Thanks for tuning in.

House Republican Speaker Matt Hall is in the queue.

Our lead story movemen on the tip wage and sick time.

Leave.

They have a deal.

Around the table, Chad Livengood, Elena Durnbaugh and Rick Pluta.

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 servic strategic communication 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 back to Off the Record in Studio C. We have a deal.

Everybody thought this wouldn't happen, but it did.

So we have the tip issue is resolved and the sick leave issue is resolved.

Who are the winners and losers in this debate?

Well, I was told reliably by some lawmakers last night that everybody lost a little bit.

I'm hoping that we can be the winners by moving on from the issue.

Hey, I've got bad news.

It's not happening.

So what is it?

So what does it mean?

Did Labor Labor took a hit.

Is that a fair statement?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

I mean, they had they had to scale back this, this minimum wage hike for, for tipped workers to 50% of the of the regular minimum wage.

I mean this is the plan was to make them have parity, make them at 100% over time.

And this this is cut in half.

I mean, that was a big blow, particularly for the service workers unions out there that ha sort of pushed for this as well.

And then the second benefit also had been a big, big priority of organized labor, and it has been scaled back.

So it's not going to hit as many small businesses.

It's not going to affect seasonal workers.

You're not going to get sick time for for minors and whatnot.

So there's a whole host of different changes.

And it's you know, it's it' what the business community had been had been lobbying for.

And it's definitely opposite of what the labor unions have wanted.

I mean, I would say that that among maybe the losers are one labor because they weren't to put the screws on Democrats to vote against this en masse.

Wait.

Wait, the paybacks.

You you you you got ahead of me Tim.

I apologize.

That any Democrats who might face a primary challenge in a district where labor is influential, and especially any Democrats who might want a convention nomination for an office, because that's where the, you know, the party faithful are really going to be able to show their displeasure on.

All right.

So the $64 question is why did the D's bail?

Why did they hang with labor?

I mean, I think this is something that I'm we we heard that the governor was cooperating with this.

That's kind of the way things were moving.

And so you have the pressure of the deadline.

The governor didn't say we're not going to do this and negotiations move forward.

And Democrats in in in districts with small businesses who are putting pressure on them to do something about this.

Democrats in districts that aren't as reliably Democratic where two tables on that front, Veronica Kleinfeld and Kevin Hertel Democratic senators in southern Macomb County, a lot of small diners up an down Gratiot and Harper Avenue.

That they frequent often.

They know these areas they and they just heard from people that, look, this is really going to hit us harder than you can even imagine.

And so they listened.

They responded.

I mean, this is how how the process works i you're not always going to just, you know, go march to the tun of your paymaster in this town.

Sometimes you actually liste to the folks who vote for you.

And those are two Democrats who could get easily wiped out in a 2026 election.

And the most interesting name on that list, I thought, was Winnie Brinks, the Senat Democratic leader usually quote, In this town, leadership goes along with what Labor wants.

But I think the lobby group the server's really got on her heavily are you nodding you head you There's alot of restaurants in Grand Rapids.

And good high paying ones you know Make pretty good living o running working in restaurants.

And so it wasn't as cut and dry of an issue that one size fits all.

And then maybe that' the lesson of this whole thing.

I mean, and not the history of this.

This has been going on in this town for 11 years.

Back to 2014 there was a minimum wage effort.

Legislature stepped in, Republican legislature and said, no, no, we're not going to give Mark Schauer something to run on for governor.

And they stopped in and they and they and they passed a minimum wage hike and then preempted the Democrats essentially from having a big.

The petition campaign.

Yeah.

So and that's I mean, this is a big deal in this because the the the this was created because Republicans circumvented the petition campaign.

The initiatives took it to court and because the Republicans initially messed up.

This is supposed to clean up that after the Supreme Court said, you know, no.

So moving during a session.

Yeah.

So now we're lookin at the possibility of lawsuits regarding what the legislatur did, presuming Gretchen Whitmer signs it at the hou that we're taping and this that that hasn't happened yet, that we're looking a the possibility of a referendum.

And that's a big organizing effort that.

Scratch the word possibility is a wage has already.

Yeah, they're already talking about hiring people.

And, you know, it's another initiative.

I mean, everything or most of the things that Republicans were trying to circumvent, both in terms of the policy and the politics is still hanging out there.

Well, this was the last successful referendum on a law we had in this town was Public Act four in 2012, the emergency manager law that ASME and other labor unions organized and got the signatures to put on the ballot.

I happened to be five other five constitutional amendments there.

So was ballot palooza.

And so they they went dow because everyone was voting no and sending down the other one.

But nonetheless, this is a not an easy proposition.

You're talking about tens of millions of dollars if you want to have a referendum on this in the 2026 election, when Democrats are going to have pretty much everything on the line.

State Senate, the chance to get back in the House, the governor's office, the attorney general, the secretary of state, the US Senate and, you know, and so on and so forth.

So I'm not sure that it's a guarantee that they're going to have the organization and the money from th Democratic machine to do this.

Does does does this lay the groundwork now?

Because this was a significant bipartisan deal.

I think the legislature for the for the good government types in this town, they're not in their heads.

They did good.

All right.

Is at the foundation now to move forward to, you know, what issue roads.

This might b a question for our guest coming Don't tell him.

Okay.

Don't tell him.

Okay.

What do you think?

I mean, that's what everyone is signaling.

That's the next conversation that we're going to be having is roads.

And that's going to go tightly with the budget because road take money and money and money.

So we just we just put Sam Singh in the speaker in the same room and we get a road deal.

Come on.

Well, I think the same thing is going to b Winnie Brinks and the speaker.

But nonetheless, yes, they're going to have they're off to a good start when it comes to bipartisanship in this town.

We think of the last tim we had true divided government in the second half of the Granholm years.

That was not exactly a great experience.

All right.

Let's talk about experiences with the speaker of the House, Matt Hall.

Mr. Hall, please.

That was good.

You stepped up.

So you were that fine.

Mr. Hal Welcome back to Off the Record.

Some would say congratulations.

You and Mr. Singh got this thing done and you knew early yesterday you had a deal, right?

Well, I thought we were trending in that direction.

I mean, I'll just say that I think in concept we were moving there.

But the thing is, the detail matter and the writing matters.

And all the way up to the last minute, there were opportunities for it to fall apart.

But fortunately, we got it done.

So have you poked a hole in labor's eye?

You know, I didn't see it that way.

I mean, what we were trying to do was just come u with a way that this would work.

I mean, you look at it.

Mr. Hall You play politics.

Did you poke the eye of labor?

The goal was to do something here that was going to solve this problem.

It was a one size fits all mandate.

It wasn't going to work and chaos was coming on Friday.

So it was really about fixing the policy.

I didn't really consider who won or who lost.

Does this, sir, I mean, yo just heard us talking about it.

Does this serve as a template for resolving other knotty issues before the legislature, in particular road funding?

Yeah, I think that's the way I viewed it, was if this thing fell apart and blew up, it would not be a productive two years.

If we got it done, it would lay the foundation for maybe having a productive two years.

I mean, we haven't worked together very much and me and the Senate Democrats and the governor.

And so, you know, we have to determine, can we trust each other?

Are we serious?

Are people playin games?

Can they deliver votes?

And I think that everyone showe we can put the politics aside.

We can honor our word, we can deliver our caucuses.

And I think that's going to set us up for a chance at having a productive two years.

You said that, you know, this deal was to prevent chaos from coming on Friday.

We're in a situation right now where the law that was fixed by the deal is not in place.

So the laws that the Suprem Court put forward are in effect.

Don't we still have kind of situation of chaos this morning?

So my understanding is that we put it in there that it's going to be retroactive.

So if Whitmer signs that it will be retroactive to 1201 or 12:02 a.m. today so I think that will address it.

That wasn't always the case when we were going through the conversations on this, But that's my understanding of where we ended up.

What are your concerns about the possibilities of this changing in the future?

Initiative referendu Something something like that?

You know, I can't game plan out what's going to happen.

I thought Chad laid out why it's a challenge.

What we knew was what was in front of us.

And so we had to try to figure out how to make that workable.

It was interesting.

I mean, Democrats who said i 2018, this was great legislation when they really looked at the details, realized this was not workable, this one size fits all mandate, wasn't going to work.

It was going to create chaos.

Peopl were going to lose their jobs.

It was going to be a mess to administer.

And so even Democrat came to the table and fixed it.

So if things happen in the future on this, then we'll look at the consequenc senses of that and address them.

Chad, got one.

Let's go to the roads for a second and a little bit about what your road plan is and how you do it without raising taxes.

Yeah So I think what's our number one thing here is to focus on roads over the corporations.

I look at what Whitmer's done and I you know, Whitmer has you know, a lot of this i hundreds of millions of dollars that have gone to corporations through the SOAR fund.

And I've just assessed this and said it's really not working anymore as intended.

I look at the GM deal where GM got paid out on the deal.

The jobs haven't been created and they sold the interest to a Korean company.

And, you know, the Ford deal has been downsizing.

When I go to them and ask them questions about are you clawing thi back, it's hard to get answers.

So, number one, I created an oversight subcommittee that's really going to drill into these things and try to get answers about these things.

But my sense is the SOAR funding isn't working the way we intended.

There's hundreds of millions of dollars a year going to that.

And then I think tha we should end these mega credits and dedicate all that money to roads.

I also think that we should take the extra money from the Treasury and dedicate that to roads as well.

And then I think we should really start reining in these earmarks.

And you see part of the Hall ethics, accountability and transparency plan HEAT.

We start we start reining that in.

If we do all that, we can fund it without raising taxes.

And if she still comes back to you and said, I need a tax increase, you're still going to say no.

I really think that you keep going back to the fact that the government spendin has increased 43% under Whitmer with her tax increase plan that would go to 47%.

We do have the money to do it.

If we set the priorities.

And I did appoint to budget hawks Ann Bollin and Matt Maddock, and I remember you guys trying to debate who the good cop was there, but you know, I thin as they go through this process, they will find savings.

I mean, trust me, there is savings when the government's growing that much.

I showed how you can do it without those savings by prioritizing roads over corporations.

But when they start drilling into that, if we really want to do it, we can do it with existing funding.

And then my argument is have the conversation about tax increases for whatever the other stuff is that isn't getting funded.

How how directly engaged is the governor on these these road discussions?

Do you talk directly with her or does does that wait?

Yeah.

I've found the governor to be engaged and accessible to me any time I want to talk to her.

And so this is an issue she campaigne on that she cares a lot about.

And I would expect her to be very heavily engaged if she ever looked you in the eye and said, Mr. Hall, I can't do this deal without new revenue.

And she ever said that in those direct words, You know, the way I see it is, look, I mean, I Democrats for some reason always want to raise taxes and grow government.

And so that's a comfortable natural position for the governor.

You know, I've shown how you can do it without raising taxes.

I'm trying to get at the dialog between the two of you because she's going to say to you, look, I' willing to compromise with you.

I'll probably give yo more than 500 million in cuts, but you got to give me something.

So are you willing to give her something that she wants?

I think if we really drill down into the numbers and show her how we can do it without raising taxes, I think she would consider it.

But what I did see as a benefit was she is moving my way.

I mean, you look.

1.5 billion of the 3 billion we agree on.

Dedicating all of the money at the pump to roads.

That's about $1,000,000,000.

And then the 500 millio she's brought forward in cuts.

So that's half of it right there.

You hear her say that she'll support the gas tax increase, even though it's not an increase at the pump, if she ever told you that.

Well, we consider her smile at that question.

Well, because I heard you say this last week.

So we consider it revenue neutral.

As long as there's not more money going into the Treasury, it's revenue neutral.

So the goal is you just dedicate it to roads instead of other things.

Do you have her support on that.

Well, as she put it out in her plan that she supports, that she supports holding schools harmless, that's what she supports.

She didn't say anything a lot of gas tax.

Well, she supports putting that the shift so that all of the money that's collected at the pump goes to roads.

And then what I proposed was backfill, which would be two to the first 700 million out of the sales tax.

So we would dedicate that to education.

And she has a different way of doing that.

Is there or should there be a component in this that deals with the realit that there are going to be fewer over time?

There are going to be fewer and fewer internal combustion engine powered vehicles on the road as we move to other sources of energy, obviously, battery is a big one, but we could also be talking about hydrogen powere or something like that as well.

That is this a stopgap fix or do we need to fold that into our thinking as well?

Yeah.

So I've heard some of the discussion on this and it is true that the EV market share is not big enough right now to where it would totally solve this problem.

Right.

But with that said, it's easier to address it now while there are fewer EVs than when there is a huge you know, if there's ever a huge market share of EVs.

So I've said that I'm open to addressing that.

I see Republicans at the federal level are looking at how to address that more.

But ultimately, that's going to be a small part of the solution.

But I do say these these lef wing environmental groups that were out there saying that they are paying their fair share I think that's been disproven.

They they are paying less, in my view, than what the traditional motorist is paying.

So you drive back and forth from Kalamazoo.

I drive up and down I-96 all day long.

You and I probably drive a lo more than an average Michiganian and so why shouldn't we pay more for just using the roads?

Like why, why shouldn't there be a vehicle miles tax and get rid of gas taxes and just tax people based on their usage?

That seems like the most libertarian idea I've heard in a long time.

Yeah.

So to me, I think the solution I put forward is more viable than that politically.

And I know that might sound odd to you guys, but when you start going to vehicle Miles tax, I think you're going to start losing votes because of privacy issues and things like that.

So to me, I think that the way we get the money now is more the way that I proposed, which is settin better priorities in the budget.

But but I realize that once Whitmer is gone, you know, I'll probably still be here.

I have four more years after this.

And then you'll work with the next governor and the next Senate leader and see how you can solve the problem with them so that you sound to me like you're going to punt.

No, I think what we do is we we try to solve the problem with Whitmer.

Maybe you get $3 billion in a deal with Whitmer, but there's all this is always going to be a problem.

So then you look at the next governor and the next Senate and you see, is there a way to solve this differently That would work?

And maybe it goes more alon the lines of what Chad's saying.

I've made the assessmen that's not going to happen now.

And so I tried to put something on the table that I think could happe with the people who are there.

Where do you think the cuts should be made?

Where do you start?

Well, you start by eliminating the SOAR fund, eliminating the commute.

What is it, the Community Housing Development Fund, this RAP fund for placemaking.

Earmarks.

I mean, some year it's much more than 600 million a year, but it's average 600 million a year under Whitmer and earmarks.

They tell me when Snyder wa there, that was like 25 million.

So you just divert this money from the corporate income tax direct to roads so that it never gets there to where they start spending it on corporations and earmarks.

And that's just that's the easy way.

Then we start going programin through program after program, and I think you'll find a lot more.

Who's your candidate for governor?

I'm not going to get involved in the governor's race.

You are close friends with Aric Nesbitt.

You guys were joined at the hip for how many years?

And you just sai you're not going to endorse him.

Well, look, I mean, the way I see it is as the speaker of the House, I'm I'm working on developing policy for all the candidates and leading for all the candidates.

And I hope they all embrace my vision.

And when we get a Republican governor, I'm going to be ready with the policies to move forward in the next Republican administration.

And I want them all to embrace me.

So I'm there to help all of them, but I'm not planning to get involved.

So much for friendship.

Well, you know, there's a lot of people that I mean, Mike Cox, I've known him a long time.

I've known all of them a long time.

Just one of the dynamic in a midterm is that the party that's in the White House tends to suffer at the polls.

How do you counter that dynamic in the in the upcoming.

Well, yeah, You know, I was talking to Newt Gingrich about this recently.

So, you know, we in his view, when we won the election, that was a ticket to the dance, he says.

Right.

But now we've got to perform.

And so if we perform, the people will reward us with reelection.

But we can't spike the football and celebrate just because we won in the last election.

And so I think we've started that process through what we're doing here with th tip credit and the sick leave.

But also, you know, look, I mean, some things change here in Lansing, right?

I mean I became speaker of the House.

We put the roads on the table.

Now the governor's reacting to that.

Right.

And so I thin if we lead on the right issues, we actually are bringing people together.

I mean, you look at the Hall ethics, accountability and transparency plan HEAT.

And look, we had, what, 90 some people that voted for not letting politicians become lobbyists when they leave yesterday.

So when we put the right issues there we're bringing people together.

Something that's not part of HEAT is a year ag you proposed to then Speaker Joe Tate to hold a vote on expanding the Freedom of Information Act to cover the legislature and the governor.

And now you seem to have flip floppe and you're opposed to this bill.

Why is that?

Yeah, I just look at it.

I mean, I think we all evolve in our views.

I mean, I voted no the first time the bill came up to to not let to go for a two thirds vote in lame duck.

And then I watched this last lame duck and I realize even though I would administer that power responsibly, the people after me won't.

And ove time, over decades, it's worse for the public if we don't have supermajorities on votes and lame duck.

So I switched my view on that on this.

I think the stuff in HEAT, Hall ethics, accountability and transparency plan is just more significant than FOIA.

I think when you're the earmark reform, you look at the NDAA bill which moved five zero through committee yesterday, you look at what we're going to do to stop politicians from becoming lobbyists and politicians from registerin as lobbyists and other states.

I feel it's more significant.

And so we're moving on it and I hope it becomes law and people should start asking the Senate why eventually?

Why are they sitting on these bills?

Why?

Why are you arguing, though, that the HEAT, the Hall Ethics, Accountabilit and Transparency Act I've heard.

Yeah.

And expandin the Freedom of Information Act for government officials.

Why are you arguing that these are mutually exclusive?

Well, I'm going to throw my weight into the stuff that I think is goin to make the biggest difference.

You could say, I'm neutral, I'm agnostic on this.

Put it on the board and see what happens.

You could do that.

The state Senate is suing you right now over holding up these bills and we can't find out what they're paying lawyers because they are.

The state Senate is exempt from FOIA.

The governor has staff all over government.

We can't figure out how many people are working on her social media accounts.

I'm sure there are some Republicans in DC.

We'd love to know some of that information.

Again, we can't find that because it's not subject to the Freedom of Information Act.

I mean, how are you going to respond when J.D.

Vance calls and says, Why are you?

Why are you protecting Whitmer from from information from getting out in the public?

Well, that's funny.

I just say this.

Look I mean, I think the media should put a lot more stock in the Hall ethics, accountability and transparency plan and the media used to support these policies.

So, you know, this is a pretty significant deal.

And I think it'll be a big thing for this.

I mean, it really is true.

This would be the biggest transformative ethics, accountability and transparency reform if we got my stuff.

Mr. Speaker you didn't answer my question.

Why don't you,simply say, I don't support this, but put it on the board and let the people's people who are representing them vote on it?

I just think that like I don't want to give the media false hope, you know what I mean?

That's what Joe Tate did.

The last time it passed the House with over 100 votes.

Were you there?

Yeah, I did.

You guys in the media want this so bad?

I don't want to drag you along for two years and then break your heart.

So I'm just telling you right now we're not going to do it.

For the third time Mr. Speaker For the third time.

Let it be a vote.

You can you can vote no.

Why do you have to sit on it?

Well, I again, I know you really want this Tim, but I'm telling you, we get HEAT.

I don't care one way or the other.

The Senate has passed FOIA Right.

You're passing the bills for your transparency plan.

Do you think that there is a way to maybe get the Senate majority leader to move on your transparency efforts in exchange for FOIA?

Do you think there' a negotiation to be had there?

Do you think the Senate will sit on your bills because you're not moving the bills that they want to move?

Well I hope you'll really give them a hard time if they sit on the HEAT plan.

I mean, it's a good plan.

And you guys used to support those policies.

Mr. Speaker, should you know that?

We've got to get out of here?

It's okay.

Thank you, sir.

It's good to see you.

Thank you.

The have a nice weekend.

All right.

All right.

Thank you, sir.

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