(Source: MIRS.news, Published 01/17/2025) Gov. Gretchen Whitmer announced Friday she will be giving the 2025 State of the State message on Feb. 26, marking the latest this annual message has been given to the Legislature in non-special session years since it began being delivered verbally in 1873. A spreadsheet showing all the dates of the State of State can be found here. 

In her announcement, Whitmer gave no reason for the lateness in the address, but MIRS has learned that scheduling issues between the Governor and the state House, whose chambers traditionally hosts the State of the State, are to blame.  

Originally, the Governor wanted to do Jan. 15, but the House -- amid a leadership change and having polished up the swearing-in session -- didn't feel they could make it happen, sources tell MIRS.  

Other dates were put out by both sides, but nothing worked until Feb. 26, weeks after the Governor is slated to give her budget presentation. Due to the lateness, Whitmer opted to give her "Road Ahead" speech at the Detroit Auto Show to alert the Legislature, as it begins meetings, where her priorities are.  

From an historical perspective, Michigan's incoming and outgoing governors were required by the Constitution to give the Legislature an address at the beginning of a legislative session.  

Up until 1873, that address was given in written form and then translated into various languages. The speech in 1871, for example, had 2,000 copies written in English, 3,000 copies written in German, 1,000 in Dutch, 1,000 in French and 1,000 in Swedish.  

(Today the governor's speech is translated into Spanish, Chinese and Arabic).  

Upon taking office in 1873, Gov. John Bagley began reading his speech in person on the House floor during the first or second day of House session. For years afterward, the outgoing governor would also give a speech about the state of the state upon his exit.  

Every Governor after Bagley did the same thing at the beginning of every session except Gov. Fred Warner in 1907, who came down with an illness on Jan. 3 and had his private secretary read it for him.  

The speech was always given in the first week of the year, sometimes as soon as Jan. 2, until Gov. G. Mennen "Soapy" Williams in the 1950s, who started giving it between Jan. 9-15.  

By that time, the speech was always set to be given at 11 a.m. Up to that point, the actual time varied, but it was always during business hours, with one notable exception.  

In 1969, as Gov. George Romney was leaving office to take a cabinet post with the President Richard Nixon administration, he gave an exiting speech to the Legislature before letting his successor, Lt. Gov. William Milliken, speak. This is the last time an exiting Governor was part of the State of the State program.  

Up until that point, most departing governors also gave their speech verbally to the joint session of the House and Senate, but sometimes they did not, requiring the clerk to read it.  

But in every case, the House journals show that the currently serving Governor always read the message to a joint session of the House and Senate personally.  

Until 1952, Michigan’s Legislature only met every odd-numbered year unless a special session was called.   

When a special session was called, the Governor also would kick things off with a verbal message. Sometimes the special session started in January, but sometimes they started in February or mid-March at the latest.  

Up until the end of Gov. William Milliken's term in 1983, the speech was always given in the middle of January, around 11 a.m.  

In 1983, Jim Blanchard reinvented the State of the State into an evening affair so it could be broadcast when people were home from work. He started the 7 p.m. speech, something that has continued up until today.  

In 1986, Blanchard tried something different by doing an evening speech at WKAR (hosted by senior capitol correspondent Tim Skubick, of course) followed up by a Q&A with the Capitol Press Corps. He then gave an address to the House and Senate at 10:15 a.m. the next day. That arrangement only lasted one year.  

Starting with Blanchard, the speeches started creeping into late January and early February until that became the norm with the succeeding governors, except for Gov. Rick Snyder, who never gave a speech later than Jan. 23.  

The latest non-special session speech up until this year was Whitmer's first, which was Feb. 12. Former Gov. John Engler's first speech was Feb. 11.  

Whitmer deviated from tradition by making the 2021 and 2022 State of the State speeches from her Capitol office and Detroit Diesel, respectively, due to the COVID pandemic.