Michigan’s Lame Duck Republican Legislature
Michigan Electablog “Lame Duck Republican Majority at work in Michigan.”
• Accrued Sick Time: This was one of the proposals not allowed to go to the ballot. Why? Because if it passed and it would have, Repubs would have needed 2/3rds vote to overturn it. Instead they passed it before November 6th and now they are altering it by taking coverage responsibility from over 93% of Michigan’s firms. The threshold for exemption from the law was raised from 5 in the proposal to 50 in proposed legislation.
Out of 173,309 businesses in Michigan, 162,003 firms have fewer than 50 employees.
The amount of required leave will be cut in half from 72 to 36 hours. It will also take hundreds of hours of work to accrue a few days of leave as employees must work 40 hours to earn an hour of leave instead of the 30 established in the citizens-backed initiative.
• One Fair Wage: Michigan Senate Republicans voted to gut the minimum wage increase.
An amendment to the minimum wage increase passed earlier this year to deny voters a chance to vote on the citizens-backed initiative as a Proposal. Instead Senate Bill 1171 will add eight years to the deadline for increasing the minimum wage to $12, from 2022 to 2030. Tipped workers will be hurt the most with their pay capped at $4 an hour.
• Unions: In an effort to stop union leaders from being able to take paid leave to do their jobs as union stewards, etc. Republican Senator Marty Knollenberg introduced Senate Bill 796. Democratic Senator Vincent Gregory had this to say about the bill:
“Bills like this only serve one purpose, they are just another step in the systematic destruction of unions and workers’ rights. Union leave time arrangements are an efficient, cost-effective way to quickly resolve employee disputes, disciplinary issues and other matters, and they help not just workers but also management.”
• Puppy Mills: State legislators are working to protect puppy mills by ensuring they can continue to sell puppies to Michigan pet stores. House Bills 5916 and 5917 narrowly passed the Michigan House of Representatives last Thursday. It now goes to the Senate.
Ohio based Petland is the backer of these bills. Over 280 localities across the country have passed laws to prohibit the sale of puppies in pet stores, in order to protect animals and consumers. Petland has gone state-to-state lobbying lawmakers to shield the corporation from local regulation. In the past two years, they have failed in Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, and Illinois.
• Recycling aluminum and PET. District 17 House Representative Joseph Bellino:The bill removes aluminum and PET plastic away from community-based recycling systems. Rerouting these materials into local recycling programs would provide the boost recyclers need to sustain their programs and expand access to even more communities.”
What he fails to say is that ALL of the returned containers are now recycled. If the 1976 “Bottle Bill” is repealed, many of those returned containers would end up in landfills.
• Wetlands: Michigan State Republican Senator – Escanaba Tom Casperson proposed Senate Bill 1211 redefining which wetlands require state Department of Environmental Quality permission to modify or fill and doubling the size threshold at which regulation is required, from 5 acres to 10 acres.
Senate Bill 1211 would remove 70,000 wetlands statewide from protection totaling about a half-million acres. In most Michigan counties, it would include about half of their remaining wetlands. These wetlands, lakes and streams can be filled, dredged, and constructed on without a permit according to Tom Zimnicki, agriculture policy director for the Michigan Environmental Council.
• Mackinaw Tunnel: Lame Duck Republican Gov. Rick Snyder struck a tunnel agreement in October with the Canadian oil transport giant. The company would pay to build a $350-million tunnel beneath the straits that would encase a replacement pipeline to prevent a spill and allow the existing line to be decommissioned. The state is also expected to kick in $4.5 million in infrastructure costs for the tunnel.
To bypass environmental approvals and accelerate required land condemnation, Snyder wants the tunnel overseen and owned by the Mackinac Bridge Authority.
• Finally, Staff Allocations: Newly elected Democratic Senator Jeff Erwin revealed; Democratic members of the state Senate are given $129,700 plus two staff benefit packages (for two staff members.) Republican senators, in sharp contrast, are given $212,700 plus four staff benefit packages (for FOUR staff members). Democratic Senators get HALF of the staff and 61% of the financial resources of Republican Senators to run their offices.
These allocations are hold overs from the budgets created by outgoing Senate Majority Leader Arlan Meekhof. According to Irwin, legislative staff salaries range from $25,000-$75,000 with some exceptions. “As a minority member, I have learned, we can buy benefit packages from the Senate business office and squeeze a third staff member into that budget as long as the salaries are less than the total,” he told me.
I guess we will have to pound them into the ground again.