Speaker Had 'Some Conflict' With Governor But 'We Found Compromise'

(Source: MIRS.news, Published 10/07/2025) Decked out in a blue PGA golfing sports shirt and after the dust had settled, House Speaker Matt Hall (R-Richland Township) did a deep 26-minute dive into what unfolded during the contentious and draining budget debate aimed at avoiding a government shutdown.

He continued his praise for Gov. Gretchen Whitmer opining, "I really think the reason all of this got done is because Gov. Whitmer and I really forged a really good working relations … we really drove the budget process."

But he also confessed, for the first time, he was somewhat surprised at that development.

Michigan House Speaker Matt Hall (R-Richland Township)

"I never really thought that we would have come into this and had so much alignment with Gov. Whitmer," and he confirms it was after her decision to cooperate with President Trump that she revealed last December that laid the foundation for their relationship that worked so well."

Except when it came to this.

"This was an area where there was some conflict, but we found a compromise," he revealed, regarding how to move portions of the state workforce out of the post COVID-19 home offices into the downtown Lansing office space.

And the Governor agrees, explaining that the deal they worked out is not something that "Matt Hall contemplated."

The Speaker details the arrangement as two-fold. It includes getting rid of some of the 400 building leases the state has and selling off some of the 500 buildings that it owns. The number will be determined by the executive branch.

They agreed to "reduce office leases, which is going to save the taxpayers money and bring more workers back to work to get up to that 80 percent occupancy rate, which is pretty much in line with the private sector."

He added that the administration is now sharing "swipe card data" on downtown state offices after first telling Republicans they could not release it because of worker safety concerns. Based on that data, the Speaker concludes the state is nowhere near the 80 percent norm for other businesses around the state, and he pledges to "continue to monitor the occupancy with the data (and) we'll see how this works," as he wants to make sure the deal does work.

The "biggest sticking point" in the entire budget give and take, he says, centered on the battle over the full disclosure of pork barrel spending data before lawmakers voted on that.

"That was something the Democrats in the Senate pledged they never would do … they wouldn't cave, and I wasn't going to cave on not having the disclosure, and finally they wanted the pork so badly they agreed … so I think that's what I was most happy about," Hall said.

The Governor embraced this move, as well, saying, "there is going to be more transparency and that was something that was long overdue and important, and it's a really good long-term policy change," she told TV-6 in Lansing.

The Democrats never gave up on their notion that the Speaker wanted to shut the government down. Asked if it was a fair statement to say that he never wanted to shut down the government, he offered, "Yeah. That's a fair statement."

In the quiet of his first floor office last Friday afternoon as he promised to leave and get some rest, he was asked if he learned anything about himself during this grueling forced budget march.

He said "hum" and then his eyes went up into his head as he admitted something you never expected to hear from this hard ball player with deep conservative GOP roots.

"I don't know. There are a lot of things that you learn, but I guess I had a lot more patience for the Democrats than I knew was possible," as he offered up this possible quote of the day.