By Zachary Gorchow
President of Michigan Operations
Posted: May 7, 2019 5:13 PM

Governor Gretchen Whitmer wants a lot more money to fix the roads, this you might have heard. Legislative Republicans want wholesale changes in how auto insurance covers health care for people injured traffic crashes, this you might have heard as well.

Ms. Whitmer proposed a 45-cent per gallon gasoline tax increase. It was essentially dead on arrival in the Legislature.

Today, Senate Republicans unveiled and quickly passed an auto insurance bill that will surely end unlimited medical benefits for those injured in traffic crashes, providing motorists with a choice of lower coverage options. It leaves uncertain rate reductions for motorists other than cutting the fee for the Michigan Catastrophic Claims Association to $40 from $220. Unless the bill changes to mandate more rate relief than the $15 per month from dumping the MCCA fee, deals with non-driving rate mechanisms and provides more coverage, it will surely be dead on arrival with Ms. Whitmer. She already said she would veto the bill as passed by the Senate.

Ms. Whitmer has made clear that without her gasoline tax proposal or some other mechanism to raise more than $2 billion for roads, she will not sign a budget for the 2019-20 fiscal year. She hasn't said it outright publicly, but she seems to be holding the same position on auto insurance: No road funding, no insurance bill.

Publicly, Republicans are Sphinx-like about their long game, but those in and around the process say it is clear that after four months of taking their time and passing on opportunities to jam the governor, they are now embarking on that, path.

Put an auto insurance bill on Ms. Whitmer's desk and dare her to veto it.(assuming the votes can be found to pass a bill in the House, far from a foregone conclusion, and it will take a number of significant changes to the Senate version of the bill for that to be remotely possible).

Put a budget for the 2019-20 fiscal year on Ms. Whitmer's desk that lacks the more than $2 billion in additional road funding she wants and dare her to veto it.

This is a game of chicken. And much like the game of chicken with tractors in "Footloose," someone is going to be the Ren McCormack celebrating afterward and someone is going to be Chuck Cranston, freaking out at the last second and leaping away in panic into a nearby river, vanquished. The rest of us are Ariel Moore, marveling at the showdown yet with an inner fear at the end this will all go terribly wrong.

Vetoing a budget that lacks big new funding for roads would start the clock ticking to the September 30 deadline to have a new budget in place in time for the start of the fiscal year.

Vetoing an auto insurance bill would give Republicans an opportunity to pound on the governor on an issue that has gotten traction with the public. How Ms. Whitmer responds will depend on what kind of changes the House makes to pass a bill, assuming it can pass a bill. Her position gets more politically perilous if the House includes substantial, long-term, mandatory cuts in insurance rates and maintaining some type of option for unlimited coverage.

If the Republican tack leads to vetoes, perhaps the back-and-forth sets all issues on a path toward compromise – an eventual budget deal, better roads plus reduced auto insurance rates coupled with coverage that still assures quality of care in the event of a catastrophic injury in a traffic crash.

Alternatively, Ms. Whitmer and legislative Republicans dig in, leading to a 2007- or 2009-style budget confrontation and no real long-term answers on roads or auto insurance, leading to the roads getting worse and insurance rates continuing to rise.

The state already is plenty familiar with the latter scenario.