Michigan Speaker Talks About 428 Second-Chamber Bills That Remain In Limbo

(Source: MIRS.news, Published 11/21/2025) If you were hoping House Speaker Matt Hall (R-Richland Township) was going to vote on a healthy number of the 186 Senate bills sitting in his chamber during the last seven days of House session this year, you may be disappointed.

On this coming week's MIRS Monday podcast, the Speaker said he was “not really concerned” about the hard number of bills that'll be put on the voting board next month,

outside his top focus of an economic development package that allows qualifying businesses to retain half of the state income taxes paid by their new employees.

With a record low 35 public acts signed into law this year, the Senate is sitting on 242 House bills. The House is sitting on 186 Senate bills for a total of 428 bills in legislative limbo. Not all of them are partisan bills either.

Michigan Speaker of the House Matt Hall

In the Senate, 35 of the House bills were passed unanimously. In the House, 57 of the Senate bills were passed unanimously and 10 of those are sponsored by a Republican. Hall conceded that a focus of this term was to scale back the amount of legislation passed out of the House and to focus on “big things.”

“Our members understand what our vision is and what we're trying to accomplish,” Hall said. “We're here to do very big things.”

For him, that meant putting together a road funding package, creating transparency in the legislative earmark process, retaining the tipped wage and putting stricter perimeters around paid-sick leave.

In every case, it was mission accomplished, he said. That Gov. Gretchen Whitmer was willing to work with him and President Donald Trump – opening the door for a new mission for Selfridge and funding for the Asian carp barrier in Illinois – was icing on the cake for him.

“Our members got huge wins in this budget for their districts, too,” he said. Rep. Pat Outman (R-Six Lakes) scored some money in the budget for Sheridan Hospital. Rep. Rylee Linting (R-Wyandotte) got funding for a bridge in Trenton. Rep. Jamie Thompson (R-Brownstown) scored funding for Rockwood waster treatment plant.

As for the 242 House bills sitting in the Senate, Hall said, “We've passed more bills in the House than they have in the Senate and they sit on them, and then they blame me. It takes two sides . . . I think the Democrats in the Senate care a lot more about this than the Republicans in the House do, to be honest. If they care about the policy, they can move our bills.”

Among the bills not being acted on is SB 435, which ensures the home heating credit given to those in need is properly accounted for inflation.

SB 595 keeps alive a long-running surveying project along the Michigan-Indiana border that will statutorily disappear on Jan. 1 if not acted on.

As it stands, the Legislature stands to send to the Governor the fewest number of bills of any annual session since 1950, when the Legislature passed 43 bills in a limited-week special session.

Since the Michigan Legislature started having two-year sessions with the 1850 constitution, the fewest number of bills in a two-year time period is 97 from 1853-54, which may be in reach. View the spreadsheet detailing this here.

“We're meeting with (Senate Majority Floor Leader) Sam Singh (D-East Lansing) and we're looking at what bills they want to do before the end of the year, what bills we want to do before the end of the year, and we're working through that,” Hall said. “But I'm not really that concerned about how many of those go.”

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