How 1 lost election changed Michigan governor candidate Bill Schuette

May 25--MIDLAND -- Radiating transparent ambition.

In a hurry to move up to a higher office.

Those sound like the taunts Attorney General Bill Schuette's opponents are hurling at the veteran Republican politician during his current campaign for Michigan governor.

In reality, they're assessments Schuette made of himself, looking back on his time in Congress in the 1980s.

"While I worked hard on the issues, I didn't work hard enough to build relationships," Schuette, 63, of Midland wrote in his 2015 book, "Big Lessons from a Small Town."

"My transparent ambition turned off a lot of my fellow House members ... (but) I didn't much care. I was trying to survive, trying to climb higher and didn't recognize that not all ladders actually lead up."

After three terms in the U.S. House, Schuette opted in 1990 to take on two-term U.S. Sen. Carl Levin and was soundly defeated by the Detroit Democrat, who would remain in office until his retirement at the end of 2014.

It was the only election Schuette ever lost.

Opponents like Lt. Gov. Brian Calley, who has accused Schuette of misusing his office for campaign and personal purposes, say it was a momentary setback for Schuette's burning political ambition, in a lifetime of feeding from the public trough.

But Schuette says it was a cataclysmic re-awakening that forever changed his approach to public service. From then on, it was about "relearning how to build relationships, to legislate and to lead by serving first -- listening hard to the people around me, not to my own ambition."

Which version of events voters embrace will help determine whether Schuette adds the title "governor" to earlier posts of congressman, state cabinet member, state senator, Michigan Court of Appeals judge and attorney general.

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Schuette has made tax cuts and promises of Michigan population and job growth centerpieces of his gubernatorial campaign. He says no other candidate has the experience and winning policies that he does.

Former state Senate Majority Leader Dan DeGrow, a Port Huron Republican, spent eight years in the Senate with Schuette. Though the two are not close friends, Schuette has kept in touch with DeGrow since both left office because of term limits at the end of 2002.

"I don't think he's stayed in touch with me just because I would be useful to him," said DeGrow, who retired a year ago as superintendent of a Port Huron-area intermediate school district. "He's genuine on a personal level."

Making those types of personal connections helps explain why Schuette has received endorsements from not just President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, but from 47 state lawmakers, three Michigan congressmen, 43 county sheriffs and the Michigan Chamber of Commerce, among others.

In his eighth year as Michigan's top law enforcement officer, Schuette counts victim rights and human trafficking among his signature issues -- helping to secure funding to test thousands of abandoned rape kits in Detroit and setting up a special unit in his office to prosecute human traffickers.

He has drawn both praise and criticism for the way he has handled criminal investigations of the Flint water crisis and former MSU sports doctor Larry Nassar, as well as his lengthy, costly, and unsuccessful fight against same-sex marriage, which was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2015.

DeGrow said much of the criticism leveled at Schuette is unfair.

"I've heard the charge he'll do anything to get elected," he said, but "I don't think that's true. He certainly wants to get elected, or why run?"

DeGrow noted Schuette, who inherited valuable stock in Dow Chemical Co., where his father and stepfather were top officials, doesn't need the paycheck or the aggravation associated with holding public office.

"When did ambition become a crime?" DeGrow asked. "The guy could just go do whatever he wanted, but he wants to go do public service. There has to be some nobility in there, somewhere. The guy doesn't need this job."

Schuette, the youngest of three children, was born in the mid-Michigan town of Midland, where his father, Bill, had already risen to a seat on the Dow board of directors when he died of a heart attack at age 47. Young Bill was only 6.

Schuette has said he feared subconsciously he couldn't surpass his father's accomplishments in business and his drive to succeed in politics was likely a way for him to leave a mark in another way that would have made his father proud.

Schuyler Landis Williams, whose father was also a Dow executive in Midland, remembers teaching young "Billy" to swim when she worked as a lifeguard at the Midland Country Club.

"He was a beautiful child" whose father "died too young," Williams, 74, now a retired attorney living in Florida, told the Free Press.

"Midland was a fairy tale to grow up in," especially for children of wealthy Dow executives, Williams said. Unlike most other cities with fewer than 40,000 people, Midland had cultural institutions such as an arts center and a symphony orchestra, due largely to the philanthropy of Dow and its corporate leaders.

At the same time, those who had money didn't flaunt their wealth and Williams and her siblings attended Midland public schools, just as Bill Schuette and his two sisters did.

Williams also got to know Schuette when he was a young adult. She was attending the University of San Francisco Law School when Schuette began studies there and she let him stay in an extra room in the apartment she shared with her boyfriend until Schuette found his own place, she said.

"He was not quiet, he was also not boisterous," Williams said. "He was a middle-of-the-road nice guy."

Schuette, who had earlier earned a bachelor's degree from Georgetown University, graduated from law school in 1979.

The same year he graduated from law school, Schuette managed future President George H. W. Bush's Florida primary campaign before Bush signed on as Ronald Reagan's running mate in the 1980 presidential election. Those were the early days of a long, close relationship between Schuette and the Bush family, which culminated in Schuette chairing former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush's Michigan campaign in 2016.

Schuette made his first run for Congress in 1984, when he unseated Don Albosta, a popular Democratic incumbent from the Saginaw area. Schuette won by just over 1,000 votes -- his narrowest victory in any election since.

From that first campaign up until today, "he's covered the state like a blanket," said U.S. Rep. Fred Upton, R-St. Joseph, whose lengthy service in Congress overlaps with Schuette's last four years there.

"Bill and I both voted against cloning," said Upton, who is not making an endorsement in the governor's race. "We probably both regret that, because you can't be in two places at the same time, and he would probably try to do that. He leaves no stone unturned."

Almost nobody thought Schuette could beat Levin in 1990, and Upton said he remembers Schuette's U.S. Senate campaign as an example of "taking one for the team," rather than an act of hubris, as Schuette remembers it.

Dave Camp, who is the same age as Schuette, grew up next door to him in Midland and in 1990 was elected to the seat Schuette occupied in Congress, where Camp served until the end of 2014. The two are lifelong friends.

"His optimism, determination and focus I think have really helped him and would be helpful attributes as governor," said Camp, who still lives in Midland but is now a PricewaterhouseCoopers managing director affiliated with the firm's Washington, D.C., office.

After the 1990 loss, Schuette returned home, married Midland native and then-Grand Rapids TV anchor Cynthia Grebe, and in 1991 was appointed by newly elected Republican Gov. John Engler to head the Michigan Department of Agriculture.

The couple has two grown children: daughter Heidi, 25, and son Bill, 22.

Cynthia Schuette said she first cast eyes on her future husband when she was about 5 and riding her bicycle around her Midland neighborhood with her dad. The Schuettes were relocating to a newly built home and she wanted to find out whether her new neighbor would be in her kindergarten class, she said.

After learning Bill was a year behind her, she wrote him off for the next 32 years, until he started asking her out when she worked as a TV anchorwoman in Flint, and later Grand Rapids, she said.

"When we were first dating, he would call me three times a day," she said. "He still calls me frequently, even to say, 'I'm coming down our street and I'm on my way home.' "

Schuette's time in the Engler cabinet would prove to be a brief break from campaigning. He ran for an open state Senate seat in 1994, and won again.

"Some people were shocked that anyone would go from the U.S. Congress -- "The Show" -- to our state Legislature in Lansing, but I saw it as another pathway to service and maybe 'a shot at redemption,' as Paul Simon once sang," Schuette said in his 2015 book.

DeGrow remembers Schuette as a hardworking senator who could generally be counted on in a crunch, such as in 1997 when DeGrow, as majority floor leader, was responsible for rounding up GOP votes for a 4-cent-per-gallon gas tax increase and higher truck registration fees, backed by Engler.

Schuette, who has since signed the Americans for Tax Reform pledge not to raise taxes, voted yes, DeGrow recalled.

There's no question Schuette has shifted to the right since his days in the Senate, DeGrow said. Because of the way political lines are drawn, primary elections increasingly determine who holds office and "both parties have moved away from the center," DeGrow said.

For Republicans and Democrats respectively, "I don't think you can get elected, unless you've moved to the right or the left -- it's the reality."

Where DeGrow sees practical politics, Schuette's opponents see a history of shifting with the political winds, on issues ranging from abortion to support for Trump.

On abortion, Calley cites a 1984 story in The Detroit News, during Schuette's first campaign for Congress, that quoted him as saying the decision "is best made between the parties involved and their medical and religious advisers." Schuette, who, like Calley, is endorsed by Right to Life of Michigan, told the Free Press in 1990 he has consistently voted against abortion rights, the 1984 quote was taken out of context, and he was referring only to abortions in the cases of rape, incest and danger to a woman's life. Schuette did say in the July 6, 1990, Free Press article that he didn't believe there should be an abortion "litmus test" for Supreme Court justices.

On Trump, Calley has pointed to comments Schuette made in 2016, such as a May 4 Free Press article in which Schuette said he considered remarks Trump had made about Hispanics and Mexicans "deplorable."

But Schuette is correct when he constantly reminds voters it was Calley, not him, who renounced his endorsement of Trump in October 2016.

Critics point to other apparent inconsistencies in Schuette's record as attorney general.

In the same-sex marriage fight, where the state ultimately had to pay $1.9 million in legal fees rung up by the Michigan couple who sued for the right to marry, plus the state's own legal fees, Schuette said he was only defending the state's constitutional same-sex marriage ban, as approved by voters in 2004.

But Schuette has also withdrawn his attorneys from state legal fights when he has wanted to, telling Gov. Rick Snyder in 2016 that he would have to get his own attorneys if he wanted to continue fighting court orders requiring the state to return more than $550 million deducted from the pay of school employees to fund retiree health care.

And this month, Schuette appealed a court ruling declaring unconstitutional the Michigan Legislature's appropriation of funds for private schools, despite the fact another voter-approved amendment to the Michigan Constitution is fairly explicit in saying public funds should not be used to support private schools "directly or indirectly."

Democrats charge that in pursuing the private school funding issue in court, Schuette is kowtowing to the powerful DeVos family of western Michigan, whose members have been major donors to Schuette and other Michigan Republicans and support public funding of private schools. Betsy DeVos, a former chair of the Michigan Republican Party, is education secretary in the Trump administration.

In 2017, Schuette did a product endorsement on his Facebook page for 5-Hour Energy, a caffeine drink made by a Michigan-based company whose founder's companies have been significant donors to Republican funds, including funds connected with Schuette.

"Every once in a while you need a little pick-me-up -- and a proper pick-me-up," Schuette said in the Facebook video, standing outside a party store. "And what I like is ... 5-hour Energy."

Some experts have cited possible health concerns with caffeine drinks, including 5-Hour Energy, and in Michigan the Attorney General's Office has responsibility for consumer protection. Also, attorneys general in several other states -- but not Michigan -- have sued the makers of 5-Hour Energy in recent years, alleging misleading advertising.

Given all of that, the Free Press asked Schuette whether it was appropriate for him to post his endorsement on Facebook.

"I was having fun," said Schuette, who added that he did a similar spot about Cabela's, the store where he said he buys his ammunition for hunting trips.

"I think it's a great Michigan entity and I want Michigan entities to prosper, small and large."

The Free Press reported in December that Schuette has filled several civil service posts in his office with Republican campaign operatives in advance of the gubernatorial election, despite the fact civil service rules require that political affiliations not be a factor in hiring considerations.

Calley has criticized Schuette over those hires, paid for with taxpayer funds, as well as recent revelations that Schuette has used staff in his office to notarize and witness legal documents related to personal real estate transactions.

"From using taxpayer funds to pay for campaign field staff to using state employees to execute millions of dollars in offshore real estate deals while on the taxpayers' time, Bill Schuette repeatedly used the Attorney General's Office for personal and political gain," Calley campaign spokesman Michael Schrimpf said Tuesday.

Schuette has accused Calley of desperation and distortions, motivated by the fact he is trailing by significant margins in public opinion polls.

Schuette supporters such as Bill Abbatt, a Southfield patent attorney, say they are not swayed by the charges and countercharges being exchanged in what has become a nasty Republican campaign.

For Abbatt, who has gotten to know Schuette over the last eight to 10 years after meeting him at fund-raisers and various other functions, it's the personal connection that makes the difference.

"We have had a number of one-on-one conversations over the years," Abbatt said.

"He looks you in the eye. He's not periodically looking over your shoulder and past you to see who he can speak with next."

Contact Paul Egan: 517-372-8660 or [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @paulegan4.

Bill Schuette on the issues

Roads: Wants more and lengthier warranties on road construction projects, with improved performance guarantees. Favors stretching the way road dollars are used so more miles get paved with the same amount of money. Would abolish Michigan's prevailing wage law -- which requires union rates on most government jobs --and plow savings into roads.

Auto insurance: Would crack down on insurance fraud. Stop frivolous lawsuits. Says he would use his legislative experience to get a compromise plan through the Legislature. Wouldn't say whether he would support a cap on catastrophic medical claims covered by auto insurance.

School safety: Advocates use of his department's OK2SAY program, designed, in part, to head off tragedies before they happen by allowing students and others to confidentially report safety threats. Favors improved mental health care. Says arming specially trained teachers and/or other staff should be considered.

Pension tax: Would eliminate tax on pension income while reducing personal income tax rate to 3.9% from 4.25%.

Legalized marijuana: Opposes legalized recreational use of marijuana but says he would respect the will of voters in a referendum.

Medicaid work requirement: Supports it. "This Medicaid work requirement is the welfare reform of the 21st Century," he said.

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