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At about this time last year as budget bargaining in Lansing pressed uncomfortably close to the July 1 statutory deadline, Republican House Speaker Matt Hall proposed cutting Senate Democrats out of the equation, cutting a deal with Governor Gretchen Whitmer and presenting it to the Legislature as a fait accompli.
Whitmer rejected the idea and Democratic Senate Majority Leader Winnie Brinks said her majority caucus wouldn’t be counted out. This year, as the budget again goes down to the wire, Hall called this week for removing Whitmer from the equation while she’s on a trade mission to Europe and presenting her with a House-Senate-negotiated, take-it-or-leave-it budget deal.
Let’s call the Hall approach “chaos triangulation.”
“Triangulation” joined the political lexicon during the President Bill Clinton (and if you’re British or an anglophile, UK Prime Minister Tony Blair) years as a strategy to borrow ideas from the left and the right to persuade voters a politician’s approach is more practical than partisan. Arguably, GOP Governor Rick Snyder was a bit of a classic triangulator who championed the state joining the Obamacare Medicaid expansion to the chagrin of Republicans and signed a right-to-work law to the fury of Democrats.
This is not that sort of triangulation. “Chaos triangulation” (trademark pending) presents maybe a veneer of bipartisanship while being very, very partisan. The accomplishment is to win an advantage in the fog of conflict.
Whitmer, who has a mobile phone and a computer with internet, was in contact during the European trip. The timing of the trip was not great, but Whitmer is trying to make hay from the Trump administration’s disengagement from the NATO alliance. NATO’s European members are spending more on defense and weapons systems and picking up a share of that work is part of Whitmer’s plans to help Michigan military contractors. The administration considered the Eurosatory conference in Paris a not-to-be-missed opportunity and followed up on other opportunities with stops in Belgium and Luxembourg.
Administration officials say Budget Director Jen Flood remains empowered to negotiate a spending deal on Whitmer’s behalf and there is nothing stopping an on-time budget even at this late juncture.
As far as K-12 school districts, community colleges, public universities and many local governments are concerned, a budget deal is already late because they have fiscal years that begin July 1 and they need to make staff and programming decisions now. They also remember that the Legislature missed the deadline last year. (We should mention they missed both the July 1 statutory deadline and the constitutional deadline of October 1, which is the start of the state’s fiscal year.) This year, Hall floated the idea of an even longer temporary budget that would last past the November elections.
In a post on X last night, Hall takes credit for restarting negotiations and says there is “a glimmer of hope of meeting the July 1 deadline. Stay tuned!”
We’ll see what chaos the new week brings.
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The clock is ticking on Michigan's state budget, and there's growing skepticism lawmakers won’t meet the July 1 deadline.
What we’re talking about at the dinner table
Voting Rights: The Democrat-led Michigan Senate approved bills this week to create a state-level Voting Rights Act. The goal is to fill gaps created by the U.S. Supreme Court striking down major portions of the federal voting rights law. The bills would allow people to file legal challenges if local jurisdictions take actions that could make voting more difficult or confusing – especially for minorities. The bills were approved on party-line votes. Republicans argued the bills would impose burdens on local clerks and would make it easier for ineligible people to vote. The bills now go to the GOP-controlled state House.
AG opinions: The GOP-led state House passed a bill this week to ratchet down the legal authority of formal opinions from the Michigan Attorney General. These opinions are limited guidance for state agencies and local governments. The bill would declare the opinions strictly advisory with no legal authority. It’s the latest episode in an ongoing feud between House Republicans and Democratic AG Dana Nessel, who temporarily blocked House-GOP-ordered budget cuts earlier this year. Democrats called the bill a waste of time.
Pled: Stephanie Chatfield, the wife of former Republican House Speaker Lee Chatfield, pled guilty to embezzlement this week. “The State of Michigan accused the couple of spending money from a political nonprofit on a lavish personal lifestyle. The plea deal lets Stephanie Chatfield avoid jail time by serving probation instead. Two more serious charges will be dropped after she completes her sentence. Late last year, two aides to Lee Chatfield also took a plea offer related to the alleged misuse of those donated funds. Lee Chatfield faces over a dozen felony charges of his own—including for alleged embezzlement and running a criminal enterprise. He’s due back in court later next month,” Michigan Public Radio Network’s Colin Jackson reports.
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Yours in political nerdiness,
Rick Pluta & Zoe Clark
Co-hosts, It’s Just Politics
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