Posted: March 22, 2024 3:39 PM
Governor Gretchen Whitmer is hoping to iron out some details of the economic development package passed by the Senate this week once it gets to the House.
Whitmer said that she did not agree with the Senate's decision to move half of the funding designated for the Strategic Outreach Attraction Reserve program to the Michigan 360 fund (See Gongwer Michigan Report March 19, 2024) in a conversation with reporters following a separate event on Thursday.
"We had an ongoing dialogue," she said. "That was something we had not thoroughly discussed, and so I'm confident that as the bills movie into the House, we'll be able to have a little more thoughtful dialogue on that front."
The governor was pleased that the Senate voted on the package before the Legislature left on its spring break.
"I think that's real progress," she said. "Now, we've got an opportunity to make them better."
On Wednesday, the governor's office provided a statement vaguely praising the bills sent to the House, but not directly addressing the shift in SOAR funds (See Gongwer Michigan Report, March 20, 2024).
House Speaker Joe Tate (D-Detroit) said his chamber was ready to work with the governor and the Senate to make Michigan as competitive as possible.
"Last year, we did an R&D Tax Credit package, as well as some other economic development tools that we sent over to the Senate," he said. "I think there's a big appetite around that, because we want to be very competitive, and I know that's the governor's vision as well."
Tate also addressed the transparency bills introduced by members of his caucus last week (See Gongwer Michigan Report March 13, 2024) saying he thought there were some items in the package the House could address, but he fell short of committing to any specific aspects of the legislation.
"We're going to go through committee, it's going to be a deliberation process," he said. "There are items that we can, and we will, look at. I think this is something that has been a part of our values as House Dems, and we're going to continue to do that work."
Posted: March 8, 2024 1:04 PM
The School Safety Package wobbles on a bipartisan knife's edge as Republicans continue to push for movement on the legislation.
Last week, Rep. Jaime Greene sent a letter to fellow members of the House Education Committee attempting to work around the committee chair and call for a hearing.
"Per House rules, if seven of us agree to call for a committee hearing, we can notify the clerk of our intent to do so," Greene said in the letter. "Due to the importance of these bills, we would be asking the clerk to post the hearing for March 5th."
The move, which Greene (R-Richmond) said was born of frustration because HBs 4088-4100 aren't advancing, was met with frustration on the Democratic side.
"I find this nauseating and appalling," said Rep. Kelly Breen (D-Novi), one of the main sponsors on the bill package. "(Rep. Luke Meerman) and I have been working diligently together. Nobody on the right has lifted a finger in support of school safety except to vote 'no' on a school budget that will do more to help kids than ever before. Not one of them, whether on the bill package or not, has inquired on the status or contacted a stakeholder, or done a damn thing to show they care."
Greene said that other members would have helped with the legislation, but they don't know what's happening with it.
"If there have been things being worked on, I have not been aware of this, nor have any other of the committee members been made aware of this," she said. "We have complete communication breakdown, and it is unfortunate that this is happening, but this is not political. This is actually safety."
The chances of a hearing being scheduled by anyone other than Koleszar are negligible.
"I know that members on my side of the aisle were pretty put off on it," Koleszar said. "They have faith in the committee process and the way that we've been handling each issue and know that we're giving everything due diligence."
Meerman (R-Coopersville) is the main Republican working on the package. He said he was unaware that Greene sent a letter attempting to organize a committee hearing.
"I'm still 100 percent with Breen. I appreciate her heart in all of this," he said.
Still, he said he did want to see committee hearings on the legislation sooner rather than later.
"It's past time to have hearings," he said. "That's often what can really trigger momentum on these things. … That gets everyone at the table and getting their amendments in there and ready to go."
Koleszar said that the bills are still waiting on some stakeholder feedback, including school districts that he wants to have engaged in the process.
"You don't want to haphazardly put bills out there without making sure they're properly done, especially in terms of student safety and school safety," he said. "And in what I thought was a very reckless move, the minority leader decided he was just going to discharge them on the floor out of nowhere, which in my estimation, he is trying to score some political points, and it really disrupted the work that was being done."
Earlier this month, Minority Leader Matt Hall (R-Richland Township) included the bill package in a list of legislation his caucus was willing to vote on while the House is split 54-54 and attempted to discharge the bills from committee for a vote.
In a letter sent to Breen, Hall called attempts to impugn his motives shocking and disappointing.
"The Republican caucus has demonstrated our willingness to advance this package of bills. That's why we included them in our initial bill requests before the term started and happily shared them with you when you weren't prepared to introduce them," he wrote. "We understood the importance of this being a bipartisan effort then, and that continues today."
Greene said she admired the work that Breen and Meerman have done on the package, but she hasn't seen evidence that it's a priority for the Education Committee.
"We've repealed 3rd grade reading. We repealed A through F. We've adjusted the pension system. Yesterday, we even had a hearing on something that is completely controlled by the school boards," she said. "What we haven't done is, if there is this workgroup that exists, and I actually have a bill on this package, why have we not worked on it for over a year and a couple months now?"
Waiting for perfection won't get anything done, Greene said.
"We've done so much other legislation that was not perfected," she said. "We haven't perfected anything that we've passed in the last year."
Greene said she was at a loss for what else to do.
"I'm just doing everything that I can to bring this to the forefront, because those Oxford kids? Some of them do live in my district. Those teachers? They live in my district," she said. "There are things that we should be able to put in place a lot sooner than later. Let's start workshopping them through the committee process, but instead, we have focused on so many other things…and it's disappointing, and I'm tired."
Koleszar said that he planned to start moving some of the bills in the package soon, and that the scheduled committee hearing on mental health, while it's not part of the school safety package, ties into the goal safer schools.
"We'll do them in chunks as they're ready," he said. "I'm not going to let political games get in the way of what's best for Michigan schools and Michigan students."
Meerman said that this legislation was the only priority he submitted to Hall and House Speaker Joe Tate (D-Detroit).
"I think they can have some effect on making our schools safer. They're not going to make it so that nothing ever happens again, but I think they'll help," he said. "I believe in them."
Meerman said he understood why Breen and Koleszar were frustrated, and that he was frustrated, too.
"It is the political season, and it's amazing what things can get caught up in it and what can grind to a halt over frustrations, and yet at the same time, this is extremely bipartisan," he said. "I am frustrated, too, that they haven't moved already. … I just have concerns that something will happen because people are getting so mad at each other."
This package is one of the only truly bipartisan bill packages introduced in the last year, Meerman said.
"This was a huge change for Lansing, to have the trifecta of Democratic control, and I don't think Lansing was quite ready for it," he said. "It was hard, it was tough, and everything becomes political when us Republicans can say everything was the Democrats fault the whole way."
Because of that, Meerman said he and Breen have centered bipartisan work.
"But if we don't have the hearings, I think it's going to be a Republican issue all the way through the election cycle," he said. "But honestly, let's just get some hearings going, and this will really start going away."
Posted: January 29, 2024 10:05 AM
Two more House members have announced they aren't seeking reelection in 2024.
Rep. Bob Bezotte (R-Howell), 73, won't run again for his seat representing the 50th House District in rural Livingston County, and Rep. Christine Morse (D-Texas Township) won't seek a third term in the 40th District in the western Kalamazoo suburbs.
Instead, Bezotte has endorsed Jason Woolford, who announced his campaign for the seat on Tuesday. Woolford ran for the 48th District in 2022 but lost to Rep. Jennifer Conlin (D-Ann Arbor). The 48th District is a highly competitive district. The 50th District is solidly Republican.
"As a United States Marine Veteran, businessman, minister and president of a non-profit organization, I believe we need to re-employ and re-engage the fundamentals that made this country great into Michigan," Woolford said in a statement. "I am a versatile candidate with a background in many areas that face the good people of the 50th District and I plan to use my experience to better our community."
Bezotte was elected to the House in 2020 and won a second term in 2022. His office did not return a request for comment prior to publication. He was the longtime Livingston County sheriff prior to serving in the House.
Earlier this month, Morse, 50, announced that she would not run in a letter sent to her supporters.
"After much deliberation, I have decided to return to the practice of law at the end of my term. I will have additional news on next steps soon, but for now please know that this was by no means an easy decision," Morse said in the letter. "It is the right one for me both personally and professionally."
Morse currently chairs the House Health and Humans Services Appropriations Subcommittee. She was first elected to the House in 2020 and flipped the seat from Republican to Democratic hands. Morse won a landslide reelection in 2022 with 58 percent of the vote as the Kalamazoo suburbs continue to shift Democratic.
Morse was the best recruit Democrats had ever fielded for the seat, having just won a seat on the Kalamazoo County Board of Commissioners. Although the seat is likely a tough pickup for Republicans, it's not impossible, particularly if Democrats struggle to find someone as strong as Morse to run.
Morse didn't return a request for comment prior to publication.
There are now at least four open seats in the House. Rep. Andrew Fink (R-Hillsdale) previously announced he was forgoing reelection to run for the Supreme Court. And Rep. Dale Zorn (R-Onsted) cannot seek reelection because of term limits.
Posted: January 16, 2024 9:08 PM
The legislative redistricting process wasn't perfect, House Speaker Joe Tate (D-Detroit) said.
"With the Independent Redistricting Commission, it was the first time that they went through it. It wasn't a perfect process," Tate said on the "MichMash" podcast, a collaboration between Gongwer News Service and WDET Detroit Public Radio. He was asked whether he agreed that the districts as drawn disenfranchised Detroiters.
Last month, a panel of federal judges ordered the commission to redraw 13 House and Senate districts because race was used as a predominant factor in drawing them, which violated the Equal Protection rights of Detroit voters. The lawsuit was brought forward by Detroit residents who argued the districts, as drawn, disenfranchised them.
The House has elections this year, and its seven districts must be redrawn before February 2.
The districts, as drawn by the commission, changed the landscape of Michigan politics, and that shouldn't be overlooked, Tate said.
"Looking at the landscape of the outcomes that came out of it, I think that's something that we should also be looking at," he said. "I'm the first Black speaker in Michigan's history, and part of that, you can argue, was because the lines were drawn by an independent redistricting commission versus a partisan legislature."
The Senate also got its first female Senate majority leaders in the state's history, Tate noted. The Democratic caucus became more diverse through the 2022 elections, Tate said, and that's because the maps were fairer.
"Through that, I think you've seen policies that will have a significant impact on diverse communities across the state, including Detroit," he said.
Tate said he didn't expect that the court-ordered redrawing would hurt the Democratic majority, nor did he see a serious problem with looping together pieces of Detroit with suburbs in Oakland and Macomb Counties.
The commission has taken criticism for districts that drew together places like Birmingham with Detroit that don't appear to match the idea of a community of interest.
Tate pointed to places like Oak Park and Southfield, which have large Black populations, as suburbs north of 8 Mile Road where it could make sense to connect to Detroit in a district.
"I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility," he said. "Prior to representing House District 10, it was House District 2 … I had the lower east side of Detroit, so the majority of the African American working-class families, and then Grosse Pointe, and that was in some ways opposite, but in some ways, there are a lot of commonalities. But if you look at the different parts of Metro Detroit, I don't think it's out of the question when you look at the historical trends and the movement of population."
Tate also discussed his hopes for the 2024 session, saying he was hopeful that there would be opportunities for bipartisan cooperation while the House is split 54-54, but that Democratic leadership hadn't gotten any indication from Republican leadership about what policy issues their caucus would be willing to tackle.
For their part, Democrats are having conversations around paid family leave, expanding access to child care and changes to the no-fault auto insurance laws, Tate said. Economic development will also be important.
"Economic development is going to play a big role," he said. "Going back to some of the work that we have done in the House last year, around the R&D tax credit and some other items that we had, including the budget."
Looking ahead to this year's elections, Tate said that the Democratic Party wasn't focused on the chaos within the MIGOP.
"For my colleagues, my caucus colleagues, I think us being able to tell our story in terms of what we've done this past year for Michigan residents and families is something that we want to continue to communicate," he said. "Our focus is going to be how are we going to continue to govern, at the end of the day."
Polls commissioned of Michigan voters by The Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press in recent weeks have shown President Joe Biden trailing former President Donald Trump. Tate said he fully supported President Joe Biden when asked his confidence about Biden heading the Democratic ticket in 2024.
"In terms of what he's been able to do for this country, and the way he's shown leadership, has certainly (been) a positive," Tate said. "For our country and Michigan in particular, just in terms of the work that he's been able to do."
At the state level, Tate said people have every reason to trust that the Democratic Party is working for them.
"What we've been able to do as a House Democratic caucus and the legislation that we've been able to pass – I mean, significant pieces of legislation, whether it's around putting more money in people's pockets or gun violence reduction, something that we haven't been able to do in over a decade – really resonates with people," Tate said. "Michigan residents trust Democrats, and I think that is something that we'll see as we get closer to November."