Gretchen Whitmer’s chance for wide-ranging legacy derailed

Michigan Democrats led all branches of government for the past two years, for the first time in about four decades, and they started with a multibillion-dollar budget surplus to boot. But the trifecta was lost after Republicans won back the state House in the fall. And, during the chaotic final session of the year, Democrats accomplished little on what Whitmer once presented as the most significant issues facing the state.

Among the bills not acted upon: ones to bring more transparency to the governor’s office and Legislature, which are now exempt from public record requests. Also dead were efforts to repeal Michigan’s controversial emergency manager law and to charge royalties to bottled water companies for extracting groundwater and invest it in infrastructure and other programs, an idea similar to what Whitmer herself once suggested. The Legislature also took no substantive action to “fix the damn roads,” as Whitmer’s famous 2018 campaign slogan put it.

“Governor Whitmer thanks our colleagues in the legislature for their efforts on behalf of their fellow Michiganders and looks forward to working alongside the incoming House,” Stacey LaRouche, Whitmer’s press secretary, said in a statement. “She will continue to work with anyone who is serious about getting things done.”

Overall, Michigan Democrats followed an active first year in leadership with a markedly more stunted one, tempered by internal conflicts and moderate policies that seemed tailored to shoring up electoral prospects. (The governor has consistently demurred when asked about her interest in running for president.)

“I’m across-the-board mad,” said Lisa McGraw, public affairs manager of the Michigan Press Association, which has lobbied for years to expand the state’s Freedom of Information Act.

There is a continuing cost to secrecy in state government, McGraw said, pointing to how a lack of transparency contributes to corruption and the potential misuse of power. To those who oppose opening up the governor’s office and Legislature to FOIA, she asks, “What do they have to hide?”

Bills that would have made long-unaddressed fixes to Michigan’s Wrongful Imprisonment Compensation Act also never made it to the governor’s desk. A ProPublica investigation last year showed how WICA provides support for wrongfully convicted people as they rebuild their lives, but many of their compensation claims are challenged by the state. Some get nothing at all. Two Supreme Court justices, a state commission, the attorney general’s office and advocates have implored legislators to address gaps in the law.

But bills that aimed to do so expired at the end of the year.

“More people will be harmed in the near future because of the failure of our Legislature,” said Kenneth Nixon, president and co-founder of the Organization of Exonerees.

Now, he said, “everything starts over” with the WICA reform effort. The split government makes it unlikely that a new bill will advance over the next two years, he said, but it’s important to educate legislators on why the changes are needed.

“People have had their lives destroyed through no fault of their own, and they should be made whole,” Nixon said.

A Senate bill to ensure that health plans cover a new generation of cancer therapies also failed to reach the finish line. ProPublica previously reported on how a Michigan man died after an insurer denied the only therapy that could have saved his life.

Road funding wasn’t publicly addressed until the last moment. In mid-December, Whitmer reportedly warned her fellow Democrats that they shouldn’t expect her to sign any further bills if they didn’t move on road funding or economic development. But in the end, nothing got done on the issue that had once been Whitmer’s flagship.

Short-term funding sources that paid for some improvements in recent years are running out. Without further action, according to one estimate by civil engineers, the proportion of paved roads in poor condition will increase in the years to come.

“The governor has run on roads funding, but has she actually fixed it?” asked Rachel Hood, a Democrat whose term in the House ended in December. If Whitmer does run for higher office, she said, voters “will see that the job didn’t get done.”

Sam Inglot, executive director of the left-leaning nonprofit Progress Michigan, said that one of the lessons of the last session is that, even with a trifecta advantage, there’s a need for strong leadership. “You need to have somebody who’s going to set the vision and the priorities of what these folks are going to do,” he said.

Michigan lawmakers did pass a slew of consequential laws in 2023, the first year of full Democratic power. They repealed the state’s “right-to-work” law that allowed workers in unionized jobs to opt out of union dues and fees, codified reproductive rights, expanded the earned income tax credit, and provided free breakfast and lunch to all public schoolchildren.

And, in the last weeks of the trifecta, they passed bills that strengthened hate crime protections, modified the state’s gun buyback program and made changes intended to increase access to birth control.

State Sen. Jeff Irwin, a Democrat who sponsored the cancer treatment bill, said that many of the year’s accomplishments were overlooked because they didn’t sync with issues spotlighted in the presidential election. As an example of one such success, he pointed to reforms in how reading skills are taught in Michigan. (ProPublica has reported on how 1 in 5 American adults struggles to read at a basic level.)

Nonetheless, “2024 will be chronicled as one of the least productive legislative sessions in history,” said Eric Lupher, president of the Citizens Research Council of Michigan, a nonpartisan policy organization.

Momentum slowed in the first part of the year, as the Democrats’ slim House majority slipped to a tie until after special elections were held for two seats. Election-year campaigning ate up the summer and fall. And an ordinarily crowded late-term agenda was even more so because House Speaker Joe Tate instructed members to wait until after the election to introduce many bills, according to Hood. (Tate’s office didn’t respond to requests for comment.)

Then House Republicans and one Democratic representative refused to show up unless their policy priorities were addressed. Unable to muster a quorum, Tate adjourned the House early, on Dec. 19. “No one did their job in the House,” McGraw said. “They didn’t show up.”

The Senate continued working, powering through an all-night session before concluding business on the afternoon of Dec. 20. But it was effectively limited to bills needing no further action from the House.

That was a problem for the wrongful-compensation bill. Although the House passed it in December, the bill inadvertently left off an amendment, so it wasn’t possible for the Senate to vote on a complete version of the bill, said Sen. Stephanie Chang, the Democratic sponsor.

Despite her reported warning about legislative inaction on roads, Whitmer did sign many bills, including policies addressing housing discrimination and human trafficking.

And this week, on the first day of the new legislative session, the senators who have long fought to expand FOIA introduced the bipartisan proposals yet again. “The Senate has made this a priority,” said McGraw. “I hope the House Republicans feel the same way.”

If passed, the bills would likely not take effect until 2027 — after Whitmer concludes her second and final term in office.

LaRouche said in a statement that the governor believes that state government must be open, transparent and accountable to taxpayers. “She is the first governor in state history to voluntarily disclose personal financial information, and income tax returns,” LaRouche said.

Whitmer previously said that if legislative efforts to increase transparency stall, she would unilaterally open up the governor’s and lieutenant governor’s offices to public record requests.

“Michiganders should know when and what their governor is working on,” she vowed in her 2018 Sunshine Plan.

Six years later, she has yet to do so.