Candice Miller
Two vets of working in Washington, D.C., sat down in Clinton Township to reflect on career choices, making a difference and navigating political life.
Ron Fournier, a journalist in the capital from 1993-2016, writes at Crain's Detroit Business about his conversation with Candice Miller, elected last fall as Macomb's public works commissioner.
"I was curious about why she traded the gilded halls of Congress for the sewage lines of Macomb County," the editor-publisher says in his weekly column.
Each of them heeded the pull of home last year. Miller, a Republican congresswoman from 2003-16, graduated from Lakeshore High in St. Clair Shores, attended Macomb County Community College and began her elective career as a Harrison Township trustee and later supervisor.
Candice Miller doesn't miss the "huge anthill" of Congress.
Fournier, a native of Detroit's east side, is a former White House bureau chief for the Associated Press and National Journal columnist. He moved back home last September, and now writes:
No matter how well I did my job [in Washington], I wasn't making an impact. I wasn't making the system better. Miller nodded.
"In the Congress, you have this huge anthill and you've got to get all the ants to try and charge up to the top of the hill. A lot of them keep peeling off, so it's difficult," she sighed.
The new county official tells about a symbolic, and meaningful change two months ago:
On her first day at work, she ordered "a couple of big guys down the hall" to remove a symbol of [Democratic predecessor Anthony] Marrocco's pay-to-play culture: an enormous conference room table.
"I wish I had a dollar for every contractor that said every time they walked into this room, their permits were on one end of the conference table and the fundraising tickets were on the other."
The former politics reporter also asked, naturally, whether the 62-year-old -- with more than 37 years in public office -- may run for the open governor's seat next year.
"I just got into this job," she said. "But who knows, right? . . . People always ask those questions, but I don't really see it.
"But we will see. Who knows?"
