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Departing senator aims for top Wayne job |
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It wasn’t the most glamorous start, but in that position
Young learned several important lessons about government. For instance:
the hardworking legislators can be identified by the quantity of trash
they produce. Cleaning lawmakers’ offices, though, was not the
first behind-the-scenes exposure to the political process for the Detroit
native, now a Democratic state senator. His father, Joe Young Sr., had
been elected to the Wayne County Board of Commissioners when Young was
11. “When I grew up it was always politics at the dinner
table. No sports, no movies,” Young said. “Ever since I was
very young I was working on campaigns.” While still in college he managed his father’s successful
campaign for the Michigan House of Representatives. Young wanted to run
for his father’s open commission seat, but his dad said he had to
graduate from college first. “Being the first in the family to go to a university
was quite an event for my family,” he said. After graduating from MSU and serving as assistant to
former House Speaker William Ryan, former Rep. Alma Stallworth and Congressman
Dale Kildee, Young was elected to the House in 1978 when his father ran
unsuccessfully for the Senate. Later his father returned to the House,
and the pair became the first black father-son team to serve in the Michigan
House. Now a veteran lawmaker with more than 23 years of experience,
Young is completing the final year of his maximum Senate term, where he
has championed issues such as mental health services and economic revitalization
of southeast Michigan. Young believes government should reduce the burden on
businesses so the state can make more progress toward economic growth. “We ought to do a whole lot more in business opportunity,”
he said. “We need to make it possible for businesses to operate without
a lot of rules and regulations and without being taxed to death.” Meeting the needs of workers is also a key part of economic
development, in Young’s view. He supports a plan to exempt the cost
of employee health benefits from the Single Business Tax and advocates
requiring businesses to provide health insurance for employees in exchange
for relaxed regulations in other areas.
Young has a vision for combining health promotion and
economic revitalization in southeast Michigan. He’d like to base
prescription drug centers in malls, drawing traffic to languishing shopping
centers while helping give seniors better access to needed medications. “There’s no reason we should have these malls that are dying,” he said. “We need a commitment to keep them alive.” Young is hesitant about proposals to change the item pricing
law he helped amend in 1979. Although new technologies may have made it
worthwhile to revisit the statute, he says, many of the concerns that
prompted the legislation remain valid. “What we’re concerned about is that [without
marking each item] there’s no way to check the product against something
else,” he said. “If you have technology, that’s great,
but you still have humans inputting. That’s where errors can occur.
That’s where you need checks and balances.” Because Young serves on the Senate Appropriations Committee,
the budget process looms large in the remaining months of his term. Young
is concerned that drawing funds from one-time sources to cover budgetary
shortfalls will merely postpone the state’s budget difficulties stemming
from the recession. “None of the problems are going to be solved; they’re
just being put under the carpet,” he said. “And it’s not
even an Oriental carpet—it’s one of those cheap ones you buy
at the dollar store.” Young is married, with four children and four grandchildren.
Currently he’s engaged in a friendly competition to finish his master’s
degree in public administration through Western Michigan University before
all his children earn graduate degrees. “I still have the youngest left to beat,” he
said.
Though term limits are ending his time in the legislature, Young plans to continue in public service. He is running for Wayne County executive this year, seeking to replace retiring Ed McNamara. He faces tough Democratic competition from candidates such as Wayne County Sheriff Robert Ficano, former Detroit Police Chief Benny Napoleon and Wayne County Commission Chairman Ricardo Solomon. “In a sense I feel like I’m coming home,”
Young said. “I’ve been away from Detroit for 24 years.”
He notes that he’s helped appropriate billions of
dollars to Wayne County during his years in Lansing. Now he’d like
to have a hand in seeing that those funds are spent wisely. Young says the balance of power is shifting from state
government toward county government, giving counties a greater role in
determining the quality of life for residents. “In the future, county government is going to become
the local government,” he said. “There’s going to be a
more active role. We’re getting a sense of what services ought to
be local, such as health services and mental health services.” His dream is to see his home county take the lead in creating
innovative programs to promote job creation and education - programs that
can be replicated elsewhere in the state and even nationwide. “I want Wayne County to be the county everyone talks about,” he said. “I want Michigan to be the state everyone talks about.” This article was written by Michigan
Retailer staff writer Rachel Whitaker. |
While a student at Michigan State University, Joe Young Jr. got his first
job in the state Capitol - as a janitor. 
“Not
only do we need a healthy business community, we need healthy employees,”
he said.
His
favorite pastimes include fishing (“especially with radar,”
he adds with a grin), hang gliding and golf. He also admits to participating
in some more unorthodox “sports” during his youth, such as “garage
jumping” and scaling the sides of tall buildings.