Nice to have you back with us as we welcome a member of the House Budget Committee, Democrat Representative Julie Brixie.

See our lead story.

New district maps for the Michigan House.

How does it impact the control issue there?

On the OTR panel Kyle Melinn, Lauren Gibbons, and Colin Jackson.

Sit in with us as we get the inside out, Off the Record.

Production of Off the Record is made possible, in part by Martin Waymire, a full service strategic communications agency, partnering with clients through public relations, digital marketing and public policy engagement.

Learn more at MartinWaymire.com.

And now this edition of Off the Record with Tim Skubick.

Welcome to Studio C. Hey, everybody.

Welcome.

We're off.

We're talking on this spring break with the legislators out of town, but the legislators have something.

Look at new maps in the house.

What does that mean?

The maps are finalized.

The federal court that was overseeing a redraw process for Metro Detroit have approved the commission's map.

So what that means is essentially it makes the districts in metro Detroit a lot more Detroit centric.

So it doesn't cross county lines quite as much as the original maps that the commission approved.

And it also increases the number of black majority voting age black majority populations in a lot of these Detroit based districts.

And so it gets it a lot of what the a lot of what the plaintiffs wanted with what these Detroit area voters were seeking.

So so it's a lot different.

But in terms of the statewide maps, it's not a whole ton different in terms of how it affects the partizan fairness and the path to the majority.

It's still going to be very, very competitive, don't get me wrong, But it's not like it, you know, advantages one party over the other necessarily.

Economists pursue that point because this whole story is in the context of control of the Michigan House.

Okay.

Does it swing districts to the ears of the D's?

The D's come out?

Do they have anything to worry about?

I mean, I wouldn't be worried right now if I'm a Democrat with these maps right now.

How it shook out was all 15 of the districts that were touched by the maps.

None of the incumbents were drawn in together.

So if you're in the state House right now, chances are you'll have a chance at running again for that seat and have a fair shot at getting it.

Yeah, you don't want incumbents running against incumbents.

Why?

Because one of them's going to lose, so.

One of them is going to lose.

But it raised some suspicion among the plaintiffs, wondering now if the commission is not supposed to know who lives where, then how did this happen?

That all 14 who were directly affected are not running against one another?

Apparently, that there was somebody in the process who was a public speaker who asked for little tweaks here and there, and the commission said, Yeah, okay, we'll go along with that.

And then when it was all said and done, they looked at the maps and said, Wow, how about this?

There's no incumbents running against each other.

Everybody's happy with the maps and we're picking up some soundings.

Yes.

That's true.

You know, during the public comment process, this version of the map was the most popular, at least among the people who showed up to comment.

But the plaintiffs, as Kyle alluded to, did have some issues with it.

They were concerned about the fact that the incumbents were drawn in together.

They were concerned that some of the districts still were not, you know, as as tailored to fit the black community as they were hoping.

But at the end, they did say it was a step in the right direction.

They acknowledged that they were an improvement upon the other maps.

Well, how do you make a district 5050 for the resounds in Detroit?

You know, it's impossible.

You can't.

But what they tried to do originally with the state House was they tried to make the districts, you know, draw them in a way in which black voters had more of a opportunity in more districts.

So they diluted the number of black voters in these districts.

So they created like ribbons where they would start in the city of Detroit, and then they'd go up to Birmingham or they'd go up to Royal Oak and you'd see all these like ribbon districts that were they were there was really no community of interest at all.

It was just really kind of strips of bacon on a piece, on a piece of plate, on a on a plate.

And then what they did then is they created districts where the city of Detroit had its own House district here and its own House district there, where in the prior maps, the city of Detroit had no district, where it was just entirely encapsulated within the city of Detroit.

Now they got three or four.

I mean, could they have done more?

Yeah, they probably could have done more.

But in the grand scheme of things, this is a lot better than what they started with.

All right.

So next Tuesday, Donald Trump will be in Grand Rapids.

Collin, how come?

Well, we had a situation where, unfortunately, there was a murder involving an undocumented individual.

And this has been something that's been blowing up nationally.

We've seen this in other states that made it even into the state of the Union address.

So right now, aside from the actual tragedy of loss of life, there's also political opportunity.

And unfortunately, sometimes those things go together.

So we will be seeing this become more of a more of a talking point as we get deeper into campaign season.

This was a quick pivot by the by the Trump people.

Yeah, definitely.

It was announced later yesterday.

And it's something that, as Colin said, it's it's an issue that riles up Republicans, certainly.

And and it's something that is going to be a topic that we've seen it, you know, from Trump.

But we've also started to see state level Republicans getting in on this as well.

It's you know, we are technically a border state, not with Mexico, but immigration continues to be a pretty big issue here.

And so you know, his that it will rally his base, but it also might turn some other heads.

Opportunistic.

I mean, what else can you say about Donald Trump?

Biden's border bloodbath.

That's what he's calling this thing as he goes to Grand Rapids on Tuesday and then to Green Bay later in the day.

But he is going to be in Grand Rapids.

He is going to try and capitalize on this issue.

Immigration topping the list of issues that Republicans in particular are most concerned about, but also independents have an inclination that with the economy, it's right up there as their top issue.

And so he's trying to capitalize it in an area of the state where he doesn't do as well as he has in, let's say, Macomb County and down river.

He's gotten beat by Joe Biden and he's gotten beat by Hillary Clinton in Kent County, which isn't really supposed to happen for Republican, at least historically.

And so I think he's trying to take advantage of a situation that is in the headlines right now with the murder of Ruby Garcia and try and make it about immigration, when others would argue this was more about domestic assault and guns than it was about illegal immigration.

You know, I remember years ago when Al Gore showed up at the the Calderwood thing in Grand Rapids, and I thought, what the heck is Al Gore doing here in Grand Rapids?

Well, the Grand Rapids has changed completely from those days when it was solid Republican and owned by the divorce in the sixties and people like that.

This place is in play, which is why he's there.

Absolutely.

And we've seen this borne out in the congressional race where we saw last last election.

We saw Hillary, Scott and a Democrat win the city for the first time in I don't know how long.

So, yeah, I would say there are some changing demographics in Grand Rapids.

So, I mean, this could also But to that point, though, this could also be an opportunity for the Trump campaign to appeal to an issue that Grand Rapids Republican voters still care about.

Yeah, and I remember in 2016, I spent the evening before the Election Day with Donald Trump.

He had a rally in Grand Rapids that was kind of his his last stand right before the election.

And and he won Michigan.

He won the election that year.

So, you know, Kent County and Grand Rapids are winning.

That back would be a big victory lap for him.

Well, in attempt to take the edge off of this story, the Democratic Party issued a statement basically pointing out that it was Joe Biden, the president, who tried to solve this border issue, maybe solves too strongly, but revise it to make it better.

And they reminded everybody that Donald Trump killed that proposal.

But I'm not sure that takes the edge off this story.

I mean, we've again, any time you have loss of life, it's very hard, very hard to see.

It's a very disheartening situation to deal with.

I think when you try to do that political spin a little bit and say, well, we had a solution here, but you killed it, it kind of can play off a little bit like the blame game going around, even if there is some validity to it.

I think it's hard.

It's a hard messaging to get across and have learned.

Even though the spin may not have been a36, they had to spin something, right?

Yeah, I mean, because they talk about the fact that the suspect in this case was deported at some point and then came back, even if he spent most of his life in the Grand Rapids area, you know, other things that they can talk about in this case is that the two had a romantic relationship.

And it wasn't like that situation in Georgia where we had a runner who just got attacked by somebody.

And now these whole illegal immigrants are viewed as the boogeyman behind the corner or with a gun or with a knife and are going to get after you.

In this case, this was just the domestic assault case, which is not uncommon, sadly.

And, you know, the perpetrator happened to be an illegal immigrant, but it could have been, you know, any jaded boyfriend born in the United States, legal resident, whatever.

But that's something that, you know, takes a little bit of time to explain.

And it isn't as catchy on the campaign trail, unfortunately.

Well, the Democrats had a political rally.

The excuse me, they had an event that looked like almost a political rally.

You got yourself on that one.

You did it on purpose.

Now, let's take a look at what happened at the UAW place.

Is former Governor Granholm and Governor Whitmer were there, along with a lot of other folks.

Talk about your Democratic star power, the UAW president, the Michigan governor, Congresswoman Slotkin, and two secretaries, energy secretary Granholm and Labor Secretary Sue, all of them singing the praises of the Biden administration's pilot program to train future EV assembly line workers.

That's because the U.S. is in an EV race with, you know who?

We're not going to sit on our laurels and wait for China to eat our lunch on electric vehicles.

We're going to do it here.

But the training to compete with the Chinese is not exactly on a fast track.

You are not training anybody today for these jobs, correct?

Today we are.

Not.

That's a year or two down the road.

It'll take a year, we think, to finalize the pilots.

The former governor asserts that trained workers will be ready when U.S. EV plants are online.

Meanwhile, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump warned UAW workers that the Biden EV policies will put some of them out of work.

You don't think any UAW member will lose a job as a result?

I think that there is going to be shifting.

I think sometimes that question is asked with the implication that there's something inevitable about job loss and there isn't.

Governor Whitmer and other states have until April 1st to submit their plans for spending this pilot training money, and then the program must be drafted on what to teach.

So what did you make of this little get together?

Yeah, you know, it's it's certainly a lot of star power, as you said in the piece.

It's getting all of these people who are either in competitive races or trying to defend Democratic gains in Michigan altogether.

And it was also at a union hall, which is a big message that Democrats are trying to talk about when it comes to these energy changes, when it comes to creating manufacturing jobs.

They're really trying to promote the idea that labor can have gains and and keep the jobs that are currently in the auto industry while transitioning into these electric vehicles.

That's a message that, you know, Republicans Trump in particular have really countered.

But Democrats are really trying to appear in front of this issue and say jobs and clean energy could happen at the same time.

The only thing missing from this, Granholm, was you're going to be blown away in five years.

That in the Biden reelect sign in the background.

I mean, look, we had a cat, an 800 number.

We had a cabinet secretary in three different locations, three days this past week in three different media markets.

Obviously, the Biden camp is taking a look at the polling.

They're not doing as well in Michigan as they should be, that we've had ten or 11 polls in Michigan in the year 2024, and only one of them is Biden been up.

They've got to do something to get in front of the public to make it look like the country is doing better, that we're on a path, that we have a vision.

And this was part of that message.

And it seemed to me it was interesting because it's good.

The governor said it's going to be a year or longer before we start actually training these people.

Someone might ask, God, excuse me, you guys have been in office for four years.

Where were you two years ago on this?

No, exactly.

And I think to Carl's point, this definitely seemed like he brought a lot of heavy hitters out here and a lot of the conversation during the speeches kind of hit on the main buzzwords that you would expect.

You know, you got the Biden jobs.

WHITMER More jobs, slack in future focused unions, etc.. And I think that was really kind of where a lot of the messaging was focused around, at least for this event, more so almost than kind of the announcement that you have these new training standards to guide registered apprenticeships with the DOL, which I think maybe isn't as sexy, is a headline as we're going to make sure you get new union jobs made possible through the Biden administration, etc..

So I think there is a legitimate question there, though, about what took so long.

But I thought I thought part of the lead up to this thing was that nobody's being trained right now.

Okay.

In fact, we don't even know what we're going to teach them.

Tim, you're missing the whole story, which was the whole story was that we've got Finn here, we've got Brandon.

We're going.

To look at here the Biden administration has got to take care of.

Look, this is this is politics.

Without politics being first and foremost, for some reason, when Joe Biden was here in Saginaw, he didn't do anything in front of the public.

This is making up for that to some extent.

All right.

I want to clarify one point, which I spent a lot of time in this program talking about the flap over the auditor general and whether the governor was cutting that department by 28%.

Well, we finally contacted the governor's office this week.

And here's their explanation.

Look at that is a placeholder number in the budget.

They have to put a number in.

They put the 2.8 million in, basically saying we'll negotiate based on the needs of the auditor general.

So Republican criticism is maybe a little premature.

I don't know.

It's a.

Bargaining chip.

Why don't they just say that it's a bargaining chip And when they when the governor puts out a budget, she puts in some of those things into the budget so that when she negotiates with the legislature, there's something she can drop off the table.

And that's just.

What this is.

All right.

Let's call in our guest today, representative Brixie from the Appropriations Committee.

Representative welcome back to Off the Record.

Let's let's talk about basically whether the House Democrats are concerned about these new maps or are they going to cost you control?

Oh, absolutely not.

I'm personally relieved that we have the whole process behind us.

I think that we saw the final tweaks that were made.

We understood when they came out with the ruling that it was really minor modifications that needed to be made and we're ready to move on and have all of our affected members run in their new seats.

Are you was sanguine about the ticket with Joe Biden at the top of it.

I am riding with Biden, Tim, and You got a speech there?

What are you going to do?

I got my notes for my campaign.

I thought we were talking about campaigns.

Second, I have my candidate's list.

Well is Mr.Biden a liability at this particular reed?

No, he is not a liability.

Hes losing in Michigan.

Do you remember the, I'd like to say one thing about polls for you.

Do you remember 2016?

Do we remember the polls in 2016 and what they all said?

So everybody here at this table knows that sometimes polls are right, sometimes they're wrong.

We've got a lot of other polls going on, too, including a Fox News poll that just came out this week that showed that somewhere near 60% of people support legal abortion.

We had a huge win in Alabama this week with a female candidate running in a bright red district who won with over 60% of the vote running on the right to safe legal abortion.

Now, abortion, health care still important.

You know, as you look ahead to 2024, what are some regions that you're focusing on?

Obviously, this is still going to be a pretty competitive fight for the majority.

Right.

And this is why I have my list so that I can I can fast.

Remember its only a half hour show.

I confess the the numbers and the maps.

I don't have the new numbers memorized.

So we're looking at expansions in Oakland County, Jackson County, Wayne County, and Genesee County, I'm delighted to say.

And we're you know, we're looking at defending our front line members.

It's a lot easier to defend them than to have to beat an incumbent when you're in majority.

Right.

And we're looking at we've got some fantastic candidates.

The mayor of Jackson is running in District one in District 46, and we've got a teacher running in District 28.

So a lot of exciting candidates and a lot of momentum that Democrats crats have.

Representative Watts, what makes you the most nervous about this election cycle for the House Democrat from the House Democratic standpoint?

Oh, turnout.

I think, would be the you know, it's always it's always something that you have to be concerned about.

And so I would say turnout is the is the number one.

How do you get the voters motivated then, for your candidates?

Well, we have been working really hard.

We've done a lot of things to address kitchen table issues.

We've repealed apprehension tax.

We've done a tremendous amount of work in the reproductive health space, which people care about and people who haven't been motivated to vote before have been coming out and turning out on that issue over and over again.

People want the right to a legal abortion.

People want the right to be able to have an IVF procedure if they need to in order to start their family.

Nobody wants politicians in their bedroom or in their doctor's office, and Democrats have been delivering in that area.

But I mean, to that point, Representative, in 2022, after the Jackson decision to overturn Roe versus Wade, a lot of Democrats are mobile, or were mobilized.

And that was one of the things that led to the Democrats winning the trifecta in the legislature and the governor's office.

But I think it's something where it's like use it to motivate people when they don't have a right, when their rights being threatened to get that right back versus when they think they have that right.

Prop three passed, which already guarantees abortion access in Michigan.

Do you see that as still being the same motivating factor in the 2024 general election that it was in 2022?

It is.

And I think, you know, you have only to look to the Trump appointed Supreme Court to see why people are very concerned about these issues.

The vote in the Alabama, the votes that we see all over the country continue to show us that our rights that we have relied on for 50 years are at risk as a result of the Dobbs position.

And what what more are do they have in store for us?

And I think that that fear of the overreach of government into our bedrooms and doctor's offices is something that is highly motivating for people.

Anyone who is of reproductive age is concerned about what's happening in elections.

We're working on two critical issues ethics and disclosure, and also a redo of the no fault law in light of the state Supreme Court decision.

Given the fact that you all are going to be out of town at the end of June, you have zero chance of getting either of those passed between now and then, right?

Well, no.

Why would you say that?

Because you don't have enough time.

To get our ethics package passed.

Sure.

Last time I checked, it's been lingering for about 30 years.

And the trifecta majority was lingering for 43 years Tim so, I'm really proud of the work that we've done.

So you're going to get these both of these done before the end of June.

We've got the hearings scheduled on the Bright Act, which is the campaign finance reforms.

We've got the hearing scheduled for that on April 18th.

And there's plenty of time to get that done and the budget done.

We're hard at work.

I'm hard at work in Lansing, even though we're on a legislative break.

We've got members that are down there doing all the work necessary to get the voting done on these bills, to get.

Them in hearings on no fault.

I am not on that committee.

So I am not sure what the status is of the no fault reforms.

I know that the Senate passed an amazing package of bills, but not being on the insurance committee, I don't really know the timetable for that.

When you're talking about this bright act, what we're talking about is opening up a disclosure for lawmakers who go on trips and who accept gifts, accept tickets.

And we're also talking about if you have one of these five, a1c for dark money accounts, you got to disclose that, make that known.

How is that more transparent than expanding the freedom of information Act to the legislature and the governor there?

There are two separate things, Kyle.

And the campaign finance reform piece is something that's really important.

I mean, just here on the show the other week, Craig McGrew was saying, you know what?

What's being done to impact the problems in state government And this package is something that is going to have a big impact on the abuses that we've seen in the recent string of Republican leaders.

You know, Chatfield Shirkey, Rick Johnson, Arlen Metcalf, the Minard Suite.

We see this pattern that has emerged of abuses of money at the highest level of state government, and that's something that people are worried about and people are concerned about.

This is the first opportunity.

We've had a trifecta in 43 years and I'm very proud that we're going after all of the low hanging fruit.

We've been doing so many different packages and this is one that I've worked on in the past and I'm really proud of what we're accomplishing with this for the first time ever.

We're going to have to acknowledge our affiliation with dark money accounts.

That's never been done before, and it's something that will pass the sniff test of Citizens United.

It's an important first step to the secretary of state and the attorney general.

Right now they have they don't even know where to begin with the investigations that they have to conduct when they have reports of abuses on dark money accounts.

This package will change that because we'll all have to disclose our affiliation with these dark money accounts.

When you look ahead to 2024, what are the stakes that you're looking at in terms of keeping the House majority?

And how are you translating that message to voters?

Obviously, it seems as though Democratic priorities would be different than a House majority or a House Republican majority.

Sure.

The of course they are.

And we see that every day.

And we see that in the unwillingness of the Republicans to work across the aisle with us, even on things that they sponsored.

In the past, the statute of limitation reform bills were one of them was an orphan Republican bill.

They wouldn't even sign on to it.

The leader is having Republicans vote no on really good legislation, including the pension repeal.

Not one Republican voted for the school aid budget, which included the extremely popular free breakfast and lunch for all public school children.

Democrats have been really busy working at breakneck pace to enact our values and to change laws that help everyday Michiganders.

And we've been working long hours doing it, and the public appreciates it.

They appreciate the repeal of the 1931 Abortion Act.

They are appreciate the amendment to Eliot LIASSON.

They appreciate the universal background checks that we've enacted.

They're going to appreciate these campaign finance bills and all of the many other things that we're working on.

Do they appreciate it enough to come out and vote in 2024?

They I believe that they will.

I was going to say, going back to the bills, this is something that you said that we hear a lot about.

It has enough support where if it was to go on the board at any point in the past that it would have enough support to pass the legislature.

Does it have enough support to get past leadership, though?

10 seconds.

Absolutely.

Speaker Tate worked with us closely on the package and we're having a hearing on April 18th.

And Mr. Hall dumped all over it.

He did.

And that was disingenuous at best.

I think.

Representative, thanks for being on the program.

It's good to see you again.

Thank you.

All right.

Thanks to our panel.

See you all next week for more Off the Record right here.

Production of Off the Record is made possible, in part, by Martin Waymire, a full service strategic communications agency, partnering with clients through public relations, digital marketing and public policy engagement.

Learn more at martinwaymire.com.

For more off the record, visit wkar.org.

Michigan public television stations have contributed to the production costs of Off the Record.