Legislature misses midnight deadline for avoiding a shutdown but still passes budget agreement

LANSING – They missed the midnight deadline for averting a partial state government shutdown, but it appears after a day of bills funneling back and forth between the Senate and House a shutdown was averted early Monday morning.

Shortly before 3 a.m. Monday morning the Senate voted 19-19 for the conference report for House Bill 5198 to set a sales tax on certain services with two Republicans crossing over and Lt. Gov. John Cherry broke the tie by voting yes. Earlier in the morning two hours earlier the Senate had voted the same way for the conference report for House Bill 5194 that that raised the income tax rate from 3.9 percent to 4.45 percent.

Averting the shutdown took a lot of starts and stops, such as the conference report for the package of bills known as the Public Employees Health Benefit Act bill requiring pooling of health insurance for teachers and other public employees. It barely passed in the House by a vote of 57-52 just minutes after midnight Sunday night/Monday morning. That appeared to be the last piece in the puzzle for an agreement to balance the budget and for the Governor signing a 30-day continuation or temporary budget bill if the Senate passed the revenue bills authorizing the sales tax and the income tax increase.

Things got rolling in the Senate at 9:30 p.m. when it took up bills sent over from the House. Senate Bills 772 and 773 – the all important continuation budget - was passed by a vote of 34-3 that will keep the state government going for 30 days beginning on Monday. The continuation budget bill was previously approved in the House. The other budget bills are tie-barred to the continuation bill, and it took all night and the early morning to get all the pieces in order.

“This is a multi-departmental budget bill, and it includes debt service payments,” said Sen. Ron Jelinek, R-Three Oaks, the chair of the Appropriations Committee.

However, the continuation budget bill was tie-barred to the revenue increases; House Bills 5198 that set a sales tax on certain services and HB 5194. Earlier in the day the House passed HB 5198 that set the sales tax on 23 categories of services. It was approved with a narrow vote of 56-53, with the support of all but two Democrats. The bill provides some $613 million toward this year's $1.8 billion budget deficit.

The Conference Committee, consisting of three members from both Houses, voted 4-2 to approve HB 5194 that raised the income tax from 3.9 percent to 4.45 percent. Shortly before 11 p.m. the House passed the bill by a vote of 57-52 to kick it over to the Senate. Rep. Chris Ward, R-Brighton, and Rep. Ed Gaffney, R-Grosse Pointe Farms, were the only Republicans to vote for the bill. Ironically, Ward was on the conference committee and cast one of the two no votes.

The Senate also passed unanimously a series of reform bills aimed at improving government efficiency in exchange for some Republicans supporting the revenue increases. Senate Bills 396, 396 and 397 were passed that creates a Commission on Government Efficiency. The commission would conduct a comprehensive reviews and analysis of state administrative functions and mandates imposed upon local units, and the commission would recommend potential cost-saving reforms to the Legislature.

SB 549 was passed unanimously to implement a uniform school calendar for all public school districts. The rationale is there will be a monetary savings if it is easier to share program and services if they are all on the same calendar. SB 632 would allow products made by prisoners through Michigan State Industries (MSI) only be sold to non-profit agencies and tax-exempt agencies.

A major reform that was passed unanimously was House Bill 4800 that ends the so-called “double dipping.” It amends the State Employees' Retirement Act to suspend pension payments of a retiree under the act if the individual is reemployed by the State of Michigan directly or indirectly. The House substitute for SB 622 was passed 22-16 that will allow the Michigan Department of Corrections to privatize the corrections mental health program by allowing them to contract with "third-party providers."

Most of the Michigan’s media was for the first time in a long time focused on the Capitol, and Detroit and Lansing area TV stations were conducting live interviews and reports on both the House and Senate floors. However, Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop, R-Rochester, had the Senate Sergeants-At-Arms order the assembled media not to photograph or film the vote board when votes are taken to give the bills immediate effect. Those votes are not recorded anywhere or appear in the Senate Journal, so a photo or video of the board would be the only record. The rules that govern the Senate say nothing about what the media can or cannot shoot once they are given permission to film or photograph on the Senate floor.

This is not the first time Bishop has been accused of censorship. Last August he received a firestorm of criticism for attempting to block access from Senate computers to the blog "Blogging for Michigan" that had been critical of his handling of the budget situation. Only after he received criticism from both sides of the political spectrum did he relent and change his position.

Governor’s Inaugural speech inspires

Only Gov. Jennifer Granholm can make the oath of office sound lively and exciting, and she did just that today when she was sworn in for her final term by her mentor, Judge Damon Keith, on the Capitol steps in Lansing in front of some 1,000 brave but cold souls.

I was one of those brave souls, and I had a front row SRO perch, thanks to the place-saving ability of Liberal Lucy of Liberal, Loud and Proud. Following the swearing in of the Governor, Lt. Governor, Attorney General, Secretary of State, the trustees of the state’s public universities and judges we made our way across the Grand River to the warmth of the Lansing Center to hear the inaugural speeches.

The theme of the scaled down inauguration was “Celebrating the Next Michigan,” and the governor laid out the problems facing Michigan and her slow but study success at diversify our economy by attracting high-tech companies to the state and maintaining our still much needed auto manufacturing base in the face of the disastrous unfair national trade practices.

“We have seen, and we have fought alongside entire communities that have been hollowed out by the ravaging pull of cheap labor from distant lands,” she said. “We all know that our challenges have been decades in the making. And we know that full transformation doesn't happen overnight.”

Her speech was interrupted by applause about a dozen times, especially when she urged legislative and political leaders to put politics aside and act now to begin undoing the problems that the ebbing market share of our state's largest employer has caused over the years and act now.

“Because it will take time, we cannot waste time,” she said. “Feel the urgency. You feel it too. We must act and act now.”

I had the privilege of hearing Anita Baker sing her rousing rendition of the National Anthem, and Whitney Houston has nothing on her. I was a little disappointed at the Invocation of Pastor Dan Miller of St. Joseph. He took an inappropriate shot at newspaper Op-Ed pages in a prayer.

Sen. Carl Levin was the MC, and he acknowledged the great job the governor has done with the mess that was dropped in her lap four years ago.

“She has trimmed more money from the budget than any governor in history, but she still managed to extend health care to 300,000 people, diversified our economy and attracted new businesses to the state,” he said.

Lt. Governor John Cherry highlighted the administration’s fight to bring health care to all Michigan citizens and give every child the means to go to college if they desire. He compared the administration to a ship sailing on the Great Lakes with the governor as the commanding officer, and she has sailed us through some story waters over the past four years.

“She made the tough, gut-check decisions that had to be made to erase the budget deficits we were facing,” he said.

Mayors George Heartwell of Grand Rapids and Kwame Kilpatrick of Detroit led off the remarks. I have heard Kilpatrick speak in the past, but he seemed to me much more mature and more of a leader, and his remarks reflected the theme of Celebrating the Next Michigan when he pointed out the citizens of Michigan have more similarities than differences.

The speech by Attorney General Mike Cox was uninspired at best, and there was good reason why the more than 3,000 people in the Lansing Center sat on their hands during his remarks.

Secretary of State Terri Land’s speech was also unremarkable, but I was intrigued by some of her proposals. I liked her proposal to pre-register 16-year-olds to vote when they get their DL, so that when they are 18 they are already registered. The no response early voting sounded interesting. Perhaps it’s just the verbiage that’s different, but I would prefer no reason absentee voting instead of early voting. Anything that encourages young people to vote and increases voter turnout I support. She also proposed having the Michigan DL serve as the passport, and that will ease problems going to and from our neighbor to the north.