How Trump’s agenda could impact Lansing

LANSING – The coming days and weeks will shed more light on how President-elect Donald Trump expects to pursue his agenda during his second term in the White House.

Trump, who won the presidency in 2016 but lost a bid for a second term in 2020 to President Joe Biden, convincingly defeated Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday.

Improving the economy, combating illegal immigration and reducing violent crime were among his platforms during the campaign.

Here are five ways a second Trump administration could impact the Lansing region.

Title IX and transgender athletes

Universities could see new regulations surrounding Title IX, the federal law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in federally funded education programs. The expansions Biden made, including sexual orientation and gender identification, will likely be dropped, meaning protections for LGBTQ+ students will disappear.

“The most important thing Donald Trump said he would do on Day 1 is ban transgender women from participating in women’s college sports,” said Liz Abdnour, a Lansing attorney who specializes in Title IX.

But it may not stop there. Abdnour said she will also watch for other protections to disappear, such as those that prohibit discrimination against people based on their gender identity and sexual orientation.

However, Michigan has specific protections that prohibit discrimination against LGBTQ+ people, codified in state law. The Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination against people because of their sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression.

Abdnour said federal law should not interfere with state law because of the constitutional separation of powers.

Trump’s former Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, has tightened the definition of sexual misconduct to fit within Clery Act guidelines. For a school to investigate a complaint, the harassment must be so “severe” and “pervasive” that it “effectively” denies someone equal access to a school program or activity. Trump’s rules allowed the adviser of a person accused of misconduct to cross-examine the accuser. They also excluded behavior that did not occur within the educational program or activity of the institution. This meant that universities were not required to investigate off-campus sexual misconduct.

The Trump administration investigated Michigan State University’s Clery Act noncompliance in the university’s handling of sexual assault reports related to Larry Nassar and other campus safety issues. The report found that the university’s failures “potentially posed an ongoing threat” to the campus community.

The university was ultimately fined $4.5 million by DeVos’ department.

Crime and the death penalty

Matthew Schneider, who served as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan during Trump’s first term, said there will be clear policy differences between Biden and Trump in which cases are prosecuted and how they are prosecuted. But he said much of what federal law enforcement does could remain unchanged.

“Ninety percent or more of the policies and actions actually remain the same,” he said. “That’s because it doesn’t really matter who is president if someone robs a bank.”

The first, and likely most visible, changes will come as the Trump administration determines who will be in charge of the U.S. attorney’s offices in Michigan and other states, and who will head the Justice Department in Washington, DC.

Big changes would follow, Schneider said, pointing to immigration cases, opioid prosecutions and the use of the death penalty.

“We will certainly see an increase in the prosecution of people who come to the country illegally and commit crimes,” he said. “That was continued in the (first) Trump administration. In fact, I personally handled those cases.”

Schneider said there may not be hundreds of those cases next year, but even dozens of cases would be a noticeable increase. Likewise, federal death penalty cases are not common in Michigan, but Schneider expects the DOJ will put the penalty back on the table in a Trump administration.

In July 2021, Attorney General Merrick Garland, a Biden appointee, ordered a moratorium on federal executions to allow for a review of death penalty policies by the Justice Department.

That could have influenced whether Rashad Trice, the man who pleaded guilty to the kidnapping and murder of a Lansing toddler in 2023, received the death penalty in his federal case. The DOJ considered the death penalty, but decided against it. Trice pleaded guilty in state and federal courts and is serving two life sentences without parole.

He also said opioid-related prosecutions are also likely to increase, especially in cases involving an overdose death where a drug dealer could be charged.

Will Trump send $500 million to GM’s Lansing plant?

Will there be a $500 million redesign of the Lansing Grand River General Motors electric vehicle plant?

Mayor Andy Schor said Friday he hopes so, adding that it is his wish that the federal government will follow through on the commitment the Biden administration made earlier this year as a way to keep 650 jobs and add 50 to add.

Vice President-elect JD Vance made comments in October that raised questions about whether a Trump administration would honor the grant.

A week later, during a stop in Detroit, Vance criticized the federal aid as “table scraps” in light of what he predicted would be severe job losses in the auto industry due to an EV transition.

GM said it is continuing discussions with federal officials.

“We are in the negotiation period with the DOE to finalize plans,” GM’s Colleen Oberc said. “There are no further details at this time.”

Schor said Vance indicated he couldn’t guarantee the redesign, but the mayor said it’s hopefully just a matter of continuing to make the case that the conversion will save American jobs and continue to seed the EV industry.

“When President Trump looks at this, they’re going to see that there’s more money going to the red states than the blue states and the money is helping to preserve jobs and get people back on their feet so their communities grow,” Schor said.

General Motors said in July it would invest $900 million and the Biden administration pledged another $500 million to retool the factory, which last year announced it would begin producing the Camaro at the end of the 2024 model year stop.

It was part of an announcement by the Biden administration of more than $1 billion in grants to help 11 auto factories — including more than $650 million for two plants in Michigan — restructure or reopen for an EV push.

LGR still makes the Cadillac CT4 and CT5 (including V-series). GM announced last year that it would lay off more than 350 auto workers in Lansing starting Jan. 1 due to the end of Camaro production, and city officials at the time urged the company to find new products to build in mid-Michigan.

For small businesses: ‘It was tough’

Inflation, rising prices of almost everything, and supply chain issues have made small business ownership a struggle everywhere.

The Lansing area is no exception, says DeAnna Ray-Brown, owner of Everything is Cheesecake, a bakery in South Lansing.

“It’s been tough,” she said. The price of the vanilla, sugar, butter and cream cheese her company needs to make cheesecakes and cookies has doubled in recent years, Ray-Brown says.

If a new administration’s policies can reduce these costs, that would help, Ray-Brown said. “I’m optimistic, but at the same time it’s been extremely difficult, not just as a business owner, but as a regular consumer.”

Ray-Brown said she worries that raising tariffs on imported goods, a concept Trump touted during his campaign, could increase costs.

“I don’t know what immediate impact this would have on us,” she said.

Matt Gillett, owner of Saddleback BBQ and Slice by Saddleback, said restaurants can only raise prices so much to offset rising costs.

Favorable economic initiatives would make him “hopeful,” he said. “I think more money in the consumer’s pocket is always a good thing.”

But Jamie Robinson, owner of several businesses in Mason, including Darrell’s Market & Hardware and Bestseller’s Books & Coffee, said she doesn’t believe a president’s administration can have much impact on inflation or the supply chain.

Robinson said the COVID-19 pandemic has affected both, and they are still recovering.

“It started happening when Trump was in power before,” she said. “I still think the driving force behind our economy is the recovery from COVID and everything that’s happened with the supply chain. We all pay for it.”

Immigration, and a change that ‘happens every four years’

Trump has promised to carry out the largest deportation program in American history.

Although the population of undocumented immigrants is difficult to track, multiple sources estimate the total number in the US to be somewhere between 10 and 12 million people. An estimated 75,000 to 175,000 of these undocumented immigrants live in Michigan, according to a Pew Research Center report.

Although that represents a relatively small portion of the national population of more than 335 million people, any sweeping attempt to remove that many people from the state will have consequences on a number of fronts.

Joe Garcia, CEO of Catholic Charities of Ingham, Eaton and Clinton Counties, said his organization will continue to help immigrants in need, whether that be through a resettlement program for federally approved participants, ranging from 65 to several hundred at any given time , or through other services available to anyone in need.

“Even with a comparable government, changes happen every four years,” Garcia said. “We do the best with what we have to work with and we go from there.”

The agency’s St. Vincent and Cristo Rey campuses provide assistance with food, medical access, personal needs and other services.

“We’re in Michigan,” Garcia said. “It’s going to get colder here soon. If someone needs a winter coat and we have one to give, they will get it.”

State Journal reporters Matt Mencarini, Rachel Greco, Mike Ellis, Sarah Atwood and editor Susan Vela contributed.

This article originally appeared in Lansing State Journal: How Donald Trump’s agenda could impact Lansing