The Michigan House Judiciary Committee heard testimony Wednesday on bills to limit the state attorney general’s powers.
One bill would stop the attorney general from getting involved in existing cases without the governor or Legislature signing off. That’s opposed to current law, which grants the office discretion to intervene when “the interests of the state require it.”
During Wednesday’s committee meeting, bill sponsor state Representative Jay DeBoyer (R-Clay) brought up an example of the attorney general prosecuting a case involving COVID-19 pandemic health order violations after local prosecutors wouldn’t. He said his bill was a check on the process.
“The rights that are granted to the attorney general and the attorney general’s actions are created by the statutes that the Legislature has put in place and that the governor signs into law,” DeBoyer said in an interview. “We don’t want to create anybody that’s a king and the attorney general certainly should not have complete autonomy with regard to these things.”
DeBoyer said having the state attorney general going before the governor or lawmakers would force the department to have a friendlier relationship with other parts of government.
Democrats on the committee, however, largely resisted the legislation. State Representative Kelly Breen (D-Novi) said the bills would keep the attorney general’s office from doing its job.
“Time and time again, the legislature has demonstrated we cannot turn on a dime. And most of these decisions that an attorney has to make when they are intervening, or they are seeking to intervene, or have to respond to something, you have to be able to respond in that moment,” Breen said.
The bill package includes wording that says the power to intervene would be limited to cases in state courts and tribunals.
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Democrat, has chosen to intervene in federal cases involving the Trump administration as part of a coalition with other Democratic state attorneys general. That includes legal filings over gun devices and health care for residents without legal status who came as children.
Separately, she’s been a plaintiff in several lawsuits against the Trump administration.
Package sponsors said their bills wouldn’t prevent the office from joining multi-state lawsuits, though Democrats voiced skepticism.
Meanwhile, another part of the package would take away the attorney general’s power to bring any case in Lansing area courts. It would repeal a law letting any case the office brings “in the name of the state or of the people of the state,” be filed in Ingham County, where the state capital is located.
DeBoyer accused state attorneys general of using the power to try a case in the Lansing area as an excuse to get a friendlier judge or jury. During the committee hearing, he played a tape allegedly showing a department official saying “I’m not down with trying to pick no Roscommon jury.”
DeBoyer said that’s not justice.
“It’s an insult and it’s a direct slap against the rights of defendants with regard to the venue in which they are held to a jury of their peers. Because clearly, your peers are the individuals that live near, or at least in your community,” DeBoyer said.
The attorney general’s office did not respond to an emailed request for comment Wednesday afternoon.
Breen disagreed with the accusation that the department shops for a friendly jurisdiction.
“It’s the attorney general’s job to represent the people of Michigan. And so when you have cases involving the state, it does make sense to have it take place in Lansing,” Breen said during the committee hearing.
The bills remain in committee and likely would not pass a Democratic-controlled state Senate if they do eventually make it out of the House of Representatives.
