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The House Republican floor leader Representative Brian Posthumus is up next.

Our lead story, the governor and the Democrats in the Senate have a disagreement on no fault car insurance.

On the panel, Craig Mauger, Samantha Schriber and Rick Pluta Sit in with us as we get the inside out.

Off the record.

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

Thank you very much.

Welcome to Off the Record.

This Michigan Senate was really busy this week, grinded out some stuff.

And the interesting story, Mr. Mauger, is that the governor did not like what they did on no fault car insurance.

Yeah, definitely.

I mean, this is an issue, as you know, that the legislature has been grappling with for more than a decade.

How do you balance the state's exorbitant auto insurance rates with the fact that those auto insurance rates provide really high quality care for people who are injured in auto accidents?

If you cut the rates, if you try to cut the rates, you got to cut the payments for the care, which, you know, hinders the ability of these people who have been severely injured to live their lives in dignity, as Democrats were pointed out yesterday.

So Senate Democrats are saying this is what we got to do.

We got to put in a fee schedule, we've got to raise the reimbursement rates to ensure that the care the accident survivors get is good.

And Governor Whitmer is saying, well, I signed this historic law in 2019 to try to bring down rates.

And if you do this, it's going to raise the rates back up.

So it doesn't look like she's going to support what the Senate Democrats are doing.

And this is one of the first major policy disagreements in the legislature that we've seen under Democratic control.

And this one is huge because most everybody has a car.

Yep.

So one of the most controversial items of the 2019 reform is that 45% reduction in reimbursements.

The insurer must pay for the full time care coverage of a non Medicare catastrophic accident patient.

Now, what this legislature does is that overall senators like Mary Kavanagh, Sarah Anthony, Jeremy Moss, they said we're going to take that 45% reduction, we're going to scrap it and come up with a new system.

Now, this the defense director, which is the Department of Finance, an insurance, insurance and Finance correction, they ultimately said that this is going to substantially increase premiums, that when you look at the catastrophic claims per vehicle fee that that's going to go up after already experiencing a 60% decrease because of the reform.

So it's a little bit curious, where do we go from here?

Does the administration have a different fee schedule to present to the Democrats?

I think the administration doesn't have much.

I also want to just tee off and one other thing that they said is that it's also made it difficult to find people to provide the care to people if you're.

Getting $0.05 an hour.

Right.

Well, it either allows family members to, you know, be able to take on that task or get, you know, professionals to come in to do it or both.

But, you know, the governor has been pretty tepid on provide a fix other than a vague acknowledgment, acknowledgment that maybe if something had happened.

Wait a second.

If you don't like this plan, what is your plan?

And the governors response has always been, well, I'm willing to look at what the legislature sends me, but there's never been a you know, here are the parameters of what we would find acceptable.

And what this legislation does as well is that sets up these particular reimbursement amounts that are influenced by changes in the cost of care, medical commodities.

So, for example, if you were a catastrophic auto patient in metro Detroit receiving an occupational therapist visit, you're going to get nearly $270 for that reimbursement.

Well, the care provider, well per visit.

If it was the critics of the governor, will see the optics here do not look good.

And that is the administration thinks that saving money for motorist is better than providing care for these people that are desperately needed.

These are not just people that were injured in car accidents.

They've basically been disabled for life.

Well, I mean, that's the push and pull here, though.

I mean, there is there is a group of people in this state that are advocating with all their might to try to ensure that the care is improved.

And then there's a group of people as well, very vocal and successfully got legislation approved in 2019 that say, why does Michigan have the worst auto insurance rates in the country?

And we've got to do something about that.

It's a push and pull that the governor stuck in.

The governor, as you're pointing out, has not said here's the policy that I support.

She's kind of batted away some things, said, hey, maybe I could get on board with a surgical change to these rates.

But also you have the Senate Democrats rolling out a massive policy change.

And in talking to reporters last night, I was there.

I said, what is the impact on auto insurance rates going to be from what you're proposing?

And the first answer was, well, we don't know.

The second answer was we have very rough numbers and it's going to be a low impact.

Well.

The governor is going to argue that eventually every motorist will feel the impact of this legislation if it passes, which is a question mark when they get that bill from the catastrophic fund people, which is a surcharge and everybody's insurance will be very visible and everybody in his uncle will be able to see that number.

Ricky.

Well, a couple of things come to mind.

I mean, first of all, it doesn't mean that auto insurance rates aren't going to go up.

And when they do and you know, they are, then people are going to look at their bills and say, well, I thought that this was going to be something different.

So that's I thing that's.

What she said when she signed the bill on the island.

Thing, too, is you just brought up the optics of this.

And obviously, you know, one of the optics is opening up the envelope with your auto insurance bill or pulling it up online.

The other one is periodically the people who have been affected by this show up at the state capitol.

And and it's compelling that these are people in wheelchairs who are being moved along with members of their family, who are outside talking to legislators, talking to reporters, talking to, you know, staff members, saying, you know, this is our reality and they want to put this right in front of all the decision makers and people like us as well.

That 45% reimbursement reduction that was implemented in July of 2021.

And there was a report that showed that in that 12 month period afterward, more than 6000 patients had to be discharged because their care providers couldn't afford them anymore.

A question I have, though, is why hasn't this affected the governor's political capital differently?

You know, you talk about someone who's in a wheelchair, someone who has been catastrophically devastated.

Why hasn't that played more of an impact as we talk about the politics of the 2019 reform?

I would submit there is an answer and it is that right now she is, you know, heading upward for a bunch of reasons that have absolute nothing to do with this issue that, you know, she's being talked about as someone on the national stage, which doesn't affect this issue that she's been someone who's been parodied, although not in a in a negative way on Saturday Night Live, that she is on national television.

All of these things are a wave pushing up against, you know, the optics.

Again, that word of this particular issue and at this particular point that she and her team have been very protective of the optics of Governor Gretchen Whitmer.

And the optics also.

Let's talk about another side of the optics of this.

The governor ran for reelection on lowering costs for Michigan drivers.

Let's not forget what she did ahead of the election.

She sent a bunch of money from the NCAA that had this surplus back to drivers.

People got checks.

People got checks.

And now to turn it, what would it look like to turn around a year?

A year or two later and say, actually, this whole system that I set up that I used to benefit, you know, that helped me in my campaign for reelection, now we've got to change it.

And now we've got we've got to change these reimbursement rates in a way that's probably going to raise rates for drivers across the state, 7 million people who drive cars.

I mean, it's a difficult, difficult matter.

The fun thing will be to see what happens in the Michigan House where the Democratic caucus is beside itself.

Okay, you have some internal problems.

This could be a real mess for the Democrats.

It could.

All right.

Let's move to the agenda to Sam, the abortion issue in the Senate.

They took action there this week.

What do they do?

The Reproductive Health Act legislation got approved all bills and they didn't approve everything.

Keep in mind, this is a very multilayered package here, but it got approved on a party line.

And ultimately what they passed, it removed things like no longer requiring abortion clinics to be licensed as freestanding outpatient surgical sites.

It's also removing the information that a prospective abortion patient must receive 24 hours at least ahead of undergoing services.

One thing I think is so interesting about the abortion conversation in Michigan, though, is that it's no longer the post Roe v Wade era for Michigan.

It's now the Post proposal three era for Michigan to be pro-life on the Republican side on a messaging standpoint is no longer enough.

Now you have to make the argument of saying it's the RH legislation.

Is it too dangerous?

Is it unwanted?

Is it unnecessary?

Well, the question mark here is what did the voters mean when they voted for proposal three?

They did not tell the legislature to do A, B, C, and D, but the legislature said the Democrats may simply say, here's what we think we should do.

Well, there there are a couple things to unpack in that.

One is that, you know, courts, when these sorts of things are presented to them and probably wisely so, say it's not their job to read the mind of every voter or to do polling to figure that out.

There is a presumption that voters knew what they were doing when they adopted a ballot proposal.

And that's kind of what you have to work with.

The other thing, though, is that this amendment is not self-executing and so it's up to the legislature to make decisions on how this amendment is supposed to be basically dealt with in a practical matter.

And the goal is to buy by Democrats and Planned Parenthood and organizations like that is to bring Michigan to where it was before the Roe versus Wade decision was in was for.

And the Republicans in the legislature dismantled or put as many roadblocks as they could in front of this law that people had a problem getting abortions.

So the opponents said.

Yeah, I mean, it's a really interesting moment for the Democrats as we were talking about.

On no fault, you have these splinters in the caucus.

They have this agenda that the governor laid out.

Here are the things that I want to get done this fall.

And they're struggling to get any of these things done.

And one of the things they laid out is the Reproductive Health Act.

The Senate voted on a portion of what was put out as part of this package earlier this year and then claimed in all of their press releases, we accomplished the Reproductive Health Act, but then they left some of the key pieces of it behind us and just really murky to kind of figure out what is going on here.

You know, there's opposition to some of this in the House.

It seems like they're going to go along with Representative Karen Whitsett and leave some of these things behind.

Right now, it's just it's going to be a fascinating couple of weeks to see if they can accomplish any of these goals that they're trying to.

You know, I talked to Right to Life of Michigan after a Senate committee hearing this week, and I'm like, what is the battle plan moving forward?

Because obviously it seems that Senate Dems are pretty confident with the policies that they put in front of them.

And Right to Life tells me, while we're expecting that there are still a few Dems, not just Karen Whitsett, but a few Dems, at least in the House, they are going to say now things that were not approved in the Senate but are a part of this multilayered package.

Should Medicaid dollars be spent on abortion reimbursements?

You talk about the 24 hour delay, the 24 hour waiting period and right to life of Michigan and the Catholic Conference actually had polling done that says that more than 70% of voters, half of them of which supported Proposal three, actually do support having that 24 hour waiting period.

It's a wedge.

And, you know, Democrats want to run them as a package because it's a honestly held belief, you know, that they want abortion treated as health care, not as a political issue or, you know, something else.

But, you know, I mean, right to life and Republicans aren't wrong.

Those are the most difficult issues to get across the finish line, because people, you know, don't you know, don't necessarily buy into it.

But once they're cut loose, that means it's even more difficult to get them across.

We're talking about messaging here and a huge part, a huge part of out the reach for Democrats is that this is dumb, saying like, okay, well, more than 2.4 million voters supported proposal three.

Now we're going to not just make abortion more accessible, but we want to change the culture around abortion.

The way people talk about it is health care.

Have an abortion clinic be held to the same standards as a dentist's office that you go to every several months.

But the interesting thing here is that Democrats benefited from the abortion issue with proposal three.

Potentially, this abortion issue could turn around just the opposite for Democrats, for those in swing districts, depending on how they vote.

I mean, again, it's this messaging battle that's going on right now, and we're all kind of guessing of how it could play out.

But Democrats have been winning this messaging battle on the issue of abortion for the last few years.

And and on these particular bills, they're just saying this is the Reproductive Health Act.

That's how they talk about it.

This is about this is about choice.

It's about health care.

But when you look at the weeds of these bills, it's really interesting and you probe it.

I mean, like one of the regulations they're repealing, should a doctor screen a woman who's seeking to have an abortion to see if she's being coerced, to have the abortion that's being taken out of the law?

And reporters ask the lawmakers, you know, what's the argument for taking this out of the law?

And Sarah Anthony, the senator from Lansing, said the argument is that do you get screened for coercion for any other type of health care?

That's the arguments in or I've got to move on.

Let's call in our guest today, the Republican for a leader, Mr. Posthumus, over in the west side of the state.

Mr. Posthumus, Mr. Leader, welcome to the program.

You've been hearing our discussion on the no fault issue.

What's your nose count in your caucus?

Are you guys going to say, you know what, Governor, you're just dead wrong, We're going to go on with the D's in the Senate?

Wouldn't that be a story?

You know, I think they might get a couple Republicans, but not a lot of Republicans, especially after the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court made the decision that they made grandfathering in people pre 2019.

And so I think that's going to make it a little bit more difficult to get it across the finish line.

But ultimately, if if it does end up on the governor's desk, she's going to have a very difficult decision.

I think I think either decision she makes, she negatively impacts her chances at becoming the next president.

And so, you know, does she overturn her signature legislation or does she say no or let that legislature do what's right and all of you are wrong.

And so do you help to set her up by voting yes on this package as it came over from the Senate?

You know, that's a good question.

I don't typically vote based on political strategy.

I vote based on the merits of the legislation that I'm looking at when I'm looking at it.

So how would you vote based on the merits?

So I have to get out to see what's in the legislation when it gets to my desk.

You know, for me, I'm glad that the Supreme Court overturned everything.

So we'll see what it says once it's in its final form and up for a vote on the floor.

So you're inclined to vote yes.

I'm open to voting yes.

Sam.

So what else is on your mind right now?

What else is your biggest concern when it comes to the the disarray that's been reported on in the House?

You know, the the big concern that I have right now is just making sure that Republicans take back majority in 2024.

You know, the the overall the the extent of the policies that the Democrats are pushing through the House of Representatives, pushing our agenda way too way far to the left.

You know, you all we're talking about about abortion, which is the law of the land.

Right?

It's absolutely the law of the land.

But we need to be making sure that abortions are safe and rare, not stripping out all of these commonsense, commonsense safety precautions like parental consent for those under the age of 18.

And like some of the other things that you are talking about as well, they need to be safe and they need to be rare.

So or if you're looking at the fact that they blew through a $9 billion budget surplus and and now talking about raising taxes, we had nine we had a $9 billion budget surplus and they're talking about raising taxes next next year or making a progressive income tax.

Like, come on, that just doesn't even make sense.

So this present day, though, are a package that they're working with, doesn't include the parental consent item which has been proposed in previous terms.

But what do you think?

Which item in this overall package do you think could be the most winning issue for Republicans on the abortion front?

So again, it it comes down to it.

I think you but you all mentioned this.

It becomes a messaging battle, right?

Like the abortion topic is no longer pro, just pro-choice, pro-life.

Right.

It is.

We need to be talking about what is that spectrum look like?

The Democrats were very good at painting Republicans as the extremists on this issue.

What is very clear that Democrats are the are the extremists on this issue trying to just trying to push the envelope way far way far to the left.

I mean, like you said, it's getting an abortion is like going to the dentist now, Like there is no sanctity in human life when it comes to that thought process.

And and the majority of Michiganders agree with with me.

Well, I mean, you're talking about the sanctity of the process, but that's the the the, you know, pro-life position writ large.

Taking these elements out of it also means that the pro choice part of of of the argument can drill down on those you know for example you talk about you know abortion you know that they shouldn't be saying that abortion like is like going to the dentist's office.

But the argument on that is that these are outpatient clinics, that people aren't necessarily put on gurneys, that they're given the medication and and sent home.

That's the position you now have to defend.

What is your defense of that?

You know, if the defense is, you know, my me too, arguing that the sanctity of life is important and the Democrats are arguing no, getting an abortion should be like going to the dentist.

I think that's a winning issue for us.

Right.

I think that's something that the Democrats are out of, out of touch with on their extreme messaging on this and their extreme stances on abortion.

Representative, you've answered questions on this in the past, but I want to ask you today about something that's not related to policy.

When you were a consultant before you were elected, you were hired by a ballot committee that was working with Rick Johnson.

You've acknowledged this as you looked at all of this that's played out with Rick Johnson.

He's been sentenced.

He's going to spend 55 months in federal prison.

Do you think he hired you in 2017 to try to influence your father, who was an adviser to Governor Snyder at the time?

You know, I have no idea what he was thinking.

I never really talked to my dad about about who is hiring me for what, what projects I was going to be working on.

So I can't speak to his his thoughts and what he was thinking.

Are you are you concerned about that, though?

I mean, the timing of this is in 2017, as Governor Snyder is deciding whether to appoint Rick Johnson to this board.

Some committee that you've mentioned connected to Rick Johnson hires you to be a consultant for it.

I mean, the timing is so unusual.

Well, you know, it never materialized anyway.

So I Rick, hung me out to dry anyway.

So if that was if that was an attempt, nobody knew about anything other than than me, as far as I know.

And it, it did materialize anyway.

Representative, would you concede that the House Democratic Caucus is divided against itself, yea or nay?

Yes.

Would you concede that your caucus is in exactly the same boat?

No.

Wow.

A lot of people in town would say you got half that answer wrong.

You know, I. I would contend that Republicans in the House of Representatives are wholly united and in taking out the Democrats and taking back the majority in the House of Representatives.

And maybe that's not the same.

That's not the same thing.

You've got nine people in your caucus who basically are marching not only to a different drummer, but a different drum section.

Well, any time you have 54 members in one chamber, there's going to be disagreements on policy.

There's going to be there's going to be personality differences.

And you know that that's okay.

That's we are a big tent and we're going to continue to try to grow at the sides of our tent and we're going to continue to march in the same direction and make sure we take back majority.

The word optics has been thematic throughout this episode of the show.

When you look at Rick Johnson, former speaker Lee Chatfield, a former speaker, and some of the other things that have been going on, do Republicans have an optics problem when it comes to at least appearances and connections to corrupt behaviors?

And I assume you'll answer no.

If so, why not?

You know, I think I think the issue is with politicians, Right.

Like I noticed a couple of notable names that you left out of that you left out you left out Joey Andrews, who's voting bills out of his committee.

That's going to directly impact and positively impact himself personally and his and his sister, who is sister in law, who's a lobbyist on the issue.

I noticed you left out Chairwoman Angelo Angelo Witwer, who was giving out appropriations dollars to clients of hers that are paying her for like it's a it's a it's a politician issue, not a Republican issue.

You know, one of the reasons why I ran for the House of Representatives back in 2020 would stay to ensure that statesmanship and integrity gets put back in Lansing.

And hopefully I can do that.

Hopefully I'm having that that impact.

And and we'll see.

If it's a problem, if it's a politician problem, does it take down the reputation of the legislature in its entirety?

And, you know, let's trust in whether or not whoever is in control that, you know, Lansing is working for the people or for something else.

I think that adds to it, certainly.

But there are a lot of things that bring down that trust in integrity and politics.

Right.

Like the corruption that you speak of.

Yes, that absolutely.

Does the the the wavering back and forth.

Yes, that absolutely does.

There's a lot of things that really bring down the the integrity of the institution and the reliability of the institution.

Hopefully we can turn that around.

You've been one of the most outspoken supporters of Ron DeSantis in Michigan politics.

Does he have any path to still become the GOP nominee as we sit here today?

Absolutely.

What is it?

Well, I don't know the exact that there's a lot of different paths.

I just look at the let's look at let's look at 2008.

Right.

Senator John McCain was at the very bottom of the pack in the end of September, beginning around this time, right?

Absolutely.

Bottom of the pack.

I remember on the island for the Mackinaw Republican conference, he was walking around the island by himself.

Nobody would look like he was a pariah there.

And then all of a sudden he turned the tables around and became the nominee.

Look at the presidential race is a marathon, not a sprint.

So if Mr. Santos does not get the nomination, do you vote for Mr. Trump?

Well, it depends on who's the nominee.

I'll vote for the Republican nominee, whoever it is, even.

If it's Donald Trump.

Yes.

Can I get a quick yes or no?

Are you concerned about what type of impact the presidential race will have on the state House races?

Concerned?

Yes.

Do I think it's going to impact whether or not we're going to take majority?

No.

Is there a path to arm for getting support in the Republican side for removing Michigan's primary date?

I think they've already moved Michigan.

Oh, you mean the primary election non-presidential?

Yes, I think there is support to do that.

And if the Democrats move to sign it, die before the end of this year, how will you vote on that?

Let's let's go sine die right now.

Let's get to.

What you don't want.

You don't like what's going on.

You know, my view is that we.

Should say.

Sanitize the.

Legislature officially ends it and it's.

Session.

Yes.

Are they going to do that, do you think?

Yes or no?

Yes.

Okay.

Thank you very much for joining us on our program.

Say hello to your father for us and we'll see you next week, okay?

Thank you.

We'll see you folks next week.

Also right here for more off the record.

See you then.

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.