MICHIGAN: Riding for a Fall

Michigan's ex-cowboy Governor Kim Sigler had been grabbing for leather ever since he first rode triumphantly into the state capital 15 months ago. While voters grumbled that he had fallen flat on his campaign promises, his own Republican state legislature bucked off every reform proposal like an unbroken pony with a burr under the saddle. Last week, on the final night of a wild & woolly special session, Kim Sigler dug in the spurs.

Stalking into a joint session of both houses, he raked into the hides of "certain obstructionists" who had stampeded his program. They had ignored his plan to increase the terms of state officials from two to four years and his proposed constitutional amendment to reorganize the state's 100-odd commissions, boards and bureaus under tight executive control.

Cried Sigler: "As it stands now, the only constitutional amendment I have to submit to the people is one to raise your salaries ... I am going to do the only thing that is left for me to do and that is to appeal to the people." He would start immediately, he warned, collecting petitions to place his reorganization program on the ballot next November.

By the time Sigler had finished, the legislature was seething with charges and countercharges. Rising up with accusing finger, State Senator William Vandenberg* shouted at his colleagues: "You are the men who killed the governor's program because of your vindictiveness." Snapped one of the accused: "I don't want him, you can have him, he's two-faced for me."

This week, as Kim Sigler flew south for a ten-day Florida vacation, it seemed that he would have little trouble collecting the 167,000 signatures he needed. But if Michigan Republicans could not get together behind him—and the Democrats could patch up their own internal feuding—there was a good chance that he would not be around to ride herd again after the November elections.