Conversations in the House, which House Speaker Joe Tate (D-Detroit) often described as ongoing throughout the term, came to an abrupt end Friday night when, just before 10:30 p.m., Rep. Karen Whitsett (D-Detroit) decided to leave session.
With just 55 of 110 members in the chamber, and lacking a quorum to conduct business, the House had no choice but to adjourn, leaving more than 30 bills on Third Reading that it earlier advanced from Second Reading, presumably candidates for passage votes.
Whitsett was not the first to leave or threaten to leave session of Friday.
Some Democratic members, frustrated with four days of grueling session with little to show for it, combined with two years of internal acrimony in their caucus, made attempts to walk out the door.
Republicans left session earlier in the day Friday after holding a press conference in opposition to how House Speaker Joe Tate (D-Detroit) was handling negotiations on road funding.
“We were trying to have those conversations,” Minority Leader and Speaker-elect Rep. Matt Hall (R-Richland Township) said after reappearing on the floor following adjournment. “But in order for those conversations to go on in good faith, you have to move these vehicle bills on things like roads, on things like the paid sick leave and on things like the minimum wage, because you have to keep those issues alive for the conversations to continue… The unfortunate thing is, today, Speaker Tate made a decision to kill all of that and focus on issues that we thought could wait until next year.”
Unless the Senate holds its tentatively planned December 23 session – and there is skepticism it will, considering how unusual a session the day before Christmas Eve would be – any House bills that have not yet passed the House are now dead for the term. That includes a deal on roads, paid leave and tipped minimum wage.
“We have to reassess, but obviously, with the days we have remaining, I think that window closes for this legislative session,” Tate said. “What Leader Hall and the rest of his colleagues did by holding a press conference and not showing up, told me that they weren’t serious about actually doing work…. I don’t want to feed into political games. That’s their job. They’re supposed to be here.’
Hall said that next term, he’d be able to deliver on the road deal that fell apart on Friday.
“Tate is a failed leader who can’t bring people together,” he said. “These guys are focused on the wrong issues.”
House Majority Floor Leader Abraham Aiyash (D-Hamtramck) said that Republicans engaged in political theatrics on Friday.
“They had an opportunity to come to the table, but they decided to stay home,” he said.
But Hall said Tate knew he was in his office all day.
“When the speaker comes out here and says, ‘We can’t have bipartisan conversations if the others aren’t here. He knew I was in my office,” he said. “My point is, if they want to have the conversation, they can come downstairs… The speaker didn’t come to see us, but we were here until the end because we want to keep the option open.”
Hall went on to say that Tate didn’t have the courage to stand up to labor unions, which was why he wouldn’t entertain negotiations about tipped wage and paid time off.
Democrats were still trying to come to a decision on those issues, Aiyash said.
“We had a discussion on the vehicle bills this week,” he said. “Our caucus was still discussing them.”
Tate insisted that had shell bills gone up on the board, the chamber wouldn’t have had 56 votes.
The Michigan Restaurant and Lodging Association that has pleaded with the Legislature to preserve a lower minimum wage for tipped workers, warning bringing them up to the full minimum wage would lead to huge menu price increases and less pay as patrons reduce tipping, if they tip at all, excoriated Tate and Senate Majority Leader Winnie Brinks (D-Grand Rapids).
“Amongst Michigan’s 20,000 restaurants and nearly 500,000 workers, today will be remembered as a tragically avoidable failure of leadership by the Democratic leaders of the Michigan House and the Senate,” MRLA President and CEO Justin Winslow said in a statement. “In a hyper-polarized environment, where virtually every piece of legislation has moved with the narrowest of majorities, the Legislature failed to do the one thing that the public overwhelmingly wanted, that tens of thousands of impacted workers cried out for and that thousands of small businesses needed – to responsibly raise the minimum wage while restoring Michigan’s tip credit before its absence decimated an industry for the second time in five years. The concept and the legislation are bipartisan.
“The responsibility for the restaurants that will inevitably close permanently in 2025 and the many jobs that go with it lies squarely with Speaker Joe Tate and most especially with Senate Majority Leader Winnie Brinks,” Winslow said. “They have abandoned Michigan’s hospitality industry.”
During its 13-hour session, the House passed 58 bills on Friday.
The House next convenes at 10 a.m. Wednesday, and any bills it passes then would be eligible for action in the Senate on December 23. However, the House is not scheduled to meet that day, meaning the Senate – if it met – would have to pass House bills with no changes to get them to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
It remains to be seen whether the Republican caucus will return to session next week.
Hall said the caucus needed to have a conversation, but that the Senate had not voted on many bills that he thought House Democrats would need his members to vote on.
Tate said there were no plans to add session days to the House’s calendar going forward.
Given the enormous internal acrimony among House Democrats and between the House and Senate Democratic caucuses, it’s an uphill task to think a high-wire act of having the House pass big items on December 18 and the Senate rubber-stamping them on December 23 could be pulled off, particularly considering the inertia of the entire year.
Top liberal policy priorities, like an overhaul of workers compensation, paid family leave and much more are also dead in their tracks.
– By Elena Durnbaugh and Zach Gorchow
