Gov. Gretchen Whitmer added her signature to dozens of bills this week, but she vetoed 13 bills passed last year in the Democratically-controlled Legislature.
Here’s a look at the legislation she rejected.
Whitmer vetoed House Bills 4191, 4192, 4193 and 4194 which would have set up a system to ensure those released from prison have access to a driver’s license and state identification cards.
“I full support the policy behind these bills,” Whitmer wrote in a letter to the Michigan House of Representatives Friday. But she said she chose not to sign them because they would have amended the same section in the law recently changed to update Michigan’s automatic voter registration process, thus overriding those changes. She described it as an avoidable technical error on the part of lawmakers. “I look forward to working with the current Legislature on passing this important criminal justice reform in the near future,” she said.
Whitmer also vetoed two bills — House Bills 5164 and 5165 — to require businesses to alert the Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity before relocating a call center outside the country. Federal law already has a similar notification requirement, Whitmer noted. “Accordingly, these bills would likely result in the unnecessary use of the department’s time and resources,” she wrote in a letter Friday to the Michigan House of Representatives. “I look forward to working with the legislature to craft solutions that help jobs stay in Michigan without unnecessary redundancy in government resources.”
Whitmer vetoed House Bills 5571, 5572, 5573, 5575 and 5576 — a legislative package that would have allowed the state’s elections panel to use a statistical random sampling methodology to review signatures on election petitions, including petitions proposing a constitutional amendment and nominating candidates to qualify for the ballot.
“In 2022, our state was rocked by record levels of signature fraud in our petition initiative process,” Whitmer wrote in a letter to the Michigan House of Representatives Friday. That year, signature fraud wiped out half of the GOP gubernatorial candidates off the ballot.
“Unfortunately, these bills fall far short of the serious need to address this fraud, to restore public trust in our nomination petition process, and to protect voters and our state constitution. Namely, these bills move Michigan in the wrong direction by authorizing sampling procedures instead of requiring exhaustive review of signatures to ensure no fraud exists,” Whitmer wrote.
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Whitmer vetoed House Bill 5827 and Senate Bill 976 which would have made changes to Michigan’s unemployment system.
House Bill 5827 is similar to another bill Whitmer already signed into law late last year increasing unemployment benefits in Michigan, boosting the weekly benefit amount and expanding the time Michigan workers without a job could collect unemployment from 20 to 26 weeks. She said in a letter to the Michigan House of Representatives Friday that because the House Bill was presented to her after she signed the unemployment expansion, the House legislation would have negated those changes.
Senate Bill 976 would have exempted from public records requests disclosure of the state Unemployment Insurance Agency’s methods for probing fraudulent unemployment claims. Whitmer said in a letter to the Michigan Senate that she supports the intent of the bill, but she expressed concerns about the proposal because it would allow licensed attorneys to obtain the information. Whitmer said that could violate federal regulations. “Additionally, such an exemption is entirely unnecessary given that attorneys can receive information through the discovery process in court and administrative proceedings,” Whitmer wrote.
In response to Whitmer’s veto, House Democratic caucus spokesperson Jess Travers said in a statement: “We’re all experiencing the Schoolhouse Rock live and in action.” Senate Majority Leader Winnie Brinks, D-Grand Rapids, did not immediately respond to a request for comment through her spokesperson Rosie Jones.
Contact Clara Hendrickson at chendrickson@freepress.com or 313-296-5743.
