Scoundrel time

Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop, an ambitious politician on the make with a law degree, a real estate license and grease in his hair, is more than happy to cost this region tens of thousands of mostly high-paying jobs, just to please one greedy, aging billionaire.

What's worse is that he is getting away with it, because he can, thanks to a corrupt Legislature and apathetic public. To pull this off, he also had to lie to the people, but he couldn't care less about that.

Last May, Bishop promised an up-or-down vote on legislation that, if approved, would allow a public-private partnership to build a badly needed new bridge across the Detroit River to move forward. Then, this month, he said, too bad. He wouldn't keep his word, and he wouldn't let the Senate vote. He was worried, you see, that they might act with the public's best interests in mind.

Bishop has always been against anything progressive, especially if big business or insurance interests wanted him to be. He tried to block the restaurant smoking ban until even his fellow Republicans revolted against him.

Naturally, he wanted to stop the new bridge, the Detroit River International Crossing. True, the new bridge is badly needed. Currently, billions of dollars in heavy manufacturing components move between Michigan and Ontario over the Ambassador Bridge, which was built in 1929, is not made for today's giant tractor-trailer trucks, and is in need of serious repair.�

There's also little security to speak of, and one fanatic with a bomb could plunge our state and Canada's biggest province into an authentic depression. But none of that is important to Bishop. What matters to him is that Matty Moroun, the 83-year-old billionaire who owns the Ambassador Bridge, doesn't want anybody infringing on his monopoly; to protect it, he has shelled out vast sums to legislators, mostly Republicans, in the form of campaign donations. And that's only the money we know about. Moroun has also given money for legislative parties, Senate caucus events, and he is utterly ruthless.

Last month, Jeff Gaudette, a Canadian who had worked for the Ambassador Bridge for 20 years, ran for a seat on the Windsor City Council. He lost. So Moroun fired him. "I've been bullied by the biggest bully in town," said Gaudette. Actually, Gaudette, a steward for a Teamsters local, was directly fired not by Moroun, but by his chief henchman, Dan Stamper — who did so via speakerphone.

Gaudette's real crime was evidently not losing, though he thinks he would have kept his job ("those guys would be kissing my butt") if he had won. He thinks he was really fired for bringing attention to a crack in the concrete on the Canadian side. That's a hanging offense in Morounland. "I'm not an engineer, but I think we need to look at the bridge and the safety of it," Gaudette told the Windsor Star.

By the way, does it seem odd to you that our nation's most important border crossing should be owned and totally controlled by one shadowy businessman? If not, I'd say you are either spending too much time reading Ayn Rand or are receiving handouts from Matty Moroun.

> Email Jack Lessenberry