(Source: MIRS.news, Published 01/07/2025) Session just started for the 2025-26 term, and there's already friction in the state House over where the minority Democratic members are going to sit. 

In the run-up to Wednesday's opening session, House Minority Leader Ranjeev Puri (D-Canton) sent presumed Speaker Matt Hall (R-Richland Township) a list of where he'd like his members to sit on the House floor for session this term, according to well-placed sources. 

After all, under MCL 4.61-2, “The minority leader of the house of representatives shall assign each member of the minority caucus to a seat.” 

However, MIRS has learned that Hall heard rumblings from some Democratic members that they didn't like where Puri put them and asked to be moved. Hall did exactly that and shuffled around the members to places they allegedly wanted to be. 

Hall's team argues that MCL 4.61 also reads that this section of law “does not apply if section 54 of article IV of the state constitution of 1963 is repealed or is amended," which is what happened with the passage of Proposal 1 of 2022. Basically, the whole seating arrangement process created under former House Speaker Jason Wentworth was scrapped. 

Hall's folks argue that the incoming Speaker was mindful of folks who needed aisle seats due to health and mobility issues, and that much of what Puri wanted is what he is getting. 

Regardless, the upshot has been a seating arrangement that is much different than years of old, when a seniority-based lottery was used for members to pick seats. The early seating chart, for example, has some oddities. 

For example, former House Speaker Joe Tate (D-Detroit) is sitting at the end of a row with Rep. Jason Morgan (D-Ann Arbor), who isn't exactly an ideological soulmate. The same thing happened with Tate ally Rep. Tyrone Carter (D-Detroit), who is next to another Washtenaw County liberal, Rep. Carrie A. Rheingans (D-Ann Arbor).