State lawmakers struck a deal this week, just days before a deadline, to rejoin an interstate compact and prevent thousands of doctors from losing their licenses to practice in Michigan.
Michigan’s membership in the Interstate Medical Licensure Compact expired last March, but a one-year delay before withdrawal takes effect gave lawmakers until the end of this month to act.
The deal to pass the legislation to keep Michigan in the compact involves granting a first-term lawmaker a win that could be worth big political points, and awarding a sparsely populated island a downtown development authority that could bring in big business.
The Republican-controlled state House and the Democratic-led Senate have both had legislation ready to go to keep Michigan in the compact since 2024. The delay — and the ultimate passing of the legislation just days ahead of the deadline and after warnings from professional medical associations — renewed criticism that Michigan lawmakers regularly let routine acts of governance turn into last-minute crises.
In late 2024, the state House passed a bipartisan bill with near unanimous support to stop Michigan from leaving the compact. Despite being set up for a Senate vote, it wasn’t among the bills the chamber got to during a marathon session in the chaotic final days of the legislative term.
Last year both the House and Senate passed their own bills to stop the exit. The Senate passed its bill first in February, the House followed in March.
Neither bill saw any further progress.
Then last May, once Michigan was out of the compact, the Senate passed another bill to rejoin it. Last month, the House again followed up with its own version. Again, both policies stalled despite both receiving near full support in the chamber they started in.
Thursday’s deal, which the Interstate Medical Licensure Compact said appears likely to pass, came about on the last day before House lawmakers left for their spring break.
State Representative Rylee Linting, a first-term lawmaker from a swing district, sponsored the House bill. During a press conference Thursday, she said lawmakers had to do something about the impending deadline.
“It would really just be a shame, it would be devastating if we let political games get in the way of supporting our communities all across Michigan,” Linting said.
The deal involves the Senate agreeing to take Linting’s bill up when it returns on Tuesday. In return, the House passed an unrelated bill from Senator Kevin Hertel (D-St. Clair Shores). Hertel is running for reelection in a purple district that Republicans would love to flip.
Hertel’s bill would give Harsens Island in the St. Clair River — a place "teeming with game species, song bird and aquatic wildlife," and a year-round human population of about 1,000 — the right to have its own downtown development district that can offer tax breaks to bring in business.
In a written statement, Senate Majority Leader Winnie Brinks (D-Grand Rapids) said she was happy to get an agreement while blaming House leadership for what she saw as wasting time.
“While the House speaker says we had a ‘crisis’ on our hands, I want to be clear: this should never have become a crisis. This could have been easily settled months ago with the Senate’s bipartisan legislation, but it became clear that the speaker was unwilling to take that path,” Brinks’ statement read.
The two bills are tie-barred, meaning neither can become law without the other.
The organization that runs the licensure compact seems to accept the deal. Still, an alert on the group’s website from Thursday says as a precaution, no new doctors can currently sign up using Michigan credentials or try to get a license in Michigan.
