Michigan Politics
Service Personnel Get Phone Cards; Weaver Reverses
By George Weeks

As a young Marine corporal on Okinawa in the 1980s, Mike Cox went to the PX to get $18 in quarters to plunk in a pay phone to call back home for about five minutes.

As Michigan's 43-year-old attorney general, Cox last week announced a donation of $300,000 in Sprint telephone calling cards so Marine and Army personnel serving in Iraq and Afghanistan can keep in touch with their families.

Cox knows how important the cards can be to troops and families alike. He bought some for his Marine corporal daughter, Lindsey, 22, to keep in touch during her 26 months overseas, including a hitch in Iraq. She returned to the states in March.

"For our service men and women abroad, these phone cards can help bring a piece of home to their service overseas," Cox said of the deal. "The phone cards demonstrate a small token of appreciation that will keep our troops connected with their loved ones."

The money comes from a settlement his office reached with Sprint Communications on consumer complaints that Sprint acquired their long distance service from another carrier without their knowledge or approval, called "slamming."

Sprint is to pay $1.2 million in cash and donated products to the State of Michigan and charities picked by Cox.

In a program first announced in Traverse City and Marquette, Cox also has dispatched $473,000 for domestic abuse shelters, including mobile phones for those deemed by the shelters as endangered.

Cox won Pentagon commendations in his three years as a Marine. He deserves public kudos for what he's doing with money his current troops extracted from Sprint.

Weaver Reverses

Governor Jennifer Granholm won't have the seat of Republican Michigan Supreme Court Justice Betty Weaver of Glen Arbor to fill this year after all. But she'll have at least one on the Michigan Court of Appeals, now that Judge Richard Griffin of Traverse City at long last has been confirmed as one of President Bush's nominees to the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Weaver, whose term does not expire until 2011, said in January she'd resign in October from the court that has a 5-2 Republican majority. But, as expected, she announced Friday she'll hang in for "a yet to be determined time" because there are stirrings in the GOP-ruled Legislature, including a proposal by Sen. Michelle McManus, R-Lake Leelanau, to get a constitutional amendment on the 2006 ballot for the judicial and term limits reforms she has advocated.

Weaver opined that while still a sitting justice, "I can most effectively help to bring these important issues" to public attention.

Weaver's ploy succeeded. While Republicans scrambled to get her to delay her departure until after the 2006 election, some made modest moves to support her ideas.

Granholm says she respects Weaver's decision, but reserves judgment on specifics of an amendment.

George Weeks is the political columnist for The Detroit News and is syndicated by Superior Features.