Capitol News
December 10, 2023
The Michigan Legislature officially adjourned for the year on November 14, but voting was finished on the night of November 9. The early adjournment essentially canceled two to three weeks of session in December but allowed the three-week early presidential primary bill (Public Act (PA) 2 of 2023) to take effect next year in time for the February 27 presidential primary.
With adjournment on November 14, all bills signed into law this year not given immediate effect by a 2/3 vote of each chamber will take effect February 13, 2024, unless there's a specific effective date in the bill after that date.
The Legislature returns on January 10. The 2024 legislative schedules for January through June indicate 61 session days with spring break the last week in March and first week in April.
As expected, House Democrats lost their majority following the election on November 7 of Rep. Kevin Coleman (D-Westland) and Rep. Lori Stone (D-Warren) to become their hometown mayors. The Michigan House is now 54 Democrats and 54 Republicans. Governor Gretchen Whitmer announced that the special election primary for the two vacant House seats will be January 30 and the general special election will be April 16. Three Democrats and three Republicans are running to replace former Rep. Stone including former State Rep. LaMar Lemmons III. Six people are also running to replace former Rep. Coleman.
UPDATE ON REMOVING THE $300 CAP ON PENSION COLA
SERA is working hard to eliminate the statutory cap on the annual cost of living adjustment (COLA) for State defined benefit (DB) retirees. Negotiations over the exact bill language continue this month.
Lansing SERA member R. Cole Bouck is leading a SERA letter-sending campaign for State retirees (current and future) to contact their legislators and the Governor. We say 'sending' rather than 'writing’ because it has been made as easy as possible for you to participate. You will receive pre-written letters you only need to personalize and send.
strong>We need your help — and this will be easy! While public school retirees in the original education employees’ retirement plan receive the full 3 percent of their base pension as an annual COLA supplement with no dollar cap each year, the annual supplement for State retirees has been capped at a maximum of $300 per year ($25/month) since 1987. That is a significant difference! Approximately 85 percent of State retirees do not receive their full 3 percent COLA each year, and many don’t come close. Only those retirees with a pension of $10,000 or less get the full 3 percent! Most State employees with a DB pension hit the $300 cap immediately upon retirement these days! Many State retirees do not even know their pensions are being eroded significantly by inflation due to this $300 cap that began in 1987. If you have a pension of $30,000, 3 percent would be $900 a year added to your base pension each year versus the $300 cap you are getting now.
**** We need more letter senders! Join us now in sending these letters to your legislators and the Governor. It only takes a few minutes!
What should you do? If you are interested — and we think you should be — please e-mail Cole Bouck at SOMRetiree@gmail.com a personal and private e-mail address; or send a private message to him using Facebook Messenger asking to join the letter-sending campaign.
What will he ask from you? Your full name, the year of your retirement (if retired) and agency you will or have retired from (this helps us understand how broad our reach is), the e-mail address where you can receive information, and a phone number (optional). If you are a dual State retiree household, please include the information for both of you.
Then what? You will receive help in finding the contact information for your own legislators.
108 NEW LAWS THIS MONTH!
Since the November 5 SERA “Capitol News,” Governor Whitmer has signed 108 bills into Public Acts and a total of 285 for the year 2023 as of the date of this article. Some highlights:
PAs 177 – 180 signed November 6, 2023, is the bipartisan Michigan Crime Victims' Rights Package, laws designed to assist and support crime victims.
- PA 177 expands the definition of a serious misdemeanor in the Crime Victims’ Rights Act to include threatening a State health official with physical harm, embezzlement from a vulnerable adult, and causing serious injury or death while driving.
- PA 178 allows crime victims to make impact statements remotely.
- PA 179 requires the blurring of a crime victim's image in videos, photos, and courtroom sketches when they testify in proceedings streamed online.
- PA 180 would allow police and prosecutors to share victim contact information with domestic and sexual violence service providers.
PAs 187 – 189 creates a Uniform Power Of Attorney Act and revises reference to powers of attorney in Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Act and the Public Health Code to reflect adoption of Uniform Power Of Attorney Act. Generally, a power of attorney is a document that allows an individual (principal) to grant authority to another individual (agent) to act on behalf of the principal in specified matters such as financial or medical decision-making. The bills would modify sections of Michigan’s Estates and Protected Individuals Code (EPIC) to be like the process established in 30 other states and thus more closely respond to the needs of principals and agents in differing states, important for seniors and caregivers helping others across state lines. The law provides a form that anyone can use to designate a Power of Attorney should you become disabled from making financial or medical decisions. Hint: everyone should have one! The new laws take effect July 1, 2024.
PAs 199 – 201 prohibit people convicted of domestic violence related misdemeanors from possessing or purchasing a gun for a set period. The legislation will bring Michigan in line with 33 other states and federal law.
PAs 202 – 210 are eight of nine bills repealing some restrictions on abortion but omitting the main piece of legislation (House Bill (HB) 4949) needed for the rest to take effect due to tie bars. That bill is expected to be signed December 11. Governor Whitmer said the package repeals politically motivated restrictions on abortion and expands reproductive health care coverage for all Michiganders. There were no votes from Republicans supporting the reproductive measures.
PAs 215 and 216 designate June 19 as Juneteenth, a state-recognized holiday, bringing it on par with other state and federal holidays as a bank and judicial holiday in Michigan. On June 19, 1865, federal troops traveled to Galveston, Texas, to pass on the message that the Civil War had ended and that all African American slaves should be freed. Fifteen years later, Juneteenth became an official state holiday in Texas, and over the next few decades, 46 other states followed suit.
PAs 229 – 235 is legislation creating a 100 percent clean energy standard in Michigan by 2040 and giving the State more authority in siting large-scale wind and solar projects. The bills also require 50 percent of the State's energy to come from renewable sources by 2030 and 60 percent by 2035. Whitmer said the bills would lower energy costs by an average of $145 a year and create 160,000 jobs.
PAs 169, 185, 243, and 244 are new labor laws. They require public employers to provide unions with employee contact information, allow graduate student research assistants to unionize, and allow public bodies to set up payroll deduction for employees to donate to union PACs if they wish.
PA 250 would change the default option for public school employees’ retirement plan. Under a law enacted during the Governor Rick Snyder administration, new teachers hired after February 1, 2018, must choose either the 401(k) or the DB pension plan within 75 days of their first payroll date with teachers automatically placed into the 401(k) plan if they made no choice. Most young teachers failed to choose and defaulted to the 401(k) plan. PA 250 makes the default the DB plan if a new school employee fails to designate. DB plans offer more secure retirement income than a 401(k) plan.
PAs 184, 185, 193, and 251 – 270 are changes to election laws. Some of the key bills:
- PA 184 would allow a more streamlined procedure for challenged ballots.
- PA 185 repeals the law prohibiting hiring of transportation assistance to a polling place. Michigan was the only state with such a ban.
- PA 193 allows more time for uniformed overseas service voters to return absentee ballots.
- PA 252 and 253 prohibit intimidation of election workers with a maximum five-year felony penalty for those convicted of attempting to prevent workers from performing their duties.
- PAs 263 – 266 will require political campaigns to disclose the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in whole or part in political advertisements by defining AI and outlining how disclaimers would be required for visual media and audio media ads.
- PA 269 brings the State in line with federal law changes made last year in updating the canvassing and certification process. The bill, in a key change, allows State legislative leaders to each suggest one individual for appointment to the Board of State Canvassers so the Governor has more names to choose from rather than the three names submitted from the two main political parties. The bill would prevent processes from occurring such as the attempt by Republican officials in 2020 to provide an alternate slate of Electoral College electors.
- PA 258 would allow persons between ages 16 and 17 and a half years old to pre-register to vote and add them to the State's Qualified Voter File so that when they turn 18, they can vote.
- PAs 260, 261, 262, and 268 will require an individual's name, residence, address, date of birth, driver's license or State identification card number and digitized signature be added to the Qualified Voter File. The bills take effect June 30, 2025
- PAs 255 and 256 provide a legal process for presidential or vice presidential candidates to contest the certification of elections.
- PA 257, which takes effect June 30, 2025, would facilitate on-line voter registration by permitting Michigan residents to upload an image of their signature to the Department of State website and enable those without a driver's license or a state identification to register to vote online while providing the same information on paper.
- PA 270 signed by Secretary of State Benson when both the Governor and Lt. Governor were out of town on December 1, would require the Secretary of State to provide and maintain an online absent voter ballot application that allowed qualified and registered electors to request an absent voter ballot for local elections. When signing and submitting the application, an elector could use a stored digital signature after verifying identifying information or a manual signature.
PAs 275 and 276 provide penalties for coercing vulnerable adults into providing sexually explicit visual material.
PAs 277 and 278 create the crime of institutional desecration and provide penalties.
PAs 281 – 284 respond to voter approval of Proposal 2022-1 requiring that the Legislature adopt new laws about financial disclosure for public officials and candidates. Although the legislation was adopted by a bi-partisan majority in both chambers, there was significant bi-partisan opposition, mostly for the reason that the law was considered too weak and left a lot of loopholes for dark money from undisclosed sources to flow to candidates and officeholders.
PA 285 repeals Michigan’s unique law limiting the liability of drug companies for any damages or harm that their drugs created.
Editor’s note: Mary Pollock is the Lansing SERA Chapter and SERA Coordinating Council’s Legislative Representative. She may be contacted at michigansera@comcast.net.
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