(Source: MIRS.news, Published 01/22/2025) Senate Democrats passed a resolution Wednesday morning giving Senate Majority Leader Winnie Brinks (D-Grand Rapids) authority to "commence legal action" against House Speaker Matt Hall (R-Richland Township) and House Republicans over failing to present several of last term's bills to the Governor to be signed.  

Brinks said she's not giving Hall a deadline, but "at some point there will be decisions made." When asked how much she's talked to a lawyer about a path forward, she said her caucus has its own legal counsel and can retain outside counsel.  

SR 3 states that Brinks can “take all necessary steps incidental thereto, including, but not limited to, pursuing or defending any appeals” in an effort to compel the House to “immediately” present the bills passed in December to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.  

"They decided to start off this new legislative session with a blatant violation of our state Constitution by blocking nine bills passed by both chambers from being presented to the Governor," Brinks said during the session Wednesday. "The Speaker has indicated that the House will continue to undermine our Constitution and unilaterally delay the presentation of this past legislation to the Governor. I am preparing to take legal action if necessary."  

SR 3 was passed before 10:30 a.m. Wednesday through a vocal vote.  

After a bill is approved by both the Senate and House, its formal presentation kicks off the 14-day timer for when the Governor can either sign it into law or veto it. 

At the start of this month, the House clerk's office had a backlog of 118 bills passed during the end of the 2023-24 legislative term. While most of the Democratic trifecta's bills have been presented to the Governor – which requires final proofreading and formatting by House staff – nine remain.  

The bills include November's HB 6058, lifting the Snyder-era hard caps on how much money public employers can spend on workers' health care benefits.  

Instead of limiting public employers like school districts and local government agencies to cover no more than 80 percent of workers' medical plans – or another cap based on inflation and covered plan types – HB 6058 would turn the cap into the floor, mandating that at least 80 percent be covered. 

Another three-bill package would place newly hired corrections, conservation and motor carrier officers, as well as other state employees, under the Michigan State Police's "Pension Plus Retirement Plan." The pension system, which is majorly state funded, offers retirees guaranteed lifetime payments and tax exemptions on their retirement income.  

Also left behind in the House is legislation for Metro Detroit voters to OK property tax increases to boost funding for the Detroit Historical Society and the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History. 

There are two additional bills dealing with court-ordered garnishments for residents in debt, shielding more of a poor person's earnings, assets and assistance from being garnished to pay off what they owe.  

MIRS learned that Brinks is in communication with Attorney General Dana Nessel to inform her about SR 3 , but any legal action or guidance will be handled by the Senate and its counsel.  

"From a strictly legal question, I know that the Senate is a party that has been harmed, in my opinion . . . I'm no lawyer, but that is my perspective on that," Brinks said when asked who is the aggrieved party in the situation.  

Police officers, teachers, corrections officers and other public employees "who literally today" should be seeing the bills' benefits being impacted as well, Brinks believes.  

"The people who have been keeping our roads safe, who have been out night and day, those are the kinds of folks who are going to be impacted by the bill we refer to as '80/20.' Those people deserve action, and they deserve action right now," she said.  

Meanwhile, Wednesday afternoon, Hall said his office is agnostic towards what is within the nine bills. Instead, he described evaluating the constitutional question of whether a new legislature is required to file the bills that the prior legislature left behind.  

"Thorough legal reviews take a long time . . . I mean, if they want to waste taxpayer dollars, they're going to lose in court, I'll tell you that," Hall said. "The Senate has no role in telling the House what to do, and I would just say . . . what a horrible way to start, where they're wasting taxpayer dollars on political lawsuits."  

When it comes to the problem at-hand, Hall said it all would have been averted had 2023-24 House Speaker Joe Tate (D-Detroit) presented the bills himself before the session ended. He added that he still might present them if they learn following a thorough legal review that they should according to law.  

MIRS spoke with a lawyer specializing in state constitutional law who spoke on condition of anonymity. The person said courts are generally reluctant to engage in legislative disputes.  

For example, in 2012, House Democrats filed a lawsuit over House Republicans giving bills immediate effect without recording roll call votes. However, the Michigan Court of Appeals ruled that it wasn't the courts' business to question the chamber's rules. 

Also, if the court ruled that the House or the House clerk's office did not have constitutional authority to not do something, how would the court enforce the determination?  

"They could say 'look, we'll accept a motion to dismiss from the House because there's not a justiciable question before us – it's a political question for the legislative or the political branches to resolve.' End case," the lawyer said to MIRS. "The general rule is that the judicial branch is not inclined to weigh into disputes between the executive branch and the legislative branch, or within the legislative branch."  

They noted that the issue really seemed to be with the clerks and the clerk staff, who appeared to have had a clear legal duty to enroll, print and present the bills to the Governor.  

"And they knew that the Legislature was ceasing to exist and there was changing control of the clerk's office. The general practice in the past has generally been, you get all the bills done and presented to the Governor by Dec. 31," the lawyer said. 

"And your staff does what they need to do to make that happen, whether it's 150 bills or 300 bills."