Michigan News And Capitol Report, Week Ending Friday, April 19th, 2024
House Democrats Return To Full Strength
The House Democratic caucus has been returned to its full 56-member majority after Macomb County Commissioner Mai Xiong and Westland City Council member Peter Herzberg secured victories in their respective special elections, ending the temporary 54-54 split.
In the 25th District, which was called first, Herzberg won with 59.5 percent of the vote while getting 60.5 percent in the city of Westland, the district’s largest city.
Xiong earned 77.6 percent of the vote in the 13th District, including 95 percent in Wayne County.
In response to the victories, House Speaker Joe Tate (D-Detroit) said “Michiganders chose Democrats to lead in 2022. They sought out Democrats for local office in 2023. They elected Democrats in specials tonight, and we know Michiganders will choose a Democratic majority again in November.
“The House Democratic Caucus is happy to be back at full strength and more than ready to have Mai Xiong and Peter Herzberg help us continue to put people first,” Tate said.
President Joe Biden’s administration also issued a statement in response to the victories, which were both called relatively early Tuesday night.
Biden-Harris Michigan State Director Ed Duggan said, “Donald Trump is a loser who Michiganders rejected in 2020 because of his dangerous anti-abortion, anti-gun safety, anti-freedom policies. Tonight, Michiganders continued that trend by rejecting Trump’s MAGA allies, ensuring Democrats continue to lead in Lansing.”
House Democratic Rep. Alabas A. Farhat (D-Dearborn) said, “I’m surprised Leader Matt Hall (R-Kalamazoo) didn’t take credit for these wins,” referring to earlier comments made by Hall about his “black ops” work in getting former House members Lori Stone and Kevin Coleman elected in their respective mayoral races last November.
House Republicans did not wish to comment on the election results Tuesday night.
In the 25th District, which was called first, Herzberg won with 60.49 percent of the vote in Westland, the district’s largest city.
He received 4,897 votes (60.49 percent) in Westland compared to his Republican opponent, Josh Powell, who earned 3,036 votes (37.50 percent).
In Wayne County, which includes precincts in Wayne, Canton Township and Dearborn Heights, Herzberg received 1,476 votes (56.55 percent). Powell earned 1,060 votes (40.61 percent).
In Canton’s two precincts, Herzberg received 384 votes (59.35 percent), while Powell earned 255 votes (39.41 percent), at 11 percent total voter turnout.
Earlier in the day, Herzberg told MIRS the election day crowd appeared more Republican-leaning, which he optimistically attributed to a larger percentage of Democratic voters choosing to vote absentee.
He said Powell brought out a large number of volunteers, including some people in costumes, and even one supporter dressed as former President Abraham Lincoln.
“I've been through so many elections over the past 15 years or so,” he said, “either as a candidate or volunteer, and I've never seen the Republicans organize and get out the vote as much as this time, so it's definitely nerve-racking.”
But absentee voters in Wayne County accounted for a total 1,994 votes, compared to 619 in-person votes. In Westland, 6,394 votes cast were absentee, compared to 1,720 votes on election day. Of the absentee votes in Westland, Herzberg received 4,338 of them.
Westland Clerk Richard LeBlanc described turnout as “low and slow.”
Herzberg attributed his success to a great deal of support from House Democrats in the weeks leading up to the election, whether it be door-knocking, get out the vote efforts or phone banking.
Now, Herzberg said he’s excited to get to work for the district and hopefully secure funding for important projects like a Westland recreation center, which he said his experience on city council will help him accomplish.
“Over the years, we've dealt with so many funding issues, and I've learned how the city works, down to the bottom level, how money comes in and how it gets spent - or wasted. So I think I have a lot of insight in that regard to take with me to Lansing,” Herzberg said.
In Warren, Macomb County Commissioner Mai Xiong won later Tuesday night, bringing the total number of state House Democrats to 56.
Xiong beat her Republican opponent, Ronald Singer, with 77.6 percent of the vote.
In Wayne County, she earned 1,273 votes (95.41 percent), while Singer earned just 57 votes (4.26 percent).
In Macomb, where Xiong is running to replace former Rep./now Warren Mayor Lori Stone, she received 4,467 votes (60.2 percent), while Singer received 2,949 votes (39.8 percent).
In Detroit, Xiong earned 1,273 votes of 1,340 ballots cast, or 95 percent. Singer received 57 votes, and the city of Detroit saw 5.96 percent voter turnout.
Compared to the Jan. 30 primary, when heavy snowfall blanketed precincts in Detroit, Xiong told MIRS turnout was noticeably better Tuesday.
She visited precincts in the cities of Warren and Detroit and said there was a steady stream of voters, though not as many as typical of an August primary or November general.
When asked about turnout in the City of Warren, City Clerk Sonja Djurovic Buffa responded simply, “slow.”
She said numbers averaged around 30 in-person voters per precinct.
Xiong said her campaign worked hard the last six months to turn out people to vote, despite the seat being 68 percent Democratic.
Now, she said she’s “certainly looking forward to coming to Lansing and being a part of the Democratic House majority and continuing to deliver for the district.”
“As a county commissioner, I've been a huge advocate for small businesses and making sure we deal with food insecurity, roads, infrastructure, public transportation (and) taking care of seniors,” she said. “These are things that I've done as county commissioner that I hope to continue to do as our next state representative.”
Xiong was already thinking about committee assignments, which she said she’s not really sure about yet, but “I know they are very focused on getting us elected and sworn in as soon as possible.”
Short-Term Rentals Facing 6% Tax Under Bills
Short-term rentals would have to pay a 6% excise tax, equip the rental with carbon monoxide detectors, smoke detectors and fire extinguishers, and be registered in a database that includes emergency contact information for someone within 30 miles of the rental under legislation that received testimony in the House Local Government and Municipal Finance Committee Wednesday.
Bill sponsor Rep. Joey Andrews (D-St. Joseph) said local governments struggle to zone and regulate the rentals and funding the enforcement that comes along with it. He said these bills would allow local governments to decide how to handle the type of tourism they get, whether it be football games in Ann Arbor and East Lansing or beaches in West Michigan.
Andrews said St. Joseph estimates 650,000 tourists visiting Silver Beach per year just by parking records, and the actual number may be closer to 1,000,000. The municipalities don’t have a way to recover the burden tourism places on the community since state tax code prohibits local sales and use taxes. Pipes, roads and public safety suffer specifically, Andrews said.
Rep. Jenn Hill (D-Marquette) said only five of the 250 short term rentals in Marquette are occupied by their owners, meaning the rest are there for income generation. She said the City of Marquette passed a resolution in favor of the bill. Saugatuck’s Mayor Pro Tem Helen Baldwin testified in support of the bill, stating that short-term rentals have exploded to a level that is disruptive for the community, and that local governments need the ability to impose regulations to cover public safety issues.
The bills have a six-month window after their effective date to allow time for short-term renters to make their changes. The package includes HB 5437, HB 5438, HB 5439, HB 5440, HB 5441, HB 5442, HB 5443, HB 5444, HB 5445 and HB 5446.
While the Michigan Realtors Association is not opposed to the registration, regulation or taxation of short term rentals, Brad Ward said the association believes the state needs to protect the right to rent and define its use.
Trevor Tkach, the immediate past chair of the Michigan Association of Convention and Visitors Bureau, said the bureau supports the registration for short-term rentals, but not the excise tax, because they view it as a penalty on the short-term rental business.
Hill said those opposed to the excise tax had not proposed a solution to the local cost of tourism. She said the police department in Marquette are using 20-year-old radios.
“We are leaving money on the table and tools out of the room. We need to bring them in,” Hill said.
Slotkin Touts $4.3M Raised In Three Months, Harper Spends More Than Raises
U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Holly) dominated the fundraising race for U.S. Senate this quarter, bringing in $4.3M between Jan. 1, 2024, and March 31, 2024, totaling her donations for this election cycle at $14.9M, according to reports filed with the Federal Elections Commission by the end of Monday.
Her chief Democratic opponent, Hill Harper, showed a much different situation, having spent ($421,811) more than he raised ($358,690) and having $600,000 in debt. For the campaign, Harper had raised $1.43 million for Q1, but spent $1.59 million. For the campaign, Harper has raised the fourth-highest amount ($2.037 million) of the field (Republican and Democratic), but he's spent the second most ($1.591 million).
On the Republican side of the race, former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers raised $1.01M, bringing his total donations to $2.8M.
Out of former West Michigan members of Congress, Justin Amash raised $478,460, beating Peter Meijer's $234,734. Since joining the race, they have raised $478,460 since February and $650,096, respectively.
Business executive Sandy Pensler appears to be completely self-financing his campaign. He reported only $1,204 in contributions. Nearly every penny of the $3.05 million he's raised has come from his own pocket. Likewise, business executive Glenn Wilson has put nearly $300,000 of his own money into the campaign and raised $421.
Once again, the story of the filing was Slotkin, who raised nearly twice as much money as the entire Republican and Democratic field combined in the period between Jan. 1 and March 31. Her total receipts for the campaign were $16 million, which is more than the $11 million brought into the campaign by the 15 other candidates who filed a report combined.
Sharon Savage, Philip Marsh, Bensson Samuel and James Frizzel did not file by the midnight deadline. Savage ended her campaign after Rogers received the endorsement of Republican nominee Donald Trump. Marsh is a Green Party candidate. Samuel is running, allegedly, for the U.S. House, as well, and Frizzel is an independent candidate.
Of those that reported by midnight, Rogers, Amash, Nasser Beydoun, Zack Burns, James Craig and Rebekah Curran have $0 in debt. Burns filed a termination report for the last Federal Elections Commission deadline.
Sandy Pensler has the most debt, wracking up $3,050,000 owed. He has $2,118,724 cash on hand.
Leading in cash on hand is Slotkin with $8,620,820. The entire rest of the field has a combined $5.331 million in the bank. Her campaign is $345,550.88 in debt. She also spent the most this quarter, $1,809,254.18, almost a million dollars more than the second-largest spender, Pensler, who doled out $888,232.29.
House R's Want SOARing Economic Development Oversight
Around $725 million in state incentives to Ford's BlueOval Battery plant would be clawed back, and future unspent dollars would be returned to the General Fund under legislation House Republican Leader Matt Hall (R-Kalamazoo) and nine other House Republicans highlighted Wednesday morning.
Under the package, there would be a full audit of the Strategic Outreach and Economic Reserve (SOAR), the state's economic development incentive pool. Also, all new SOAR payouts would need to receive legislative approval and limits would be placed on how much public funding would be given to out-of-state companies.
And the bill package would allocate 50 percent of each SOAR payout for site preparation, which Hall said will boost local economies and account for an expensive part of getting companies set up.
Senate Democrats’ latest piece of SOAR reform, which is awaiting House action, would allocate 50 percent of the SOAR total funding towards "transformative community investments," such as housing, transit and childcare services.
Rep. Kristian C. Grant (D-Grand Rapids), also majority vice chair of the House Economic Development and Small Business Committee, said she believes site readiness is very important, and something House Democrats will likely continue to work on, “but investing in our local communities is a top priority.
“That’s where the people are, and every community in the state is different, so we should make sure that they have the individual resources that they need,” Grant said.
She said she doesn’t believe site readiness and community investment are interchangeable.
Hall also said the package will require collaboration on permitting between economic development officials and local governments, along with prioritizing economic development funds for small-and-medium-sized businesses.
“If you're Ford or GM (General Motors) or one of these big companies that gets billions of dollars through SOAR, you're on a fast track, and you're going to get your things approved probably by one person pretty quick,” Hall said. “If you're anyone else in the state getting an incentive, or some kind of tax abatement, there are a lot of different people you have to talk to and a lot of hoops you have to jump through. So, if you're a small business trying to get an incentive from the state, good luck.”
In addition to SOAR reform, the House Republican package will:
- Restore Right to Work.
- Reduce the income tax back to 4.05 percent.
- Limit duplicate regulations stricter than federal guidelines.
- Include local experts and employers in conversations about environmental regulations.
- “Force a review of the tangled web of licenses, regulations, registration and paperwork to see what works and what doesn’t.”
- Institute an annual review of 20 percent of state rules every year until everything is reviewed.
- Create a “one-stop shop” web portal for businesses interacting with the state, including licensing and regulations.
- Establish performance-based funding for the Michigan Economic Development Corporation, which Hall said will “incentivize them to start becoming more customer-friendly.”
- Require job and degree data from state job placement and workforce development programs.
- Re-establish natural resource advisory boards.
Hall said the bills will likely be formally introduced sometime next week, and when asked exactly how many pieces of legislation are included in the package, he said, “a lot of bills,” adding later that he expects there will be at least a dozen.
He said House Republicans first decided to introduce this package during spring break, when the time away gave them more time to look over Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s Growing Michigan Together population council report.
“The big thing for me is that it clearly states the state is lacking a coordinated economic growth plan, and unfortunately, after five years of Whitmer, I don't think we're going to get that from her,” Hall said.
He added that, “It’s very clear to me that the Democrats are not going to be able to get an economic growth plan done without bipartisan help,” referencing divides between Senate Majority Leader Winnie Brinks (D-Grand Rapids) and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer on SOAR changes and Rep. Dylan Wegela (D-Garden City)’s consistent voting record against economic incentives.
“You hear Whitmer say, ‘my number one priority for the next few months is economic development,’” Hall said, “and so, you know, we're problem solvers. We wanted to come forward with some ideas.”
House Speaker Joe Tate (D-Detroit) disagreed.
“I would argue that that’s not necessarily the case,” he said. “We've been doing a lot of work around economic development.”
Tate referenced January 2023, when the House passed its first supplemental, a $946.2 million appropriation which included $200 million for an Escanaba papermill project, which Tate said Republicans weren’t interested in getting on board to support.
“The problem doesn't sit with Democrats,” Tate said.