By Elena Durnbaugh
Gongwer News Service
Underlying the question before the Michigan Supreme Court on Wednesday was how much power the speaker of the House should have.
Attorneys for the House and the Senate made oral arguments in Senate and Senate Majority Leader v. House and House Speaker (MSC Docket No. 169381) concerning the fate of the nine bills from the 2023-24 session that were never presented to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in January 2025, as the Republican majority, led by House?Speaker Matt Hall of Richland Township, was taking control of the House.
An attorney representing the Senate argued permitting the House to hold back bills from presentment would give the speaker veto authority while the attorney for the House said the chamber had no authority to present bills passed during the previous term.
Both the Court of Appeals and the Court of Claims previously ruled the Constitution required the House to present the bills. The Court of Appeals went further and ordered the House to present the bills.
Among the nine bills is one (House Bill 6058 of 2024) that would require local governments, school districts and other public bodies to pay a greater share of their employees' health insurance premiums.
The remaining legislation still held in the House includes three bills allowing Detroit history museums to seek a property tax millage from Wayne County voters (House Bill 4177 of 2023, House Bill 5817 of 2024 and House Bill 5818 of 2024); bills that would put corrections officers into the State Police pension system (House Bill 4665 of 2023, House Bill 4666 of 2023 and House Bill 4667 of 2023) and exempting public assistance, disability and worker's compensation from garnishment to repay debts ( House Bill 4900 of 2024 and House Bill 4901 of 2024).
Prior to the oral arguments, Democratic lawmakers – including Sen. Sue Shink, D-Northfield Township; Rep. Angela Witwer, D-Delta Township; Rep. Kara Hope, D-Holt; Rep. Penelope Tsernoglou, D-East Lansing; Rep. Julie Brixie, D-Okemos; Rep. Brenda Carter, D-Pontiac; and Rep. Mai Xiong, D-Warren – along with union members from the AFL-CIO, MEA, AFSCME and others, rallied on the steps of the Supreme Court.
Clyde Gentry, a motor care officer with the Michigan State Police Commercial Vehicle Enforcement Division, spoke to those gathered and to the press Wednesday morning.
“We aren’t asking for anything extra. We are simply demanding that Speaker Hall follow the oath that he swore to uphold. Send the bills to the governor. Stop the chaos and stop the obstruction,” Gentry said. “It’s time for Matt Hall to stop sidestepping Michigan’s Constitution, start doing his job and following the law like the rest of us.”
Inside the court room, Kyle Asher, of Dykema, argued on behalf of the House, and Mark Brewer, of Goodman Acker, argued on behalf of the Senate.
“If the House’s anti-majoritarian tactic is allowed to succeed, it will unilaterally and drastically change Michigan’s bicameral Legislature, it’s separation of powers, our checks and balances and the majoritarian principle which underlies everything we do in state and local government,” Brewer said. “It will no longer be majority rules. … When it comes to legislation, a single legislative leader can simply refuse to send to the governor any passed bill. Even bills passed by overwhelming majorities.”
Allowing the House to not present the bills would essentially hand lawmakers the power to pocket veto, which is reserved for the governor, Brewer argued.
Justice Elizabeth Welch posed the argument to Asher.
“What is your response to the argument that this essentially allows a one-person veto by the Speaker of the House?” she said.
Asher said that the majority of the elected and serving 103rd Legislature did not vote for the nine bills in question, but rather, the House this term passed HR 41, which said the House did not have any power to act on the earlier legislation.
“This is not a unilateral act by the speaker,” Asher said. “This is not a case where we’re just blatantly violating the Constitution. We have more than good faith arguments that the House is not permitted to present these bills.”
Asher said that the judicial branch does not have the authority to force the Legislature to carry out a legislative process. Beyond that, Asher said the 103rd Legislature lacked a clear legal duty to present the 102nd Legislature’s bills.
“We’re not coming here today to thumb our nose at the courts,” he said. “Had the 103rd House (presented the bills), that act itself would have violated the Constitution.”
He specifically referenced Article 4, section 13, concerning when the business of the chamber ends.
Justice Kimberly Thomas questioned whether presentment was considered business.
“There are things to be acted upon by the Legislature … and these have already by acted on by the Legislature. There’s nothing to do other than presentment,” she said.
Brewer argued that once a bill was passed by both chambers and enrolled, the business of the Legislature was complete.
“These are not pending bills,” he said. “These bills were passed. They were enrolled. They could have been, should have been, literally walked down the hall of the state Capitol and given to the governor’s office by an employee of the clerk.”
If the court were to rule that the House had an obligation to present a previous Legislature’s bills, Asher argued it would bar the Legislature’s long-standing practice of vacating enrolled bills and would allow the judiciary to interfere in the legislative process and have the final say in the business of the Legislature.
“It will open the courthouse door to future disputes to relegate the Legislature from a co-equal (branch) to an inferior branch to the judiciary,” he said.
Brewer said it was the House that was interfering in the legislative process.
“It takes a lot of hutzpah for the House to come here today and say to the courts, ‘Don’t interfere in the legislative process.’ That is exactly what the House has done,” he said. “We are asking the court for a remedy to restore the status quo.”
Asher also argued that presenting the bills now would cause issues as legislation from this term has altered the same statutes.
Asher said that after the 103rd Legislature was convened, no more bills from the 102nd Legislature were presented.
Brewer, however, said that records contemporary to January 2025 show that 19 bills were presented to the governor the morning of Jan. 8 prior to the 103rd Legislature convening and another 69 were presented that afternoon after the new Legislature convened.
“It demonstrates, but for these nine bills, this Legislature, this House, continued the past practice of submitting bills that have been passed by a previous Legislature,” he said.
Asher said that the House Journal states that the 103rd Legislature did not present any bills from the previous session, and because the timing of presentment was a disputed fact, it couldn’t be used to issue a mandamus.
Welch raised the question of political gamesmanship.
“So, the Legislature passes a bill under a governor who they know is going to veto it. Change of administration in November,” she said. “Can they just hold on to it? … ‘We’ll wait till the next governor gets here?’”
Brewer said that the trigger for presentment was the passage of a bill.
“It’s the duty of the Legislature … to forward that bill to the governor and stop the gamesmanship, an extreme example of which we see here.”
Brewer asked the court to issue a mandamus order directing the House or the clerk of the House to present the bills.
“Our goal is to get these bills to the governor,” he said. “The Senate has no remedy other than to come to court, and that’s why mandamus is appropriate here.”
Asher said retroactively requiring the House to present the bills was drastic relief and that there should be a hard line that a Legislature be required to present its own bills.
“If the duty to present is not session dependent, then sure, the 104th, 105th, the 106th Legislature could present these bills,” he said. “The remedy would have been for the 102nd
Legislature to present its own bills. It didn’t.”
Now that the court has heard oral arguments, it will decide whether to rule based on appeal or add the case to its full schedule for later this term.
Gongwer News Service
Underlying the question before the Michigan Supreme Court on Wednesday was how much power the speaker of the House should have.
Attorneys for the House and the Senate made oral arguments in Senate and Senate Majority Leader v. House and House Speaker (MSC Docket No. 169381) concerning the fate of the nine bills from the 2023-24 session that were never presented to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in January 2025, as the Republican majority, led by House?Speaker Matt Hall of Richland Township, was taking control of the House.
An attorney representing the Senate argued permitting the House to hold back bills from presentment would give the speaker veto authority while the attorney for the House said the chamber had no authority to present bills passed during the previous term.
Both the Court of Appeals and the Court of Claims previously ruled the Constitution required the House to present the bills. The Court of Appeals went further and ordered the House to present the bills.
Among the nine bills is one (House Bill 6058 of 2024) that would require local governments, school districts and other public bodies to pay a greater share of their employees' health insurance premiums.
The remaining legislation still held in the House includes three bills allowing Detroit history museums to seek a property tax millage from Wayne County voters (House Bill 4177 of 2023, House Bill 5817 of 2024 and House Bill 5818 of 2024); bills that would put corrections officers into the State Police pension system (House Bill 4665 of 2023, House Bill 4666 of 2023 and House Bill 4667 of 2023) and exempting public assistance, disability and worker's compensation from garnishment to repay debts ( House Bill 4900 of 2024 and House Bill 4901 of 2024).
Prior to the oral arguments, Democratic lawmakers – including Sen. Sue Shink, D-Northfield Township; Rep. Angela Witwer, D-Delta Township; Rep. Kara Hope, D-Holt; Rep. Penelope Tsernoglou, D-East Lansing; Rep. Julie Brixie, D-Okemos; Rep. Brenda Carter, D-Pontiac; and Rep. Mai Xiong, D-Warren – along with union members from the AFL-CIO, MEA, AFSCME and others, rallied on the steps of the Supreme Court.
Clyde Gentry, a motor care officer with the Michigan State Police Commercial Vehicle Enforcement Division, spoke to those gathered and to the press Wednesday morning.
“We aren’t asking for anything extra. We are simply demanding that Speaker Hall follow the oath that he swore to uphold. Send the bills to the governor. Stop the chaos and stop the obstruction,” Gentry said. “It’s time for Matt Hall to stop sidestepping Michigan’s Constitution, start doing his job and following the law like the rest of us.”
Inside the court room, Kyle Asher, of Dykema, argued on behalf of the House, and Mark Brewer, of Goodman Acker, argued on behalf of the Senate.
“If the House’s anti-majoritarian tactic is allowed to succeed, it will unilaterally and drastically change Michigan’s bicameral Legislature, it’s separation of powers, our checks and balances and the majoritarian principle which underlies everything we do in state and local government,” Brewer said. “It will no longer be majority rules. … When it comes to legislation, a single legislative leader can simply refuse to send to the governor any passed bill. Even bills passed by overwhelming majorities.”
Allowing the House to not present the bills would essentially hand lawmakers the power to pocket veto, which is reserved for the governor, Brewer argued.
Justice Elizabeth Welch posed the argument to Asher.
“What is your response to the argument that this essentially allows a one-person veto by the Speaker of the House?” she said.
Asher said that the majority of the elected and serving 103rd Legislature did not vote for the nine bills in question, but rather, the House this term passed HR 41, which said the House did not have any power to act on the earlier legislation.
“This is not a unilateral act by the speaker,” Asher said. “This is not a case where we’re just blatantly violating the Constitution. We have more than good faith arguments that the House is not permitted to present these bills.”
Asher said that the judicial branch does not have the authority to force the Legislature to carry out a legislative process. Beyond that, Asher said the 103rd Legislature lacked a clear legal duty to present the 102nd Legislature’s bills.
“We’re not coming here today to thumb our nose at the courts,” he said. “Had the 103rd House (presented the bills), that act itself would have violated the Constitution.”
He specifically referenced Article 4, section 13, concerning when the business of the chamber ends.
Justice Kimberly Thomas questioned whether presentment was considered business.
“There are things to be acted upon by the Legislature … and these have already by acted on by the Legislature. There’s nothing to do other than presentment,” she said.
Brewer argued that once a bill was passed by both chambers and enrolled, the business of the Legislature was complete.
“These are not pending bills,” he said. “These bills were passed. They were enrolled. They could have been, should have been, literally walked down the hall of the state Capitol and given to the governor’s office by an employee of the clerk.”
If the court were to rule that the House had an obligation to present a previous Legislature’s bills, Asher argued it would bar the Legislature’s long-standing practice of vacating enrolled bills and would allow the judiciary to interfere in the legislative process and have the final say in the business of the Legislature.
“It will open the courthouse door to future disputes to relegate the Legislature from a co-equal (branch) to an inferior branch to the judiciary,” he said.
Brewer said it was the House that was interfering in the legislative process.
“It takes a lot of hutzpah for the House to come here today and say to the courts, ‘Don’t interfere in the legislative process.’ That is exactly what the House has done,” he said. “We are asking the court for a remedy to restore the status quo.”
Asher also argued that presenting the bills now would cause issues as legislation from this term has altered the same statutes.
Asher said that after the 103rd Legislature was convened, no more bills from the 102nd Legislature were presented.
Brewer, however, said that records contemporary to January 2025 show that 19 bills were presented to the governor the morning of Jan. 8 prior to the 103rd Legislature convening and another 69 were presented that afternoon after the new Legislature convened.
“It demonstrates, but for these nine bills, this Legislature, this House, continued the past practice of submitting bills that have been passed by a previous Legislature,” he said.
Asher said that the House Journal states that the 103rd Legislature did not present any bills from the previous session, and because the timing of presentment was a disputed fact, it couldn’t be used to issue a mandamus.
Welch raised the question of political gamesmanship.
“So, the Legislature passes a bill under a governor who they know is going to veto it. Change of administration in November,” she said. “Can they just hold on to it? … ‘We’ll wait till the next governor gets here?’”
Brewer said that the trigger for presentment was the passage of a bill.
“It’s the duty of the Legislature … to forward that bill to the governor and stop the gamesmanship, an extreme example of which we see here.”
Brewer asked the court to issue a mandamus order directing the House or the clerk of the House to present the bills.
“Our goal is to get these bills to the governor,” he said. “The Senate has no remedy other than to come to court, and that’s why mandamus is appropriate here.”
Asher said retroactively requiring the House to present the bills was drastic relief and that there should be a hard line that a Legislature be required to present its own bills.
“If the duty to present is not session dependent, then sure, the 104th, 105th, the 106th Legislature could present these bills,” he said. “The remedy would have been for the 102nd
Legislature to present its own bills. It didn’t.”
Now that the court has heard oral arguments, it will decide whether to rule based on appeal or add the case to its full schedule for later this term.
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