
Congress will be weak, watered down and full
of frivolous measures to appease senators in the
middle. The system in place is so constrained by
these two factors that the term "representative
democracy" threatens to lose its meaning. If we
can't vote representatives into office that will
enact the policies we want, can we really claim to
have a voice in how we are governed?
Instead of serving the public good, our rep-
resentatives are holding health care for ransom.
When the American people elect a party as a
majority, that majority has a mandate to take
the nation in the direction the people voted.for.
America deserves the change it voted for when
it gave control of both Congress and the White
House to the Democrats. America deserves
democracy that works.
Alex Schiff is an assistant editorial page editor.
Even before incoming freshmen
make their way to Ann Arbor
for the first time, chances
are they've heard
something about
the University's
colossal endow-
ment. At $6 billion,
even after the col-l-fh t
lapse of the stock
market, it's among
the ten biggest
endowments of
any American uni- MATTHEW
versity. In casual GREEN
competition with
friends at. other
schools, I always
enjoy mentioning that fact. Taking
on a somewhat Freudian tone, I occa-
sionally tease, "My endowment is big-
ger than yours," to which my friends
tend to supply some witty repartee.
But recently, one friend pointed
out that, although our endowment
might be huge, some of its compo-
nent investments are really nothing
to brag about. It was something I'd
heard before - the University is con-
stantly under some sort of criticism
about its investments. This time,
however, I felt ignorant about the
issues my friend raised and decided
to look into the matter.
Upon doing so, I was at once sur-
prisedby how extensively the Univer-
sity replied to a vast array of political
and ethical concerns on the webpage
for its Office of Public Affairs. One
could spend hours on that page just
reading about all the individual posi-
tions the University has taken on
social issues, in addition to assorted
policies regarding its investments.
A link entitled "Coca-Cola," for
instance, provides PDF files containing
correspondence between the Univer-
sity's chief financial officer and Coca-
Colaexecutives. Uponreadingthe files,
a remarkable narrative unfolds.
In the past few years, the Uni-
versity became concerned about
certain unethical practices at Coca-
Cola bottling plants in Colombia
and elsewhere. The University's
CFO petitioned Coca-Cola to permit
an investigation by an unaffiliated
organization to explore questionable
labor conditions. These efforts led
to, amongst other things, improved
collective bargaining rights for Coca-
Cola workers, contributing to what I
found to be a history of ethical invest-
ment choices made by the University.
That history started in 1978, when
the University chose to divest from
apartheid South Africa after the Uni-
versity's Board of Regents adopted
a resolution saying that an advisory
committee should be able to evalu-
ate an investment if a serious ethi-
cal issue arises. This clause was also
invoked in 1999, when then-Univer-
sity President Lee Bollinger led a
successful campaign to divest from
companies that profited from the
sale of tobacco. Both these instances
should remain points of pride for us.
Yet, there's always room for
improvement, particularly since the
University invests in hundreds of
companies each year. Take the case
of Nestle, in which the University
invested over $6 million in 2008. The
Swiss foods company has recently
come under fire for a variety of ethi-
cal issues ranging from child labor on
cocoa farms to price fixing to carry-
ing out business with dictatorships.
But what should matter even more
to the University is a little closer to
home.
In Stanwood, Michigan, a small
town near the center of the state, Nes-
tle planned to open a Perrier watei
bottling plant in 2001. Since then, the
plant has been the center of a contro-
versy regarding the environmental
damage caused by the plant's abuse
of a natural aquifer. Other than pro-
viding some employment - which
is admittedly vital in this state - the
plant hurts Michigan by pumping
500,000 gallons of water each day and
destroying established ecosystems.
To be sure, the University's finan-
cial officers probably invested in
Nestle for a variety of good reasons.
Nestle is, after all, among the world's
biggest foods companies. And espe-
cially now, as this state struggles to
keep (let alone create) jobs, Nestle
may appear to be a responsible choice
on account of its continued employ-
ment of Michiganders.
'U' should use its
endowment pull
for social good.
4
4
But if the University could per-
haps turn a blind eye to Nestle's other
unethical actions, it simply cannot
ignore the company's deleterious
effects on Michigan. Rather than
divest, the University ought to chan-
nel its recent history with Coca-Cola
and petition Nestle to make positive
changes to the way its Stanwood
plant affects the environment.
Despite what some may still think,
the University is not an insatiable
Gordon Gekko, intent solely on mak-
ing as much money as possible.
Indeed, it has shown remarkable
ethical care in recent history. But the
University cannot become compla-
cent just because it has done the right
thing in the past. It is the University's
responsibility to make every pos-
sible change for the better. And while
change is sometimes challenging, the
University can take a small baby step
in favor of social justice by reconsid-
ering its investment in Nestle.
- Matthew Green can be
reached at greenmat@umich.edu
The Daily is looking for a diverse group of strong, informed writers to be columnists next
semester. Columnists write 750 words on a topic of their choice every other week.
E-MAIL RACHEL VAN GILDER AT RACHELVG@UMICH.EDU FOR MORE INFORMATION