The Michigan Supreme Court delivered a welcome — but short-lived — win to Democrats in the Legislature Friday, with a decision that resulted in nine bills championed by Democratic lawmakers finally making their way to Governor Gretchen Whitmer's desk after an 18-month delay.
Then, the Democratic governor vetoed all of them.
The state Supreme Court left standing a lower-court ruling that House Republicans should send Whitmer the nine bills they had held in limbo since taking control of the chamber last January, even though the bills had passed both the state House and Senate.
The Michigan Supreme Court order declining to hear the case order appears to settle a long-simmering dispute regarding the limits of the constitutional power of legislative leaders.
In the unsigned order, a court majority said simply that “we are not persuaded that the questions presented should be reviewed by this Court.” That left standing lower court determinations that House Speaker Matt Hall (R-Richland Township) and the GOP majority do not have the authority under the Michigan Constitution to hang onto bills that were adopted by both chambers last year when Democrats were in charge.
“The Constitution prevailed today and that is a great thing worth celebrating,” said Senate Majority Leader Winnie Brinks (D-Grand Rapids), who filed the lawsuit seeking an order for the House to release the bills and send them to the governor.
“Unfortunately, quality policy that would lower costs and improve life for millions of Michiganders met an end at the governor's desk,” she said. “To say I am extremely disappointed is an understatement.”
The nine bills at the center of the case would have required public employers to pick up a larger share of employee health insurance costs, exempted public assistance payments from debt collection, allowed Detroit historical museums to seek a millage, and moved corrections officers into the Michigan State Police pension system — all Democratic priorities in the last session of the Legislature.
The veto of the corrections officer pension program, in particular, drew bipartisan condemnation.
Republican state Senator Ed McBroom was one of the authors of the legislation. He Whitmer’s follows a pattern of behavior from her administration of not acknowledging the severity of the staffing crisis in state prisons.
State data shows a handful of prisons in the U.P. have a staffing vacancy rate well over 30%.
Byron Osborn, the head of the Michigan Corrections Organization — the union representing corrections officers — said the legislation would have created more incentives to recruit and retain officers amid a "staffing crisis."
"The department's pay and benefits is not at a level that's going to be able to effectively attract and then keep people working in this line of work,” Osborn said.
In her veto letter, Whitmer blamed Hall and House Republicans for the lengthy litigation that made the bills unworkable by the time they reached her desk.
She said she would be willing to work with legislators on new versions of the bills.
“House Republicans spent the last 18 months sitting on these bills, spending taxpayer dollars on costly lawsuits, and creating unnecessary uncertainty and preventing action on issues that matter to Michigan families,” she said. “These bills would have lowered costs for Michiganders and strengthened public safety. Had the House presented these bills to me in a timely manner, as the Constitution requires, today would have looked much different.”
The Republican leader, for his part, expressed no regrets in defeat. He said Democrats dropped the ball by not getting the bills to Whitmer while they still controlled the Legislature. Hall wasted no time getting the bills to Whitmer on the same day the Supreme Court ruled and without waiting for a formal order.
“I’m not sure why the House and Senate Democrats could not or would not do their jobs back in 2024, but I decided I would help them out today after they helped me pass a new state budget that’s smaller than last year and without any of their tax and fee increases,” he said. “My sympathies to the Democrats that they went through all of this work just for the bills to end up vetoed.”
