Will Dems be able to pass priorities before the GOP takes control of the Michigan House next year?

The city of Lansing’s holiday decorations are already out with Michigan’s Capitol in the background, Nov. 12, 2024 | Susan J. Demas

The clock is ticking for Michigan House Democrats as they face a return to minority status in January and a list of priority legislation to try and push through before the end of the year.

For the past two years, Democrats have enjoyed a governing trifecta, controlling the state House, Senate and the governor’s mansion.

But balloting on Nov. 5 placed House Republicans back into the majority with a 58-52 advantage once the 104th Legislature takes office on January 1. While that number might change depending on how a retabulation and potential recount goes in Calhoun County’s 44th District, the House GOP will remain in power in that chamber for the next two years.

That has left Democrats with just weeks to try and pass key legislation unlikely to have a chance once Republicans are in charge. And with that clock ticking, there is building frustration among some members that it won’t be fully utilized.

“What I am hearing from the people of my district and people in the state of Michigan is that they are looking for us to use the power of the trifecta that they gave us to make sure that we are enacting as much protection, I call it sort of putting up shields, to make sure that we are have the backs of those Michiganders and that they expect us to use lame duck as such,” state Rep. Betsy Coffia (D-Traverse City) told the Michigan Advance.

Coffia, a first-term lawmaker who defended her swing seat in northern Michigan, says a wide cross-section of Michiganders rightly take President-elect Trump at his word for what they can expect in his second presidential term, whether they’re people with disabilities, the LGBTQ+ community, women with concerns about reproductive access, workers worried about labor rights, or new immigrants or naturalized citizens.

She says the frustration that’s mounting is at least partly based on the knowledge that when Republicans have the gavel, there doesn’t appear to be much hesitation.

“When they get power, they use it. They go all in,” said Coffia, who noted she grew up in a Republican household that listened regularly to Rush Limbaugh and utilized Right to Life voting guides.

“What I know is, Republicans understand power,” she said. “They use it to the fullest extent when they have it, and that’s agnostic to whether it’s good or bad. It’s just an understanding in a way to approach power.”

Coffia’s frustration became apparent when she posted on social media last week that even after losing their majority, Democratic priorities seemed misplaced.

“We lost to Trump a week ago,” said Coffia. “And we are now back in House session tomorrow and the majority of the agenda is -*checks notes* Economic development bills. We have less than 2 months until Dems lose the trifecta.”

Several days later, Coffia doubled down and noted the lack of urgency on legislation that mattered to Michiganders.

“Aaaaaand aggregate mining bills are back as a ‘bipartisan pkg’ Bc of course,” Coffia posted. “We have nothing y’know, pressing to do around say shoring up basic human rights or anything. Lesson # 1 of my 1st term in Lansing? Red team or Blue team Big Corps run Michigan. I said what I said.”

Coffia told the Advance that since those tweets, the Democratic leadership indicated to members that they were “huddling with the governor’s office, with the Senate Majority Leader [Winnie Brinks] to map out what they think they can get done in lame duck.”

She says despite her frustration, she remains hopeful that moving forward they will focus more on protecting Michiganders, especially  those who are likely to be disproportionately impacted by a second Trump administration.

One issue that may impact the ability to move legislation through lame duck is whether enough House Democrats, who only have a 56-54 advantage, will show up for session.

State Rep. Rachel Hood (D-Grand Rapids), who is finishing her final term after deciding not to seek reelection, told Gongwer News Service last week she may not attend sessions if other members don’t start showing up and start passing significant legislation.

State Rep. Jason Morgan (D-Ann Arbor), while not speaking specifically to Hood’s comments, hopes that isn’t an issue they will have to deal with.

“If anybody doesn’t show up, I hope that they … just will,” Morgan told the Advance. “I don’t know what else to say. We’ve got a job to do and we need to show up. Period. End of story. None of this legislation we’re passing is for any of us personally. It’s for the people we serve.”

However, given the stakes at play, Morgan is confident they will.

“Looking at lame duck overall, we have a whole lot of things on our plate to get done, and I am excited about the things that I’ve heard so far on the docket for consideration,” he said, although he declined to identify any specific piece of legislation he believed should be first. 

“Every issue is tough to get every single Democratic vote on at the end of the day, just because Democrats are not a monolith, but I feel really good about where we’re at and ability to work together for the people of our state,” said Morgan.

Regardless, he also says they need to use the power they have while they have it.

“It is my firm belief that we have a Democratic trifecta for another month-and-a-half, and I believe we need to be passing every important priority for the people that we possibly can in the time that we have,” said Morgan.

But that time is constrained by the cadence of the legislative calendar, as House Democratic Floor Leader Abraham Aiyash (D-Dearborn) indicated last week that there were less than a dozen session days with sine die, or the end of the legislative session, set for Dec. 19.

Morgan, however, says he’s willing to do whatever it takes to get needed legislation passed and to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s desk.

“I’d be ready to stay here camped out overnight between now and January 1st if others were willing. I think we have a whole lot of things that are really important to get done for the people and eager to pass as many as we can get through,” he said. 

Among his priorities are environmental protections that he says need to get passed after having been worked on over the last two years and ready for consideration of the full Legislature. 

“And that’s going to be critically important with one of the number one priorities that I have being polluter accountability to ensure that those who pollute our state are held accountable to clean up their messes adequately,” said Morgan. 

However, Morgan says helping vulnerable Michiganders also has to be a priority.

“We have a whole lot of protections to put in place to protect Michiganders in the face of another Trump administration federally,” he said. “That is everything from women’s rights to LGBTQ rights to protecting Black and Brown residents. We are looking at the whole slate of what protections are highest on the priority list and ready to get passed by the end of the year.”

Although House Democrats are trying to focus on the time they have left in the majority, they did take time right after the election to prepare for their return to legislative minority status.

While current House Speaker Joe Tate (D-Detroit) won reelection to his 10th House District seat on Nov. 5, he opted against running for minority leader, leaving Democrats to select new leadership, ultimately choosing state Rep. Ranjeev Puri (D-Canton) as minority leader and state Rep. Jon Fitzgerald (D-Wyoming) as minority floor leader.

Republicans picked Minority Leader Matt Hall (R-Richland Twp.) as speaker and Minority Floor Leader Bryan Posthumus (R-Greenville) to serve as majority floor leader.

Talking to reporters last week, Puri said they plan to be very deliberate in how lame duck will proceed.

“I’m going to be working closely with Speaker Tate,” he said. “Speaker Tate is still the Speaker of the House, and so we are going to have a robust agenda planned to making sure that we’re delivering on Democratic values and partnering with the other chamber in the Senate and the Democratic governor, to making sure that we’re getting as much done as we possibly can with the time up.”

When asked what that agenda would look like, Puri shied away from specifics.

“You know, I am going to be leaning into Speaker Tate to help set that agenda,” he said. “Obviously, with my role as being minority leader in the next term, I would love to work with him closely to making sure that we have a holistic vision to making sure that we’re setting things up for next term as well, and being strategic with that. But again, Speaker Tate will be taking the lead.”

State Rep. Laurie Pohutsky (D-Livonia), meanwhile, says while Democrats were always going to complete some legislative priorities during the lame duck session, they now have the added need of trying to address things that they know a Republican House majority will not address, as well as try to provide some safeguards for an incoming Trump presidency. 

“So, the work has expanded greatly, both caucus-wide and certainly for me personally,” said Pohutsky, who like Morgan is a member of the Michigan Legislative LGBTQ+ Caucus.

“A top line sort of emergency priority is protection for contraceptives, some LGBTQ safety measures. You know, we still have some laws in the books that we need to repeal. There are Supreme Court decisions that we want to codify. I know that there was the reproductive data privacy piece that I’ve been working on and (state Sen.) Mallory McMorrow’s been working on. So trying to get that through as well is going to be very important. Those are some of the more emergency items that have kind of become a necessity due to a Trump victory,” said Pohutsky.

Pohutsky says their work ahead is informed by the expectation that at least some of the Republicans’ return to majority will be marked by trying to undo much of what has been accomplished by the Democratic trifecta the last two years, including gun safety measures, expanding civil rights protections, reversing Right to Work and shoring up abortion protections.

“I am glad that we have a Democratic state Senate and a Democratic governor to still help us play defense on that. But I think that their priorities are probably to just create as much chaos as possible,” she said. 

Meanwhile, Coffia says the approach to lame duck might take some notes to how she has approached her tenure in the House, representing a district centered on Democratic-trending Traverse City, but also encompassing large conservative rural areas.

That was another thing she posted to social media about last week.

“I’m a rural blue collar Democratic State House & 1st term incumbent, surrounded by an ocean of red,” said Coffia, who noted that while most frontline Democratic House races lost ground or had slimmer margins than 2022, she wad able to outperform her 2022 margins and outright flip six rural Republican precincts from red to blue.

One thing she said helped achieve that was not abandoning Democratic values even if that racked against conventional wisdom.

“After winning by less than 800 votes flipping my always red seat in 2022, I went to Lansing and voted proudly for gun safety, abortion access, climate action, LGBTQ+ rights & more,” she posted.

“I was outright told by ‘Lansing insiders’ that I should be afraid to take these votes. I wasn’t. I stood firm that I could [be] honest and up front with my community that I’m, you know, a DEMOCRAT and also earn their respect for being deeply loyal to my community and its people before all. And deliver the goods for them. I never hid from my votes,” said Coffia. 

Similarly, Coffia says now is precisely not the time to back away from their values, which she believes will only work against them when they seek to regain the majority in 2026.

“If they have a problem with the idea of using the power that we have while we still have it to protect the most vulnerable in our state, I don’t know why the hell they’re a Democrat,” Coffia told the Advance.

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