The lame duck session gets into high gear and Wendy Block from the Michigan Chamber of Commerce is upset with some of the legislation that she thinks is anti-business.

Our lead story, a road fix plan may be taking shape.

And what are the lame duck lawmakers actually doing?

For the answers, join Kyle Melinn, Beth LeBlanc and Simon Schuster.

Sit in with us as we get the inside out.

Off the record.

Production of Off the Record is made possible in part by Bellwether Public Relations, a full service strategic communications agency partnering with clients through public relations, digital marketing, and issue advocacy.

Learn more at bellwetherpr.com And now this edition of Off the Record with Tim Skubick.

Thank you very much.

Welcome to Studio C during this winter and winter is actually here now I think and lame duck legislature they're working kind of long hours aren't they guys?

Oh yeah.

Until 5:30 here on Friday morning.

And the house is actually going to come in on a Friday.

On a Friday!

Yeah, but they're not going to do anything.

I'm not so sure about that.

All right.

Let's see what they're going to do on roads.

There's some movement.

Could it be that help is on the way to fix your roads?

The answer at this read appears to be yes.

As the governor and the House and Senate bipartisan leaders are on a glide path to release a multibillion dollar road fix plan if they can find one.

We're very hopeful.

That one is We know that the quadrant leaders and the governor have been meeting on this issue and those meetings have been relatively productive.

But it's not through yet.

But the fact that they're even working on the soup is in and of itself a major breakthrough.

It all started with the incoming House Republican speaker next year, Matt Hall, who wants to take money from one special interest group and give it to another.

The road builders.

You just take the corporate income tax and you dedicate that to roads.

Another piece of the Republican proposal on the table is to eliminate the current 6% sales tax at the pump.

None of that money goes to the roads, and that would be replaced with a gas tax hike.

This road lobbyist says that may look and feel like a tax increase, but it is not, despite the dollar amount involved, depending on the price of fuel, anywhere from $0.19 to $0.24.

And that raises about 1.1 to $1.2 billion.

And if you if you eliminate the 6% sales tax on fuel and then you increase the gas tax by the equivalent amount, it's a it's a zero sum revenue neutral proposal.

Revenue neutral, he says, means it's not a tax hike.

The huge hurdle that the governor and leaders now face is that some groups want to fund the roads by cutting state services, while others want to raise new dollars.

I think our leaders are doing their best to figure out how they can massage that, and it's better than 50/50.

I think at this point the lobbyists expect some movement on all this in the House soon.

With a possible road fix coming next week?

Could it be?

Could it be Miss LeBlanc?

I don't know.

They've got a long way to go, and I don't know that.

I guess it's a no right?

I think session today on Friday the 13th may not be an auspicious start to those negotiations that they're looking to go anywhere, but those talks definitely are happening.

And there is a hope last night, Minority Leader Hall said that he's still hopeful a deal can be reached, but said there hasn't been one.

And I think a nonstarter for him if any of his members are going to cross over and help vote for this is any kind of tax increase so an increase to the corporate income tax, to the gas tax, tolling, He's he's against that.

Now, last night, though, he did float the possibility that they could end the mega tax credit early.

It's supposed to expire in 2029.

If they ended it early, it would free up about 550 to $600 million a year.

So I think ideas are still being thrown out there.

They're still discussing it.

But roads has been an issue for years and years and years and.

Remember this, you know, it takes a long time for the soup to boil.

I thought it was significant that the soup was on the oven and is boiling to a degree.

Kyle.

But you're not there yet?

No.

Well, here's what happened.

Two weeks ago, it looked like the soup was starting to warm up a little bit.

But what happened is, is the house got their members.

They got 56 members on the Democratic side, which meant they could now talk about doing what they really want to do.

And they don't have to negotiate with Matt Hall anymore.

That was in question two weeks ago.

It's not in question anymore.

So now the Democrats are spending their time negotiating with themselves on what they want to do and in trying to clear the decks of all their interest group wish list items.

And that's their focus right now.

They don't have time to to talk with Matt Hall if he's not talking about revenue increases, which he is not.

Yeah, I mean, I think I agree with Kyle.

I think it's sort of a telling sign here is that you've heard sort of the parameters from Republicans of what they want.

There was a package of bills released by Democrats that was not necessarily a coherent policy portfolio.

It was just a series of ideas that didn't necessarily mesh all together as one coherent policy package.

And so as a result, because the Republicans are talking about these negotiations, but you're not hearing so much from the Democratic side, it's tough to know where that fits within their wish list, given that all this policy and of course, a lot can change because we're talking right before a House session is about to begin on Friday.

It's tough to say where this is going to fall within their wish list.

Doesn't the governor have a dog in this hunt?

She has a record of having introduced a $0.45 gas tax hike which went in the tank.

Then she did the bonding program and since then it's been crickets.

She's got two years left, though, and so she's got two years to work with Matt Hall.

She's only got two weeks to get through all of these different agenda items that organized labor that the environmentalists, that the trial attorneys all want to get through.

The list is so long The House has been operating with a 100 item list.

All week, and they want to get all these things done.

And the governor wants to get more of those things done, too.

And so if that means that we kick roads until next year, then I guess that's what we've got to do.

All right.

So what's what is the major lame duck thing that has gotten your attention?

There are a series of bills that would create big changes to like the sentences of inmates right now.

So one is juvenile lifers.

So individuals sentenced before they were 19 or committed a crime before they were 19, they would be up for parole hearings within 20 years of their sentence.

Another one would allow it's called the second look legislation that would allow folks who are in prison to get to apply for another sentencing hearing within 20 years as well.

And that's created that's created a ton of controversy within both Democrats and Republicans, among vulnerable Democrats, because that would be a big shake up to the court system and to the parole board to have to process those.

In 20 years sounds like a long time to me.

It does.

But if you have all of those inmates reapplying at the same time, when this bill passes, it's going to create a headache for the courts.

And there's an argument too that victims who would have to, you know, testify at the sentencing hearings or testify before a parole board or submit testimony there, that it would be pretty disruptive to them.

Simon, what's your biggie?

One of the things that I think has been interesting, broadly speaking, is that the Democratic priorities that some of these lawmakers have had, you know, for up to almost a ten years, one of these is from Stephanie Chang.

She's been interested in bringing together Duty to Intervene legislation, a series of reforms to how the state handles policing.

Almost since she entered the House back in 2015.

And now we have ten bill packages both in the House and the Senate, that would provide a sweeping array of different reforms for how the state handles policing.

And these include like mandatory training for life for police officers simply to license looking at implicit bias training, this duty to intervene.

This even has Republican support with Johnson as the sponsor for this legislation, and it had Republican support back in 2020 after the murder of George Floyd.

And so, you know, that's something that has been on the burner for so long, but it's not necessarily clear that it's even going to make it to the floor.

Let's just explain what duty to intervene means.

Sure.

Yeah.

When one police officer is doing something that meets the legal definition of excessive force, then another police officer then has a legal duty to intervene and prevent that from going on.

Wouldn't someone argue, shouldn't that be in the playbook already?

And again, this is something that has bipartisan support.

We have Republican members of the Senate supporting it.

But then when you see it go through the committee in the House and the Republican members on that committee voted against the bill, even though it's essentially equivalent.

And so they pass out the bill at like 5:30 in the morning this morning, which is really funny.

So mine so my.

None of you were up.

Well yeah.

So so we got to look at it but what I've been interested in is the, first of all, the unemployment benefits and extending, Huge!

that's a real big.

I mean they're taking it from $362 a week maximum to like $615 or something like that.

I mean, 21. an enormous number, and then bumping back up the time you can collect from 20 weeks back to 26, which it was before Snyder got into office.

And then I would say what they did this morning that I couldn't believe was polluter pay.

I didn't think that the Democrats would all get together and stick it to business and say that if you were responsible for this pollution, you got to clean it up and you have a duty to.

That's that's something I'm sure our guest is is not very happy about.

Didn't we have that once upon a time?

Yeah, we did.

And it got repealed.

And I'm sure Wendy Block will talk a lot about that.

What about changing the petition drive language or the in other words, you can't no longer at this stuff gets to the gut.

You can't get per name, which takes all the fun out of collecting names.

You can't get paid per name.

It's got to be like an hourly wage.

An hourly wage?

It's like being a reporter, you know, working for $3.50 an hour to collect names.

Nobody's going to do it.

It certainly is going to take a lot of the incentive out of doing petitions, isn't it?

Because that was the whole thing, is that, you know, you could get paid like $15 a signature at some points when, you know, the demand was super high.

And now if you got to do it just for an hour, how many people are you going to be able to get to do it?

And ghost guns, what's happening there?

That's something where we have seen a lot of bicameral movement.

These packages that want to ban bump stocks, ghost guns, 3D printed weapons, which we saw in These are guns that you could make at home with no serial number?

Yes.

And this got pushed into the headlines in the past couple of weeks given the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.

And these are things that don't have necessarily a strong or influential special interest in the state capital tied to them.

And so it's something where Democrats see a little bit easier what path forward.

I think You think it's gonna?

Well I think Tim too like for a lot of these they've passed one chamber, they've passed the committee, but throughout this session they've struggled to get it through both chambers.

A lot of these a lot of these priorities have passed one chamber and then just sat for a while.

So I think, you know, the next week is going to be telling to see which of those actually see their policies make it to the finish line, because it's they've hit hiccups along the way.

I'm trying to put myself in the place of the person at home who doesn't watch this process and thinking to myself, they're doing over 100 bills in two weeks.

Is that responsible legislating?

Yeah, that's really hard to justify, isn't it?

That you're doing so many important things that never got a hearing, that never went through the committee process, and it just shows up at 5:00 in the morning with a, in the case of polluter pay, a 75 page substitute that I was reading at 5:00 this morning, trying to see if I understood basically what was going on, which, you know, isn't easy.

But these people now have to vote on this, and they get it, you know, a few minutes ahead of time.

Is it responsible?

I think you can argue that it probably is not.

So what's the solution?

Well, I think.

Why did you laugh?

Well, because this is the fundamental tension that we've seen, particularly within the House, throughout the duration of this legislative session.

Which is the fact that on an ambitious legislation, they need unanimity.

And all that happens, you know, if for special interests in this town, if they want to preserve status quo, they need to find one member that isn't going to go along with Democrats.

And for the Republican Party in the House, the math is fundamentally changed, which is that they know that they're going to have the majority next term.

So if they hold strong, they can get promises from leadership that they can have movement, even if they like what Democrats are putting forward.

But couldn't the Democrats still go over on the other side?

There's four or five six guys and ladies sitting over there that are available to vote with the Democrats.

Well, I think that's testament to to Leader Hall's ability to really keep his his caucus intact or.

Or the Speaker's inability to work the other side of the aisle, if you will.

Yeah.

It's probably a combination of both.

All right, let's call in, yeah go ahead.

Go ahead.

Just real quickly.

I mean, just in general, the Democrats have struggled to get any kind of serious legislation through that has required bipartisan support.

I mean, the last time you can really point to is when Whitmer got the Republicans to go along and join together on the auto insurance reforms.

And after that, you know, even working on the budgets at your.

Yeah.

How did that work out, Kyle?

All right.

Let's call in the Michigan chamber.

You know what I'm talking about?

Let's call in Wendy Block from the Michigan Chamber of Commerce.

Miss Block, thank you for staying with us this morning.

I have a little sort of bit off topic.

Are you guys ready to sign off on taking the corporate income tax and put it into the roads?

No.

And in fact, we are strongly opposed to an increase in the corporate income tax.

When we look at our membership, we feel like it's very unfair to ask just a subsection to fund new money for the roads.

There are more equitable solutions, including user fees that we do support, but we just we cannot get behind this push on this issue in lame duck.

Well, could the argument be made that business benefits from good roads so pony up?

100%.

Right?

Businesses do need good roads, and that's why we do support user fees.

And we have a long history, decades long history, of being supportive of new user fees and new revenue for the road.

Like first, we think that government should look within and figure out what can they do to find those savings and those efficiencies, including passing legislation to allow the sourcing of aggregate materials or sand and gravel closer to the sites where we're building roads.

But then beyond that, we do support user fees, but an increase in the CIT or doing other major tax policy changes that really have no linkage to the road, we just don't feel it's appropriate.

Wendy, there are a lot of of legislation moving through both chambers or through committee that business groups are pretty panicked about it sounds like, from what we've been hearing.

Are there priorities for like legislation that you guys want to block at this point?

Because it seems like you can only plug the dam in so many spots.

And remember, this is only a 20 to 30 minute program.

Yeah.

So it's interesting because I was listening to the the panel talk about the issues that are on their radar.

And frankly, I was taking notes.

I don't even know about half of these things that you're talking about.

And so, you know, the business community's issues are just one small, small subsection of the overall just crazy list of things that we're seeing here in the lame duck.

I worked in Lansing for over 20 years, and I have not seen a lame duck like this.

And, you know, so when we start talking about those issues that we're concerned about, I mean, we went into this lame duck saying it is absolutely urgent that the legislature deal with this earned sick time and minimum wage issue.

Like full stop, that has got to be the priority.

But then as these bad bills have gotten legs and have gained steam, it almost seems like that's kind of the least of our concerns at this point.

And it's crazy to think that we're we're actually saying that.

But Kyle mentioned one big issue, the so-called polluter pay bill sounds great on the surface, but will really create costly barriers to redeveloping contaminated sites in Michigan.

The CIT proposal is another huge one for us.

We're considered very concerned about legislation that is on the move to allow local units of government to pass their own wage and our laws.

So think local prevailing wage, local minimum wage, and the like.

And you know, kind of we can go from there, I guess.

Yeah, another piece of legislation that I was curious to get your response to, passed to the Labor Committee last night, Pretty speedily Is this package from Democrats that's going to address gender based discrimination in the workplace, sort of pay equity?

This is broad based package, includes bills that would require every employer in the state if an employee requests it to provide the salary list of similarly situated employees.

Is this something that is on your radar as any concern of becoming law?

Yeah.

So there are a number of bills that have come out of the House Labor Committee this week that some of those that you mentioned and others that you haven't.

Other bills in that package would actually criminalize, meaning throw business owners in jail for up to 20 years if they have technical violations to wage.

And our laws.

We just think that's fully inappropriate.

You were just talking about all these second chance laws and how we've been talking about reforming criminal justice this entire session.

And now Democrats want to throw business owners in jail because they got some computations wrong.

It's just crazy to think all of these bills and frankly, you know, you think about the small business owner and their compliance obligations with this this influx of labor requirements.

And how will they even know?

I mean, we even have people that still are saying, I just heard about this decision out of the Supreme Court on minimum wage and paid leave leave.

Can you help me understand and explain?

And then you start talking about just bill after bill after bill that requires them to comply with something that they very well may not even know about.

And like, what is the state going to do to get the word out?

I think probably nothing.

And the law says so throw the book at them.

Wendy, I know that the business community had approached Speaker Tate and the Democratic leadership and said, we'll go along with with a smaller increase on the unemployment insurance benefits if in exchange you'll take a look at the tipped wage and earned sick time.

And the response back was, that's okay, we got it taken care of.

Is that, it's got to feel kind of like a hopeless feeling like, oh my God, they really don't need us.

And you're getting kind of shoved back and you're having to become more of a spectator here.

I would argue we haven't been spectators.

We've been fully engaged in the process and we have made made a big difference on big issues.

It's unfortunate, though, that Democrats have been saying all along they're not going to do this and they're not going to do that.

And then all of a sudden these bills are getting jammed through in the final days of the legislative session.

It feels like we've been told one thing, and then when, you know, the window's closing and all of a sudden here, you know, the floodgates are open.

On the unemployment insurance bill, we've said all along that we do think it is time for an increase in benefits, but we have to be very careful in terms of figuring out what is that right number.

When we look at our competitor states as more in that $500 per week amount on the legislation that was sent to the governor goes to 614.

And our big concern with that is just the trust fund, the fund that pays benefits to claimants is still rebuilding due to the situation that happened under COVID, where the agency just pushed money out the door to people in other countries.

And there was a ton of fraud, both state and federal fraud.

And the trust fund is just not in a healthy position.

So we don't believe that you can raise unemployment benefits this high, this fast, without triggering a new payroll tax increase on Michigan employers.

And again, you add that, you know, you might say and in a vacuum, you know, employers probably can absorb that.

But when you start layering on all of these bad bills and all the costs associated with them that the Democrats are passing in these final days of the session, that's really where it becomes unsustainable and Michigan becomes highly uncompetitive.

We get this all the time.

What is happening in Michigan?

Let's bring this to the kitchen table for the people that want to understand what the implication is for them as consumers, let's assume that half of this stuff passes.

What's the impact on mom and dad?

Yeah.

So, Tim, I think you are raising a great point and one that we have been trying to stress is that, you know, these costs have to come out somewhere.

And in November, voters went to the polls and they voted on the economy and their personal situation and their pocketbook.

And it's almost like Democrats are not listening to that message from voters and doubling down on this idea that government needs to come in and form new programs and levy new penalties and fines and make things more difficult for business, which will then and increase their costs.

And that has to be passed on to the consumer or it has to be found in some sort of adjustments to wages and benefits.

And it just feels tone deaf to us.

I really don't understand it.

And one thing that we didn't talk about today is and, I don't even know that much about it, but, you know, last night the House Labor Committee, without any testimony, passed massive changes to our public pension systems.

And as I understand it, that's up to $25 billion in new obligations for the state.

These things are going to be paid for by taxpayers.

It has to come out somewhere.

We can't make promises and just say like somehow, who's going to pay for this Santa Clause?

Like, it's outrageous.

Wendy, I want to I just want to ask you also about the the I guess, the extent of the bills that are coming out right now.

And you mentioned earlier that you felt deceived.

Are there particular bills that you were told we will not take up in lame duck and now they are?

Be specific.

What did they tell you they weren't going to do?

Yeah.

So, I mean, I think this is ongoing, right?

Like we are playing Whac-A-Mole on a ton of things right now.

We were told all along that unemployment probably was going to come.

Right?

But we were told the votes weren't there on a number of things even going into this week.

And you know, so, yeah, we last night managed to stop a workers compensation bill.

Maybe there's a house vehicle on that.

I guess we'll find out as the day continues whether that issue is still alive.

But, you know, we were we were told going into the week that there just were not the votes on a number of things.

And it just feels like that has been in a following situation.

Polluter pay would be a good example where we were led to believe that the votes were not there and all of a sudden this thing and a 75 page sub, you know, substitute bill kind of popped and all of a sudden we were off to the races.

We were told that it was dead, too.

We were, the reporters were told it was dead last night.

Yeah.

I mean, frankly, I'm almost shocked that Senator Geiss's 12 week paid leave mandate bill kind of got left on the cutting room floor, given just the craziness of all of the policy changes.

and.

Can you Can you refresh my memory?

How many Democrats did you endorse in the House races in November?

Oh, that's a good question.

I think upwards of 15 Democrats and frankly, you know, today will be a good test today.

Friday the 13th will be a good test of, you know, kind of what are they going to do in the final days here.

Were they happy to accept the business community's endorsement and then turn around and stab us in the back when it doesn't matter anymore, when there's no more accountability.

But it's going to be I just don't see the road back on this.

Right?

We cannot turn the page in the new year and forget what happened to the business community during the lame duck session as we move forward with our political program.

So how many of that 15 have that knife in your back right now?

We will see as the day goes on.

No, no.

No, no, no.

I want a number.

How many people have said, okay, we're going to cough up a vote for you because you endorsed me.

I mean, we don't play that way, right?

We don't hide.

That's, excuse me, isn't that what the game is?

We really try very hard to separate policy and politics.

And of course, there are times where they intersect.

But, you know, again, today is not, it's a new day In Lansing.

Right?

We are very firmly focused on those issues that still remain on the table and still have the threat of getting done.

And we're going to continue to work with everyone and anyone everyone and anyone who's willing to work with us up until the end.

But again, actions have consequences and we do engage politically.

As a professional political advocate.

You know, you just said just a minute ago talking about playing Whac-A-Mole, well you're playing whack a mole, perhaps with these bills in the House.

You know, Republicans are aligned in opposition, only one Democrat to say no on a piece of legislation and two in the Senate.

How does that change the math for you?

Yeah, I mean, and I think that's been the problem all along.

Right?

Democrats have struggled with attendance issues.

They've struggled with keeping their caucus together.

Lame duck seems to be a little bit different.

We've gotten past the attendance issues that we had last week and we are continuing again to talk to anyone and everyone who's willing to listen and to understand the harmful nature of all of these various proposals.

And yeah, you know, it's interesting.

I think sometimes people are like, Oh, you should talk to X, Y and Z, and it's like, No, I'm talking to you.

I'm asking you to be a no vote and to explain to me why you're not.

Because we think we have a pretty compelling story here.

So there is a little bit of that that's going on.

And frankly, I think there's a lot of fatigue.

And, you know, legislators are exhausted as everybody else, yourselves probably included, like last night was a long night in House session, you know, is turning around after the Senate adjourned at 5:00 in the morning to to convene session at 9 a.m.

There's not a lot of turnaround time here.

And everybody, you know, they get tired and there's like, fine, I'll vote yes if that means we can go home.

Are you having fun?

In so far as I have a sick and twisted definition of fun, I guess.

Yes.

Wendy we thank you for being with us on our program.

Most of thanks you guys.

More off the record right here next week.

Let's see what this all ended up with.

Ey?

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