Lame Ducks Flock to Lansing

Lansing — The recent election flipped some seats in the Michigan legislature and will lead to a change in control, with the Michigan GOP flipping part of the Democrats’ trifecta. The last session of the doomed House majority started last week, and Bobby was on hand to see whether these lame ducks still had any fight left.

From what I saw, the defeat seriously clipped their wings.

Anyone can enter the Michigan Capitol building during regular hours. You can stroll right in, past the metal detectors and smiling state police officers. There’s even an observation deck for the general public to observe legislative sessions. I didn’t see many regular citizens there. A few journalists, maybe, but mostly staffers and interns on laptops, tapping away.

There was at least one cute girl among them, so I started to scheme. Hey, you ladies come here often? Which of these esteemed officials do you work for? Listen, let’s get out of here, I know a great place nearby, etc. Calm down, Bobby, this is a government building, focus on the task at hand. 

One staffer in a suit was on a phone call. He was saying something to the effect of “pull it now, it doesn’t have the votes.” The lame ducks had a slew of legislative items on the agenda for the day, line items the Dems were eager to pass before losing control. Votes were apparently contentious enough that the backroom dealings spilled out into the rotunda, where visitors milled about, school children among them. 

Morale was low, and there’s only one fix for that: food. Staffers traipsed the building with Jimmy John’s sandwiches in hand, trays of beverages, bags of chips. It reminded me of the student protests in Ann Arbor last spring, with their huge trays of fried chicken and pizza. Activists on megaphones, imploring people to help themselves. These people never stop eating! Something about politics always leads to gluttony. 

Legislating is hard work, and these legislators sure had worked up an appetite. After the session opened with the pledge of allegiance, a slew of representatives immediately began digging into various slop-type meals, right on their desks in the chambers. Styrofoam containers filled with shawarma, napkins filled with pretzels and Cheetos, even a plastic container with a salad or two. No chili-filled crock pots or racks of ribs, at least. Half the desks had Starbucks cups on them, by midday presumably filled with lukewarm coffee and milk gone sour. I wonder if a legislator has ever spilled their Venti Frappuccino on the lovely carpet of the House floor. 

Given the portion sizes on display, I wondered whether these legislators had partaken of a certain newly legal herb that graces the Mitten State. A quick search showed at least three dispensaries within walking distance, just in case your elected representative needs to get baked before chowing down on their slop during a legislative session. It sure is boring work; I couldn’t blame them for needing a hit of something. I didn’t smell weed smoke from any of the offices, but rest assured, that’s coming soon, just like every other urban area in the state since legalization.

Legislating is hard work, and they need to be comfy too! Seemed like half the chamber was wearing sneakers, often paired with a full suit. Perturbed by this look, I reached out to Enjoyer’s resident menswear expert O.W. Root for comment: 

“Wearing sneakers with a suit is never good and always bad. Sneakers are already worn far too often in inappropriate settings, and pairing them with a formal suit is jarring to the extreme. It, quite simply, looks ridiculous. It looks like something a fourth grader would wear to a middle-school dance, because his dog ate his nice shoes.”

Couldn’t agree more, Mr. Root. These legislators looked as sloppy as their messy meals. Sneakers should be banned for all elected officials. Forbidden, haram, verboten, anathema, not kosher. What are we even doing? We can take this seriously, or we can play pretend.

The work progressed quickly, with votes coming up with fast announcements, legislators hitting buttons on their desk, votes tallied, onto the next. It was terribly boring, and I was hungry, and I started to understand the plight of elected officials. Is this what being in Congress is like? You’re in D.C. for the biggest vote of your life, and you’re bored, tired, hungry, your feet hurt, you miss your bed and want to go home. Sad!

Some of the legislative desks were decked out with little flags. Anything to punctuate the boredom, I guess. The political equivalent of cheap bumper stickers. One desk had an American flag next to a Gadsden “Don’t Tread On Me” flag. Another had a Gay Pride flag next to an Israeli flag. Which way, Michigan legislator? 

A group of schoolchildren ushered into the viewing gallery. The teacher pointed, “There’s your congressperson!” to a legislator in a far corner. The chamber paused between votes, and the woman running things at the head of the chamber announced the presence of the schoolchildren. The congressman barely had time to wipe the tahini sauce off his face before getting up and waving to them. The children were herded out as quickly as they came. Democracy has its spectacles, and boy do they underwhelm.

I was as bored as the schoolkids, probably more, so I wandered out. I wanted to go visit Gov. Whitmer and thank her for making my job so easy. Sadly, she wasn’t in her stately wood-paneled office, but it was interesting seeing her name on the door, nonetheless. We forget these politicians are real people who work in a real place; they aren’t just phantoms or disembodied spirits on our screens. 

A flurry of texts hit my phone. I thought the Senate had finished that morning, given that the chambers were empty, but apparently there was some last minute hearing in a cloistered anteroom about banning lawful concealed-carry firearms from the Capitol. A young groyper gave his testimony and saw fit to utter a racial epithet, to the shock and horror of the Senate committee, who ended the session abruptly and denounced him on Twitter/X. 

Unfortunately, I missed the episode myself—I certainly don’t sanction his words, but I’d never pass up the opportunity to watch some senators squirm. Given the disrespect the legislators showed to their own chambers, sloppily dressed and gorging themselves while working, it’s no surprise the general public doesn’t treat them with much respect either. Senators, if you respected your own offices more, the public wouldn’t dare utter racial slurs in front of you.

I wandered over to the glass-tiled floor of the rotunda. A pane of glass was cracked, and workers were taping over it to keep it in place. I asked whether this happened often. The worker said, “No, never, but some scaffolding from renovations over the summer cracked it.” A tricky repair, so they tape it for now to keep the shards in place. A more fitting metaphor for the state of the Capitol one could not find.

Tired and hungry from my legislative endeavors, I left the Capitol and walked to the shawarma place a block over. If that’s the lunch of choice for our esteemed elected officials, I figured it was good enough for me. Dear reader, it was delightful. I highly recommend it if you’re forced to go to downtown Lansing. The Arab gentleman at the register called me “boss,” and I knew I’d found the right place. 

I sat down to my tray of chicken shawarma, rice, hummus, pita, with tabbouleh and mango juice on the side, thanking God that I’d seen enough of politics for the day. A man and a woman came in, the woman with those clear transparent glasses frames that signals she probably voted for Kamala Harris. The man was in a suit, with colored socks, and I figured they were Democratic staffers of some sort. 

They sat down in a booth. The woman said, “It’s over, there’s no point to this.” Total deflation, the wind sucked out of her sails. More talk about the pointlessness of this last legislative session, the folly of the Michigan Democrats, their dismal prospects for the next few years. Lame ducks indeed. Not just the legislators, but their staffers too. They know which way the wind is blowing, and they don’t know how to fly.

Bobby Mars is an artist, alter ego, and former art professor. Follow him on X @bobby_on_mars.