Policy Issues

Rep. Matt Maddock (R-Milford) asked the state demographer Friday during the Consensus Revenue Estimating Conference (CREC) if killing Michigan's income tax could bring 1 million people back to the state.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed bipartisan bills Thursday to remove the mandatory essay portion of the Michigan Merit Exam given to mostly 11th graders and end the requirement to place test scores on school transcripts.

Rep. Penelope Tsernoglou (D-East Lansing) directly challenged the chair of the House Oversight Subcommittee on whether he would support Senate-passed legislation that would stop the Unemployment Insurance Agency (UIA) from collecting non-fraud payments improperly paid out during COVID.

The 2026 Detroit Regional Chamber Mackinac Policy Conference will host a debate between the three Democrats running for U.S. Senate and will play host to the policy discussion over data centers.

The House Government Operations Committee is scheduled for 9 a.m. Thursday to take up the 10 bills and a resolution that makes up the House Republicans' $5 billion property tax reduction plan that has received the acronym HELP UP (Hall Effectively Lowering Property Taxes and Utility Payments).

While the House last week passed a budget slashing 62% of state funding from Michigan State University (MSU) and the University of Michigan (UofM), a national survey came out suggesting 78% of college grads believe their degrees were worth the cost.

President Donald Trump’s acting attorney general signed an order reclassifying state-licensed medical marijuana as a less-dangerous drug.

Term-limited Sen. Jeremy Moss (D-Bloomfield Twp.) sponsored his last-ever Holocaust Remembrance Day resolution, SR 105, in the Michigan Capitol Tuesday. He said that in today's politics, both parties have an antisemitism problem.

If lawmakers were expecting a slow return from spring break, they didn’t get it. The Republican-led House opened its first session back by advancing one of its most polarizing proposals — the bill requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote.

If legislators don't grant the Selfridge Air National Guard Base funding by early May to construct a new runway accommodating the new fighter jets the President assigned to the base last year, House Speaker Matt Hall (R-Richland Township) doesn't believe the new aircraft will come at all.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed an executive directive instructing state agencies to help registered businesses pursue tariff refunds from the federal government and to report on the impacts of those tariffs.

Moral issues have defined the political divide between Democrats and Republicans for as long as the donkey and elephant have graced political cartoons, but the fault lines continue to shift as new debates emerge and old ones fade.

House Speaker Matt Hall (R-Richland Township) said he was “feeling charitable” when he helped move a bill, HB 4044, to designate the wood duck as Michigan's official state duck, taking a jab at bill sponsor Rep. Alabas Farhat (D-Dearborn) in the process.

Senate Democrats adopted a resolution urging President Donald Trump and Congress to reverse federal energy policies they say are driving up fuel and utility costs, prompting sharp criticism from Republicans who dismissed the move as partisan messaging that will not lower prices.

Organizers for this weekend's "No Kings" rallies are anticipating the largest showing yet, with protests in around 115 different locations across the state.

The outrage was not off the charts when the federal government sent ICE-arrested inmates to a former private prison in the north woods of Baldwin.

An anti-abortion advocate filed a lawsuit to close the 15-foot “buffer zone” between himself and “every patient and companion within a 100-foot radius” around a clinic’s entrance.

The Senate passed SB 502 on Thursday, aimed at ensuring the $20,000, 20-year felony for making threats under Michigan's anti-terrorism law can withstand arguments that it might violate First Amendment rights.

“KRATOM SOLD HERE” signs plastered across gas stations and smoke shops have turned the once-obscure substance into a roadside staple, though it could soon become just a moment in time.

Sleeping teens are awakened and snatched by adult strangers, who handcuff them, put them in a vehicle and drive them away – all at the request of parents at their wits’ end.