Nov. 8, 2024 | This Week in Government | Hall’s Approach as Incoming Speaker: ‘I Don’t Think We Should Play it Safe’

As expected, Rep. Matt Hall (R-Richland) will lead Republicans of the 103rd Legislature in the 2025-26 term and serve as the next speaker of the House.

House Republicans elected Hall as their leader for the upcoming term during a caucus meeting after session on Thursday. As the majority party, the Republicans get to pick the speaker.

Once formally elected by the House at its opening session in January, he will preside over the term, during which Republicans will have a 58-52 majority.

“I think that one of the reasons Democrats lost their majority is because they were too afraid of losing it,” he said. “The people of Michigan want us to take action. And we have some important issues that we need to work on, and I don’t think we should play it safe. I think we should take risks. I think we should push hard to get stuff done, even though it’s tough sometimes.”

Hall defeated Rep. Tom Kunse (R-Clare) in the race.

Hall, the current minority leader, was first elected to the House in 2018 and served as the majority caucus chair during the 2021-2022 term.

During his first term in 2019-20, he was chair of the House Oversight Committee and the Joint Select Committee. Both committees scrutinized the state response to the COVID-19 Pandemic and were heavily critical of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer‘s administration. Notoriously, Hall brought then-President Donald Trump’s now-disbarred attorney Rudy Giuliani before the committee to testify regarding the disputed 2020 election.

In the 2021-22 term, Hall took a quieter, more policy focused role as chair of the House Tax Policy Committee.

For the past two years, Hall has held a tight grip on his caucus. House Republicans frequently voted as a united block against Democratic priorities, up to and including the state budget. When the House was temporarily tied at 54-54 earlier this year, Hall proved a thorn in the side of House Speaker Joe Tate (D-Detroit), effectively putting the chamber in gridlock for the first four months of 2024.

Senate Majority Leader Winnie Brinks offered Hall her partnership in a statement Thursday afternoon.

“Caucus leaders in the majority are charged with both ushering through a productive legislative agenda and upholding the integrity of the institution we hold dear. I am proud that this has been our practice over the past two years, and I see no reason why that should change,” she said. “I extend my congratulations to Speaker-elect Hall and offer him my partnership in running a legislature that effectively serves the people of Michigan.”

ABC of Michigan congratulated Hall on his speakership in a statement Thursday afternoon.

“Speaker-elect Hall has been a champion of the merit shop philosophy during his tenure in the House of Representative,” Shane Hernandez, president of ABC of Michigan said. “We look forward to working with the speaker-elect to close the talent gap in construction trades and to secure a prosperous future for the State of Michigan.”

Gov. Whitmer also congratulated Hall and House Republicans in a statement issued Thursday.

“As governor, I’ve signed more than 1,400 bipartisan bills and enacted six balanced budgets. I’m willing to work with anyone who is serious about solving problems, and I look forward to collaborating with the incoming majority on our shared goals from infrastructure to economic development,” she said. “Let’s keep centering our shared priorities – costs, roads, housing, economic development – and make Michigan a better state to live, work, and invest.”

Next term, Hall said he wanted to prioritize road funding, saying that he was confident that Whitmer would be willing to work on the issue with the Republicans.

“Whitmer ran on fixing the roads,” Hall said. “We need to prioritize how to permanently fund our roads. We need to do that for our local roads and bridges.”

Whitmer and majority Republicans in her first four years could not come close to figuring out how to raise more revenue for roads. This term, her fellow Democrats – so far, with seven weeks remaining in the year – have done nothing on the subject even though they have the majority.

Other priorities include reducing the size of the state budget and the policy objectives outlined in the Republican Mission for Michigan plan put out before the election (See Gongwer Michigan Report, Sept. 4, 2024).

Hall said he hoped to move forward in ways that would garner bipartisan support.

“As we’re working forward in the House, where there’s alignment with the Mission for Michigan that we’ve laid out, we’re going to make a lot of progress,” he said.

Rep. Bryan Posthumus (R-Cannon Township), the current minority floor leader, was elected as majority floor leader. He was elected to the House in 2020.

“It’s imperative that we bring decorum back to the House floor,” Posthumus said. “For too long, we’ve let rhetoric run the day throughout our entire country, and it’s my hope that we can calm the tempers a little bit and get back of statesmanship.”

The rest of the Republican leadership team includes Rep. Rachelle Smit (R-Shelbyville) as speaker pro tempore, Rep. Jay DeBoyer (R-Clay) as associate speaker pro tempore, Rep. Brian BeGole (R-Perry) as assistant majority floor leader, Rep. Mike Harris (R-Waterford Township) as majority whip, Rep. Joe Aragona (R-Clinton Township) as deputy whip, Rep. Ken Borton (R-Gaylord) as caucus chair, and Rep.-elect Nancy Jenkins-Arno of Clinton as caucus vice chair.

Rep. Bill Schuette (R-Midland) was notably absent from House Republican leadership for the next term. He was the chair of the House Republican Campaign Committee this term. With the departure of Sen. Kristen McDonald Rivet (D-Bay City) to Congress, the Senate will have an open seat sometime early next year (See Gongwer Michigan Report, Nov. 6, 2024). Schuette is widely expected to run in the special election.

“We just got Leader Hall elected, and then we’ve got deer season coming up. We’ve got lame duck,” Schuette said. “I was proud to chair the campaign effort, and there’ll be time for discussions about elections.”

As the next leader of House Democrats, Rep. Ranjeev Puri is prioritizing unity.

Democratic members of the 103rd Legislature elected Puri (D-Canton) to serve as minority leader during the 2025-2026 term during a caucus meeting after session on Thursday. They elected Rep. John Fitzgerald (D-Wyoming) as minority floor leader.

House Speaker Joe Tate (D-Detroit) announced earlier this week that he would not seek reelection for caucus leadership following Democrats’ loss of the majority during the November election.

Tate is the first speaker since to go from speaker in one term to a non-leadership role in the following term since Speaker William Ryan. After a six-year run as speaker from 1969-74, Ryan decided to step aside as speaker and remained in the House until 1982.

Puri, the current majority whip, was elected to the House in 2020. He is the current chair of the House Appropriations Transportation Subcommittee.

“It’s an extremely humbling moment to be selected by your peers,” he said. “Each one of my colleagues has been elected to represent a district of roughly 100,000 people, to come here to be a strong voice and be the best representative that they can for that. I want to re-envision how we make up the caucus and how decisions are made, and by doing so, by trusting and empowering more members to help with making those decisions… to craft the best narrative that we can for House Democrats.”

Puri’s unity message comes as Democrats conclude one of the more dysfunctional terms a House majority caucus has had.

Multiple Democratic sources tracking the race described Puri’s win as a statement to those in the caucus who caused problems for Tate even going back to when he faced a challenge led by Ann Arbor progressives for speaker two years ago.

Senate Majority Leader Winnie Brinks (D-Grand Rapids) praised Puri as the choice to lead the caucus in a statement.

“I know Democratic Leader-elect Puri to be a steady voice, a hardworking lawmaker and an effective leader amongst his peers. He is a consensus builder and a person of strong character, traits that are all the more important during a time of divided government,” she said. “I know that together, the Democratic caucuses will present a bold platform that reflects our core values of economic fairness and opportunity for all.”

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer also reflected on the last term under Tate’s leadership and looked ahead to Puri’s role as minority leader in a statement.

“Over the last two years, with the first Democratic trifecta in 40 years led by Speaker Joe Tate, we got a lot done. We cut taxes for retirees and working families, started feeding all public school students free breakfast and lunch, kept fixing more of the damn roads, built more housing, repealed our 1931 abortion ban, protected civil rights for the LGBTQ+ community, and created thousands of good-paying manufacturing, construction, and clean energy jobs,” she said. “We still have a lot of work to do, so let’s close out the last few months of the year strong and hit the ground running in 2025 to keep growing our economy and delivering on the issues that make a real difference in people’s lives. With the new majority in the legislature, our focus remains the same, and I look forward to working with Leader-elect Ranjeev Puri to get things done.”

Puri said he wants to change the culture of the caucus and said that he was open to working with organization structure experts to make the needed adjustments.

Fitzgerald said as minority floor leader he hopes to build more pathways for collaboration.

“We’re going to continue to support and uphold the values of our caucus and look for new opportunities and specific ways that we’re going to bridge that gap,” he said.

Although Democrats worked hard and ran strong campaigns this election, Puri said the gravity at the top of the ticket was too much to overcome, and Dems didn’t deliver the right message.

“Looking forward, I just think that’s something that we also want to reassess in making sure that we are bringing the right messaging,” he said. “In 2026, Michigan I going to be a national Democratic darling. There’s going to be a lot of eyeballs on recapturing this Democratic trifecta. And as House Democrats, I think we look forward to playing a very strong role in making that vision come true.”

Prior to the leadership vote, Puri said the caucus discussed the rules changes proposed by some members of the caucus last week. He said the conversation was productive, and that he was supportive of the initiative (See Gongwer Michigan Report, Oct. 31, 2024).

“People were very desperate to find a way to bridge the divides that existed and finding a way to galvanize and finding a way to bring up these voices and unify these voices of the caucus,” he said.

“As we go into this new position, I think it’s going to be extremely prudent that we make every effort to regain the majority back and to just reshape the way that the culture and things work here,” Puri said prior to the vote. “For the next two years, we are going to galvanize the caucus to make sure that we’re uplifting the voice of each one of the 52 members that are part of our caucus. Each one of these members has been elected by 100,000 members to be the voice in Lansing, so it’s really important to me that we collectively come together to figure out how Democrats can come with the right messaging to make sure that the gavel comes back into our hands.”

Puri was not originally considering a run for leadership, but said he was convinced by support from within his caucus and from stakeholders.

The role of minority leader is to be an obstructionist, Puri said, but despite that House Democrats will work as a bridge between the chamber’s Republican majority, Democrats in the Senate majority and the governor’s office.

“We want to be a bridge to making sure the legislation that comes out of this chamber meets the needs of the Senate and the Governor,” he said. “We just lost majority, but we learned a thing or two the last two years. It’s not as easy as people think to get 56 votes in your own party, and there’s often going to be times when the other side might not be able to get those 56 votes… We’re sitting here. We’re willing to be partners.”

Democrats had to wait 40 years for total control of state government when they finally got it starting in 2023. With the quick death of that trifecta arriving in less than two months, anticipation is building for an intense lame duck session.

Decisions on whether to pursue altering paid sick time and minimum wage increase laws, major changes to economic development incentive programs, no-fault auto insurance change, and a Freedom of Information Act expansion are among a pile of policy items Democrats can choose from as their days of total control in Lansing end next month.

RELATED: Michigan Business Groups Applaud Legislators for Taking First Step to Address Issues With Impending Earned Sick Time Act

Democrats have no shortage of legislative priorities for consideration during the lame-duck session before Republicans take control of the House in January, including on economic development, local government funding, and voting rights.

It also remains unclear if Democrats may act on calls by business groups as well as restaurant workers and bartenders to make changes to voter-initiated laws set to go into effect in early 2025 that would raise the state’s minimum wage, phase out the lower minimum wage for tipped workers, as well as mandate paid sick time for workers.

The Supreme Court issued a major ruling that the Legislature cannot adopt and then amend voter-initiated laws in the same session. The then-Republican majority in 2018 used the tactic to gut the voter-initiated minimum wage and paid sick time laws. Since the ruling, Democratic leadership has been mum on their plans.

With limited time left for the Democrats with their first trifecta in 40 years, there are numerous options for them to prioritize in the final weeks of session.

Economic development has been a major area of focus in the current term.

A package to make significant changes to the distribution of funds through the Strategic Outreach Attraction and Reserve fund has been subject to lengthy negotiations between lawmakers and the governor’s office.

The bills, HB 5768, HB 5769, HB 5770, SB 559, and SB 562, would dedicate funding to SOAR as well as for housing, transit, and community development statewide for the next decade (See Gongwer Michigan Report, June 20, 2024).

Another bill package waiting for action in the House is SB 579, SB 580, and SB 581, which would bring back a modified version of the Good Jobs for Michigan program that expired in 2019.

A pair of bills that would provide tax incentives for data centers (SB 237 and HB 4906) has been subjected to significant amendments and are still awaiting final concurring votes. The legislation has seen stiff pushback from environmental groups, however.

Passing the Senate last month were bills that would allow corrections officers and conservation officers to enter the hybrid retirement system for the Department of State Police (See Gongwer Michigan Report, Oct. 30, 2024). The bills, SB 165, SB 166, and SB 167, passed after sitting in committee for more than one year. A group of seven House Republicans earlier this week urged movement on the bill package in a joint statement.

“Passing these bills would mark a crucial first step toward the state regaining the trust of its corrections officers and proving that their hard work and sacrifice do not go unnoticed,” the members said. “Robust retirement options will give the state increased means to attract and retain quality personnel and finally begin addressing critical staffing shortages.”

Advocates for changes to no-fault auto insurance law have been urging movement on legislation since Senate passage last year of a trio of bills that would make changes to the fee schedule for no-fault auto insurance. The bills are SB 530, SB 531, and SB 575. They have sat in a House committee for a year.

Election law proposals pushed by Democrats are also still being considered. Among the key packages is the creation of a state Voting Rights Act (SB 401, SB 402, SB 403, and SB 404), which cleared the Senate in September (See Gongwer Michigan Report, Sept. 17, 2024).

A key priority for local government groups is still sitting on the table, that being a proposal to dedicate a portion of sales tax to local governments. The bills, HB 4274 and HB 4275, have been sitting in a Senate committee since November 2023. Local government groups were disappointed in not providing for the proposed Revenue Sharing Trust Fund not being included in the most recent budget (See Gongwer Michigan Report, June 27, 2024).

Transparency legislation that would expand the Freedom of Information Act to include the Legislature and governor’s office (SB 669 and SB 670) passed the with broad bipartisan support in June. Versions of the proposal have been taken up in recent sessions but failed to get to the governor’s desk.

A final Senate vote on HB 5724 is also pending, which would shield personal identifying information of judges and their immediate family members from the public.

One bill package as of this week has been passed and enrolled, but not yet presented to the governor: SB 205, SB 206, and SB 207, which would prohibit housing discrimination based on source of income.

Former President Donald Trump is now President-elect Donald Trump with decisive wins across the nation and in battleground states like Michigan, which was placed in his column midday Wednesday based on unofficial results.

Trump won Michigan with 2.79 million votes and 49.8% of the vote, compared to Vice President Kamala Harris’s 2.71 million votes and 48.3% of Tuesday’s unofficial totals. Trump shattered the notion he couldn’t break 48% in Michigan (he took 47.5% in 2016 and 47.8% in 2020) and nearly took a majority.

The president-elect won mainly by turning out a wide swath of his base, attracting male voters across various new ethnic coalitions like Arab, Black, and Latino voters, and by outperforming his 2020 numbers in key counties, and where Vice President Kamala Harris failed to improve on President Joe Biden’s 2020 performance.

It was also apparent from unofficial results that turnout was down in some of those key counties this year compared to 2024, despite the Department of State saying there was record turnout for this election. Key Democratic centers like Wayne, Kent, Kalamazoo, and Oakland either saw reduced turnout or no appreciable increase (see separate story).

Victoria LaCivita, the president-elect’s Michigan campaign spokesperson, said in a statement that that after “four years under Kamala Harris, Michiganders are eager for President Trump to Fix what Kamala Harris broke.”

“Starting Day 1, President Trump and Vice President JD Vance will help ease costs, secure the border – and make America great again,” LaCivita said.

Vance, the vice president-elect, in an overnight speech as Trump declared victory, called Trump’s victory the greatest political comeback in American history. Trump will become only the second president – and first in more than 130 years – elected to non-consecutive terms.

Harris conceded the race to Trump midday Wednesday, calling him to congratulate the president-elect on his victory. She later in the afternoon addressed supporters across the nation, giving a somber exit speech in a race she and Democrats projected much confidence about winning despite how close it was expected to be.

Still, Harris said she would assure a peaceful transfer of power to Trump, something that was not afforded to Biden in the waning months of 2020. Harris as vice president will preside over the counting of the electoral votes in January before Congress.

“A fundamental principle of American democracy is that when we lose an election, we accept the results,” Harris said, making a veiled reference to the chaos that unfolded when Trump lost the 2020 election. “That principle, as much as any other, distinguishes democracy from monarchy or tyranny, and anyone who seeks the public trust must honor it.”

Harris added: “At the same time, in our nation, we owe loyalty not to a president or a party, but to the Constitution of the United States, and loyalty to our conscience and to our God.”

She acknowledged that while this was not the result that she and her campaign or her supporters expected – and assured all that it was okay to be upset about Trump’s victory – now was not the time to be dismayed or to give up on those efforts.

“We will continue to wage this fight in the voting booth, in the courts, and in the public square, and we will also wage it in quieter ways, in how we live our lives,” she said. “By treating one another with kindness and respect, by looking in the face of a stranger and seeing a neighbor, by always using our strength to lift people up to fight for the dignity that all people deserve. The fight for our freedom will take hard work, but like I always say, we like hard work.”

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, the co-chair of Harris’s campaign and who barnstormed the swing states for her after Biden bowed out, said in a statement that the American people have spoken.

“I wish president-elect Trump the best of luck,” Whitmer said. “After a peaceful transfer of power, I hope he leads by trying to unite people, including those who did not vote for him or do not support him. That’s what a president must do for the good of our country.”

Questions will soon surround Whitmer’s national ambitions. Had Harris won, any hopes Whitmer had of a White House run likely would have been ended with no opportunity for a real shot at the Democratic nomination for another eight years. Instead, she immediately – along with Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro – will vault to the top of the list of potential Democratic candidates in 2028.

In declaring victory, Trump hailed his political movement as being one the greatest in American history, while also thanking God that his life was spared during the assassination attempt in July while he was campaigning in Pennsylvania.

In Michigan, Trump roared to a resounding early lead that eventually flattened when the votes were all in. Still, unlike his 10,700-vote victory in 2016 that appeared more the product of a large protest vote for third party candidates, this time he put up a more commanding margin and third party candidates seemed to play no role as the spoiler.

Wayne County was where Republicans saw the largest shift from Democratic to Republican votes in 2024 as opposed to the previous presidential election. Biden in 2020 won the county with 68% of the vote to Trump’s 30%. That 38 percentage point advantage fell significantly in 2024 with Harris only winning 63% of the vote to Trump’s 34%, a 9 percentage point pickup for Trump, or a shift of about 84,324 votes.

In Wayne, 59% of registered voters turned out to the polls this year, which was down from the 62% of registered voters who turned out in 2020.

The city of Detroit also saw a shift from Biden’s support to Trump in 2024, with turnout at 47% and lower that the expected more than 50% turnout officials expected. There more than 246,000 votes cast in Detroit on Tuesday, which was down 4 percentage points from 2020, Bridge Detroit reported.

While Harris won the city, 90% to 8% over Trump, that 82-point spread was down from Biden’s 89-point margin in 2020. That represents a shift of 28,000 votes favoring Trump compared to what the city produced in 2020.

Harris netted 221,629 votes to Trump’s 19,667 votes in the city, but those numbers failed to eclipse Biden’s 2020 totals. Harris collected a whopping 19,307 fewer votes than the current president did in the last cycle.

Meanwhile, Trump saw his Detroit support balloon upward 53% compared to this 2020 showing, or a little more than 6,700 votes, Bridge Detroit reported. The city’s Democratic turnout was 13,000 fewer votes compared to Trump’s win in 2016 while Republican turnout was greater by more than 13,000 votes in 2024 when compared to 2016.

Oakland County saw a smaller shift toward Republicans than its neighbor county to the south, but it wasn’t enough for Harris to lose the county while Trump took most of the Michigan pie. Biden earned 56% of the vote in 2020 compared to Trump’s 42%, but Harris’s figures shrank to getting just 54% of the vote to Trump’s 44%. That amounted to a 3 percentage point pickup for Republican candidate in Oakland, or more than 26,550 votes.

Oakland saw 72% turnout in 2024, but had 74.9% voter turnout in November 2020. In raw vote turnout, however, was essentially unchanged.

Macomb County was another area where there was a big rightward shift in the electorate, which was key to Trump’s victory in Michigan. Trump won the county in 2020 with 53% of the vote compared to Biden’s 45%, but in 2024, the county swung 6 percentage points for Trump, who won 56% of the vote compared to Harris’s 42% (a shift of more than 29,000 votes for Trump).

The county saw about 70% of its registered electorate cast ballots in 2024, while but saw 71.4% turnout in the 2020 contest.

Kent County had a considerably smaller shift to Trump over the past two cycles of just one percentage point. Biden and Harris both received 52% of the vote in 2020 and 2024, respectively, but Trump’s increase from 46% to 47% – a shift of just under 5,000 votes – was enough to hold her off in one of West Michigan’s more densely populated areas.

Kent turned out 69% of its registered electorate this year, while in 2020, Kent had 72% turnout of its registered electorate.

In the Upper Peninsula, the largest shift toward Trump occurred in Delta County. Trump won there in 2020 with 62% of the vote compared to 64% of the vote in 2024, a 4 percentage point shift of 836 votes.

The second and third-largest voter shifts for Trump in 2024 in the U.P. were in Dickinson and Houghton counties, both with vote swings of more than 600 votes toward Trump.

The president-elect won Dickinson in 2020 with 66% of the vote and grew that just a single percentage point to 67% in 2024. But Biden netted 33% of the vote in 2020, and Harris lost ground with 31% of the vote in 2024 (a total 3 percentage point vote shift for Trump).

Houghton told a similar story, with Trump winning the county in both 2020 and 2024 but increasing his margin by 3 percentage points. Trump won with 56% of the vote in 2020 and 58% of the vote in 2024, while Biden netted 42% to Harris’s 41%, respectively, in 2020 and 2024. The vote shift was 678 toward Trump over the last two cycles.

Dickinson had a voter turnout rate of 64% and Houghton had 70% turnout in 2024. The former county had a higher turnout this year compared to 2020 (at 62 percent) while the latter had a larger showing in the last cycle with 75% turnout.

Democrats may be lining up a legislative push during the lame duck session to reverse a Rick Snyder-era reduction in the number of weeks of unemployment benefits workers can obtain.

The Senate Labor Committee took testimony only on a package of bills dealing with changes to Unemployment Insurance Agency processes involving various exemptions and application processes.

RELATED: Business Organizations Urge Legislative Leaders to Address Key Issues During Lame Duck Session

Committee Democrats adopted S-1 substitutes for four bills (SB 962, SB 975, SB 976, and SB 981) before the panel that would tie-bar the bills to SB 40, introduced in January 2023, which would reverse a 2011 reduction in the number of weeks unemployed persons can obtain state benefits from 26 weeks to 20 weeks.

Sen. John Cherry (D-Flint), the committee chair, told reporters following the meeting he hopes there will be consideration of SB 40 during lame duck.

“There’s an intent to try to address benefits as well. We just weren’t ready to have that testimony today,” Cherry said.

When asked if the move involving SB 40 meant there could be a push on the legislation during lame duck, Cherry said: “I would put it in the realm of possibility, yes.”

David Worthams, director of employment policy with the Michigan Manufacturers Association, said the group was opposed to tie-barring the bills to SB 40, which he said is a separate issue that should be taken up on its own merits.

“I think these are good bills, I think they do advance a lot of the procedural changes that the agency needs to address,” Worthams said of the bills as introduced. “However, tie-barring the bills to Senate Bill 40 I think runs the risk of bogging down the progress of these bills in the legislative process.”

He added that with barely more than a dozen scheduled session days remaining for the year, the concern is that it would prevent the four bills from getting to the governor’s desk with the tie-bars.

Worthams said in an interview following the hearing that if the bills were to not get through this year, the UIA will miss an opportunity to make some positive improvements until a new Legislature were to take them up again.

Collectively, the four bills make multiple changes to UIA processes.

Under SB 975 a previously sunset exemption allowing someone to receive unemployment or relocate to avoid domestic violence or allow for recovery would be reinstated.

Under SB 962, the domestic violence exemption would be reinstated as outlined in SB 975.

The UIA under current law may not consider another application for a waiver from a claimant within six months after receiving a waiver application from a claimant. This would change in SB 962 to allow for up to five hardship waivers to be accepted from a claimant within a calendar year after receiving a claimant’s application for a waiver.

Another change would be a reduction in employees’ work hours under an approved shared-work plan to be between 10% and 60%, rather than 15% to 45%.

For SB 976, UIA would be required to comply with federal laws governing information disclosure. Methods used by UIA to identity and investigate fraudulent claims would also be exempt under the Freedom of Information Act.

Bill sponsors and those testifying said the proposed changes would help modernize and streamline the unemployment insurance system.