Article courtesy of MIRS for SBAM’s Lansing Watchdog newsletter
Several lawmakers want to regain the momentum behind some of the nine long-delayed bills that abruptly stopped when Gov. Gretchen Whitmer vetoed them shortly after the Michigan Supreme Court allowed a lower court ruling requiring their presentation.
Sen. John Cherry (D-Flint) told MIRS he has requested the reintroduction of legislation expanding pension-style retirement benefits for corrections, conservation and motor carrier officers.
Rep. Amos O’Neal (D-Saginaw), a sponsor of one of the bills that would have allowed eligible corrections officers to enter the Michigan State Police Retirement System, also told MIRS he wants to reintroduce the legislation.
Rep. Mai Xiong (D-Warren) said Monday morning in a press release that next term she plans to continue her policy that would have loosened restrictions on how public employers and employees divide health insurance costs.
Their plans come as the governor vetoed the bills after they were held for roughly 18 months during a legal dispute over whether the current House was required to present legislation passed by a previous Legislature. The Michigan Supreme Court declined to hear appeals in the case, leaving intact a Court of Appeals ruling that the House had a constitutional duty to present the bills.
Whitmer said the reason behind halting the legislation was because it would create “an insurmountable administrative burden” and unleash “endless litigation.” She said implementing the bills retroactively could overwrite laws enacted since then, create fiscal obligations that were not included in the Fiscal Year 2027 budget and lead to litigation. Whitmer also said she was prepared to work with lawmakers on new versions.
The decision disappointed lawmakers across both chambers. Although some wish they were given the opportunity to make changes before they were vetoed, they still don’t view this as the end of the road for the legislation.
O’Neal said he’s open to conversations with the governor’s office to understand what changes should be made. He said work could begin during the Legislature’s break if the governor’s office contacted lawmakers or legislative policy staff.
“I’m looking forward to talking with the governor’s office and seeing how we can — and what we need to — do to get those back on track and make them better,” O’Neal said. “I think we would all be receptive to that, I know I would be. I’m optimistic and hopeful that we can get back on track and bring these back up so we can talk them through.”
But O’Neal has yet to speak with the governor’s office about those changes.
Xiong said that the court ruling should have been a huge win for teachers, police officers and first responders across Michigan. She didn’t blame the governor in her press release, she instead directed that heat toward House Speaker Matt Hall (R-Richland Township).
“I am disappointed to see that after a year and a half of Speaker Hall unconstitutionally withholding these bills, Michiganders will not see justice this time around,” Xiong said. “As the costs of healthcare continue to skyrocket, my legislation was a commonsense step to lower health insurance premiums for our state’s dedicated public employees, helping them and their families get the care they need.”
She said she would be looking to reintroduce her legislation in the next term.
Cherry knew that he wasn’t the only lawmaker interested in resuscitating the legislation. He said he believes there’s a strong appetite amongst the legislators to not only advance these bills, but others too.
His pulse on the situation makes sense, not just because he chairs the Senate Labor Committee, but because he was the one to lead the retirement package that was initially born in the senate. It was he who was the lead sponsor alongside Sen. Sue Shink (D-Dexter) and then-Sen. Kristen McDonald Rivet (D-Bay City) who sponsored the other two bills.
Those original Senate versions of the bills, however, were not taken up by the House amid the dysfunction of the 2024 lame-duck session. Democrats held a majority in the House and were unable to unify around their end-of-session priorities, so they created identical House versions that were ultimately advanced to the governor.
Cherry’s interest in the policy began before he even entered the Legislature. It started when he worked in state government when he’d carpool with Department of Corrections employees. He said those conversations helped him understand the consequences of moving corrections officers from a defined benefit pension system to a defined contribution plan in the 1990s.
“It motivated me to be very interested in addressing that issue when I joined the Legislature, and so it’s something that I’ve worked on even since I was in the House, on how we do this in a way that’s going to ensure that we’re able to recruit and retain employees and let them have a work-life balance,” Cherry said.
Cherry said he later saw similar recruitment and retention problems affecting conservation officers while working at the Department of Natural Resources.
“If you’re critically understaffed, people are always working overtime and have zero work-life balance, which also then feeds into the problem of retaining people,” Cherry said. “It’s really entered a spiral in recent years, but it was always a problem that was continuing to build, and it was never addressed. We need to address it.”
O’Neal similarly pointed to staffing shortages within the Department of Corrections, estimating the department is short-staffed by approximately 900 to 1,000 officers.
“Staff are working extremely strenuous hours and overtime, putting great strain on them and their families, making it not safe for themselves and others,” O’Neal said. “That’s something we really need to address sooner rather than later.”
O’Neal said he has also heard from the labor organization representing corrections officers since the veto and that its members are “very, very upset.”
And although returning the employees to a pension-style system would increase retirement costs initially, Cherry argued the state could eventually save money by reducing overtime and the repeated expense of training replacement officers.
“You might have increased costs on the front end, but you have decreased costs, I think, long-term,” Cherry said.
Despite not having his name attached to the legislation, he still gave serious credit to the Legislative Service Bureau and fellow sponsors for their legal work and drafting. But he still feels personally invested in the legislation.
“Those are my babies in a way, or I feel that level of ownership of them,” Cherry said. “They’re extremely important to me, and I’ll very explicitly talk about the origins of it.”
So after years of work, Cherry said he was disappointed by Whitmer’s decision to veto the bills. He argued that the implementation dates could have been addressed through the courts, pointing to previous cases in which courts allowed required dates to be adjusted.
“I’ve put a lot of effort and energy into it, so I was very disappointed,” Cherry said. “Ultimately, I think the vetoes are going to hurt a lot of state employees, as well as Michiganders in general.”
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