Alyssa McMurtry and Elena Durnbaugh
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Posted: April 28, 2017 12:16 PM
Earlier this week, Senate Democrats unveiled a large package of bills aimed at equal pay and prohibiting certain forms of employment discrimination. They were all sent to Government Operations, presumably to languish and die, but one bill stuck out to me: wage garnishments, sponsored by Sen. Bert Johnson.
Mr. Johnson (D-Highland Park) has been in the news a lot lately, and especially so last night with the unsealed search warrant that had been executed on Mr. Johnson’s home and Lansing office regarding allegations he hired a no-show employee as a way to repay her for a loan.
The warrant revealed that Mr. Johnson had asked Glynis Thornton, convicted of being part of a kickback scheme with the Education Achievement Authority, for a $10,000 loan to pay for his son’s high school tuition (See Gongwer Michigan Report, April 27, 2017). She obliged, but he never paid her back, and eventually Mr. Johnson allegedly concocted a scheme in which Ms. Thornton would be a part of his staff but not have to do anything except receive a paycheck – what has become referenced as a “ghost employee.”
Sources I’ve talked to about their dealings with Mr. Johnson and especially his lack of paying people all have something in common: They want his money, and he avoids showing he has any. So it’s ironic that Mr. Johnson is the lead sponsor of a bill introduced earlier this week that revises the notice period employers must give to employees about garnishment of wages without written consent.
Now, let’s be clear: It doesn’t appear he would gain anything from this legislation, so this is genuinely ironic. His bill, SB 328
, revises the time period during which an employer may deduct without written consent to be the greater of one pay period or, his bill includes, 10 business days. Some of the sources seeking Mr. Johnson’s money say much of it already is under garnishment. How much, we don’t know. The Senate has refused to provide that information.
It’s also worth noting that most of the Senate Democratic Caucus agreed to co-sponsor the legislation with him, as he is also a co-sponsor on other bills in the equal pay package.
Regardless, there’s no getting around how it looks – Mr. Johnson, fighting for those like him having their wages garnished. But there’s also no getting around how it would’ve looked if, say, one of his colleagues was the primary sponsor and then he or she opens himself or herself up to an argument of doing Mr. Johnson a solid (even if that would not have been the case).
Talk about having an elephant (or donkey?) in the room.
Posted: March 17, 2017 2:15 PM
The date of March 17 is generally synonymous with St. Patrick’s Day, but one state representative wants you to remember to get some sleep too.
Rep. Henry Yanez (D-Sterling Heights) has sponsored a resolution (HR 40) declaring today as World Sleep Day in Michigan to encourage people to understand the importance of sleep to safety and healthy living.
In a statement, Mr. Yanez notes that the National Traffic Safety Administration reported drowsy driving was responsible for 72,000 crashes, 44,000 injuries and 800 deaths in 2013, “although they also believed the number of deaths were vastly underreported,” the statement indicates.
“Sleep deprivation also hinders productivity. It is estimated that American companies lost $63.2 billion every year due to lost productivity,” the statement noted. “Researchers have also linked chronic sleep deprivation to accelerated aging of the brain, and increased risk for heart attacks and strokes as well as other serious health conditions.”
The National Sleep Foundation also recommends the following amounts of sleep every night for different age groups:
So here’s to hoping people get their sleep before they hit the pubs, because let’s be honest, intoxicated drivers are bad enough – they don’t need to be sleep-deprived on top of it. Here’s to also hoping that the next time the House (or the Legislature generally) decides to pull an all-nighter, Mr. Yanez encourages people to have enough sleep first.
Posted: February 3, 2017 4:11 PM
This week, nearly every member of the state House attended a press conference announcing legislation to expand open record laws to include the Legislature and the governor’s office, but across the Capitol, some were less keen on the idea.
That includes Senate Majority Leader Arlan Meekhof (R-West Olive), who was reluctant to say much on what his chamber would do – if anything – with the House package until he sees the actual language of the legislation.
Last term, the legislation introduced and passed by the House landed in the Senate in mid-October 2016. There were few, if any, session days remaining by that point before the November general election. Of course, after the general is when “lame duck” starts to come together, and with such major items as energy law overhaul and several debated changes to retirement systems for public employees, it was a longshot to expect the Senate would take the items up.
Plus, Mr. Meekhof has maintained, his members had questions about the legislation that were not able to be resolved in time to vote on them.
But the issue of passing this legislation may not be a question of “if” so much as it is “when.”
Mr. Meekhof is one of 26 members of the Senate that will be termed out of office come 2018, and if history has anything to say about that, House members past and present will fill the upper chamber next. After all, 35 of the current 38 senators served in the House at some point, the exceptions being Sen. Ian Conyers (D-Detroit), Sen. Patrick Colbeck (R-Canton Township) and Sen. Curtis Hertel Jr. (D-East Lansing).
You need 20 votes to get something through the Senate, so if the team of 26 comes in – presuming they are all from the House previously – and decides to take up legislation to expand open record laws together then, they’ll succeed on their own.
Of course, the reality of an emptied-out Senate is, in real time, two years off. While that may not seem like a long time to folks in this town, to an outsider, that’s a long time. Different issues will come up in Michigan and in the nation that will have to be dealt with, and priorities will be set accordingly.
Posted: January 13, 2017 3:59 PM
Secretary of State Ruth Johnson has a new, non-native sidekick that wants to save you time by going online to expresssos.com for your typical Secretary of State needs.
“Kangaruth” debuted on YouTube two days ago and is getting some attention on social media with almost 2,000 views so far. The video features various clips of Secretary of State Ruth Johnson “rapping” about saving time and hopping online, complete with a kangaroo that is edited into the video throughout.
And yes, the kangaroo is real, so when Ms. Johnson appears to be leaning on it toward the end of the full video and it gives her a nibble, it actually happened.
“The secretary has a friend that had access to a kangaroo, and one thing led to another, and someone got the idea to encourage customers to ‘hop online,’” Department of State spokesperson Fred Woodhams told Gongwer News Service.
The video was produced in-house.
“I know that will surprise you,” Mr. Woodhams joked. “It’s something we’ve been working on. It’s light-hearted. People are definitely talking about it and will remember it.”
The full-version video is roughly a minute and a half, but there are shortened versions that will indeed be used to advertise expresssos.com. Mr. Woodhams said the department doesn’t usually do advertising but it made a small cable television ad buy – costing less than $10,000 – for this one. It will run for a few days and was intended to coincide with the North American International Auto Show in Detroit.
“We’re making do with fewer staff and need to encourage people to go online to do their secretary of state business,” Mr. Woodhams said. “The more people that can go online, they will not only help themselves but other customers who might be required to come in for a photo, for example.”
As someone who will have to renew her tabs at the end of the month, I only wish there might also be a follow-up video with Ms. Johnson and her kangaroo thanking me for using the online service. Just a suggestion, though.
