Dems slam GOP for appealing bill dispute to Supreme Court

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(The Center Square) – Michigan Senate Democrats blasted House Republicans  after they appealed to the state Supreme Court in an ongoing dispute over nine bills that were never sent to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer for signature.

This is just the latest in a nearly year-long legal battle over the bills, which were passed by the state legislature at the end of the 2024 legislative session. Since then, Republicans have refused to send them on to the governor. 

Senate Majority Leader Winnie Brinks, D-Grand Rapids, has been leading the legal effort by the Democrat-controlled Senate against the Republican-controlled House.

“Think about what we could get done if House Republicans could focus on the real issues,” she said in a statement following the announcement of the appeal. “That’s where our focus needs to be. But instead, Lansing Republicans are hell-bent on stopping bills that would help firefighters and teachers afford their health insurance and improve retirement benefits for overworked corrections officers. It’s appalling.”

Brinks first filed Michigan Senate v. Michigan House of Representatives in February.

Republicans have argued that it was the responsibility of the previous House’s leadership, who were Democrats prior to January, to send the bills to the governor’s desk. House Speaker Matt Hall, R-Richland Township, labeled it the prior House’s “unfinished business.”

“If there is any duty at all to present a bill to the governor, that duty must begin and ends with the legislature that passed the bill – not a subsequent and distinct legislative body, which cannot be legally bound by its predecessor or forced to carry out that prior legislature’s unfinished business,” the Republicans said in their appeal to the Supreme Court.

Additionally, the House adopted House Resolution 41 in the spring, which directed the House clerk to only present bills from the current session to the governor for signature.

That resolution cited the Michigan Constitution, which states that only legislative business, bills, and resolutions “pending at the final adjournment” in an “odd numbered year” carries over to the next session. Republicans argue that this wording implies that bills pending in an even-numbered year do not carry over to the next legislative session, which would apply to the nine 2024 bills in question.

The appeal to the Supreme Court comes after two lower Michigan courts sided with the Democrats. Most recently, the Court of Appeals ruled that the bills must be sent to the governor for official signatures.

The bills in limbo deal with everything from funding for museums to an expansion of the Michigan State Police retirement plan and were all passed during a controversial lame duck session at the very end of 2024.

Democrats say the refusal from Republicans is obstruction and a violation of the state constitution.

“There are already two courts that have sided with the Senate, determining that keeping passed bills from the governor’s desk is illegal,” said a statement from Brinks’ office. “Pushing this failed legal argument AGAIN is a waste of the court’s time and a distraction from the important work at hand.”

The Supreme Court has not yet announced if it will take up the appeal. Even if it does, Republicans will face an uphill battle as six of the seven justices on the court were appointed or nominated by Democrats.