The governor and lawmakers do a victory lap on the new state budget.

In the House, Republican floor leader Representative Bryan Posthumus is here to give his take on all that.

Providing the insightful analysis, Rick Pluta Lily Guiney and Simon Schuster.

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

Production of Off the Record as made possible in par by Bellwether Public Relations, a full servic 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 back to Studio C on a bris fall morning in our lovely town And everything i sort of quieted down, hasn't it?

It's been nice.

It's been a respite.

Yes.

Sorry.

Thanks for the silence, guys.

Okay, let's see the first set up piece with Matt Hall, a post discussion about the budget.

House Republicans Speaker Matt Hall did a deep 26 minute dive into all the inside skinny that unfolded during that protracted budget debat to avoid a government shutdown.

The speaker credits his soli relationship with the governor for getting this job done.

I really think the the reason that all of this got done is because Governor Whitmer and I have really forged a good working relationship.

I never really thought that we would have come into this and had so much alignment with Governor Whitmer.

The two of them aligned on spending less on pork barrel spending.

Last year it was a billio dollars this year $460 million.

And the speaker was most pleased that now lawmakers and citizens will know all of the pork details befor there is a vote and not after, which is what the Senate Democrats wanted, according to the speaker.

And they didn't want to give in.

Democrats wouldn't cave on the pork disclosure, and I wasn't going to cave on not having the disclosure.

And finally, they wanted the pork so bad they agreed to make heat permanent.

But he revealed here for the first time that he and the governor had a major disagreement, if you will, getting state worker back into the downtown offices and how to do it.

This was an are where there was some conflict, but we found a compromise.

What they agreed to was to sell off some of the 500 buildings that the state owns and end the leases on another 400 buildings.

And they agreed to an 80% worker occupancy rate in downtown Lansing.

Reducing office leases, which is going to save the taxpayers money and bringing more workers back to work to get up to that 80% occupancy rate, which we've agreed is pretty much in line with the private sector.

Even though his critics said he wanted to do it.

The speaker says he never wanted to shut down the government.

And now in the aftermath of all this, he was asked a penetrating questio with a really surprising answer.

What did you learn abou yourself through this process?

Anything?

The eyes went up in the head.

No no.

I don't know.

I don't know.

There are a lot of things you learn, but I guess I had a lot more patience for the Democrats than I knew it was possible.

This working relationship, which some have called the Odd Couple of Lansing, really helped to avoid what could have been a disastrous state government shutdown.

At least that's what the speaker's saying.

So Lily what are you saying?

Well, you know, Tim, we saw a lot of different Matt Halls this year and we saw a lot of different Gretchen Whitmers this year.

And one sort of consistent thing that we did see from Matt Hall was this you know, like like you said, the Odd Couple, where it was this kind of alliance, this willingness to say, you know, the governor and I, the governor, I were working together, which we don't usually hear from Matt Hall and the like, the kind of, you know, feeling of seeing Mat Hall in line with the governor was very specific, I thin very intentional to single out.

I think in the speaker's mind, Senate Democrats and what he brings, if you will.

Yes.

In so many words.

And now that that, you know, everything is squared away and done and dusted I wonder if maybe that rhetoric is going to continue or if we'll see for the last the rest of th legislative session that sort of taper off of it.

I think, you know, the Hous speaker can read approval polls.

He knows that the governor is a popular political figure in a battleground state in a time of very divisive politics, which is something pretty unique.

And aligning himself with that clearly reaped benefits.

At the same time.

Doing that in modern Republican politics is particularly difficult because you also hav to make sure that you're serving red meat to the MAGA base at the same time.

And so we saw that over and over again in his talking points.

And so he sort of was looking to, you know, have the best of both worlds here.

And I think that, you know, he was able to claim some wins from this budget, particularly the three year tax cuts on tips over time, Social Security and then, of course, some of these cuts that, you know, he was also had been pushing for throughout the budgetary process.

And so you sort of, you know, I'd say more or less threaded the needle.

Mm hmm.

What did you learn about yourself, Tim?

That I could stay awake for 26 minutes?

That.

Yeah.

I mean, in the end, would.

Don't you like that question?

Hmm?

Don't you like that question?

What did you learn about yourself?

Yeah.

You know, I mean, you know, from this.

Look at this is a very unusual we've never seen a budget proces like this before in this town.

Well, it's been a while.

I doubt we will ever see one like it again.

That would be a good point to Lily.

I mean, one of the interesting things about this budget was that in the end, it was a very bi partizan budget wit you had a lot of give and take.

It just took a really long time to get there, you know, and, you know, with, you know, a short government shutdown.

But they had to extend the deadlin and there are a lot of entities, local governments and schools to name to which were even if they weren't entirely happy with the final product, were also couldn't you have come up with this, you know, a couple of weeks earlier?

Couldn't you have come up with this back in July when there's a statutory deadline that was set to avoid exactly this sort of bedlam?

Well, so if that is the question, why didn't they?

Good one.

Anyone's best guess.

What did they lear about themselves in the process?

Yeah.

And I mean, I think that's certainly covering education a lot.

That's the question that everyone in education is asking is what was what was the holdup?

And I know for folks in education, their answer is the roads plan, the decision to attach a road funding plan to the budget.

And there's, you know, some heartburn in the education community over that.

You know, the feeling, you know, picking, picking roads over kids was kind of the mantra there.

It was.

You know.

Well, you know, they love to they love to use it.

It is a great line.

You're glad you like it because you haven' heard the last of it.

Oh, yes.

Well, look I will come back and, you know.

The the politicians are takin credit for the record spending.

If you talk to the education people to say, you know, guess what, folks, we're still behind the eight ball on inflation.

This record spending doesn' bring us to where we need to be.

And if they had brought us t where to be, we'd have brought in all of those special tutors, the reading specialists, the other stuff you need to boost the scores.

Yeah I think that there's obviously a lot of wor to be done on that front, too.

And as your earlier point about, you know, what took this budget so long.

If you talk to Matt Hall and Republican lawmakers, they're going to say that it was all the work that they did to identify, as they call it, fraud, waste and abuse.

Waste, fraud and abuse Simon.

Excuse me, waste, fraud and abuse.

Get it right.

My montras are unpolished.

But yeah, you know, but what I think in terms of like where the proof is in the pudding here, we've seen some cuts in this budget, but now there's an entir another fiscal year coming up.

Whether we're going to see a Republican House majority that continues to sort of provide more aggressive oversight.

And there's a lot of easy targets in politics and government, Right.

Where you can go after spending targets that are sort of inherently partizan and political.

But if we're going to see, I'm curious whether we're going to see oversight function on things that are a little bit more boring, a little bit more mundane, and that if this legislature is more committed to sort of providing these oversight functions in a more holistic way.

I think heading into an election year that mundane and boring might not be where they are, where they're looking to.

I got to maintain my idealistic spirit here.

Well also heading into the election, I think the honeymoon between Mr.

Speaker and the governor ends.

Mm hmm.

I think I think there' a ticking time bomb on that one.

Oh, I'm sure.

I mean, that that as soon as this was over that you saw, you know, the the a lot more of the old Matt Hall emerge talking about how this was all because of House Republicans, which to some degree should be, you know, should be expected but that he brought the Democrats to heel on.

The road package.

Oh, absolutely.

Yeah.

Did we all agree on that?

Yes.

Yes.

Well, I mean, we had two parties asking for $3 billion and they didn't get there.

They got, you know, a little under two.

Yeah.

But we knew that we were never going to get to three.

They were never going to get to four, you know.

But his point is patient.

I had more patience with Democrats coming out of his mouth.

Did you laugh when you heard that?

That he thought because, you know, ask Ranjeev Puri the House Democratic leader, whether or not he feels like Matt Hall, who excoriated him on a regular basis as irrelevant, talked about trying to, you know, just cut out th Democrats and negotiate directly with the governor.

Winnie Brinks?

Well, exactly.

Maybe that' what comes with realizing you're still a minority withi the larger legislative picture, despite being a majority party leader in your chamber.

Recognizing it's a bicameral system.

With the notification that this really has nothing to do with anything, I still have to bring it up.

Why did she sign the budget behind closed doors?

Your guess is as good as anyone's.

And I think I mean, as someone who didn't get the the advisory inviting, but inviting us to see the event in Trento to sign the education budget on.

Yeah.

Yes.

We were also not invited.

Yeah.

Well a handful of TV stations and I believe the Detroit papers were invited to the Trenton signing event.

She didn't want to invite us there?

I guess not.

Awe.

It's hard to say.

I got some bad news, Tim.

No one cares about the feelings of reporters.

As well it should be.

And crucially, the governor also took questions at that event.

Whereas if you're having a private budget ceremony, then there's no chance of that ever happening.

You know, and I and I'll sa this is like I'm you know, I'm I understand there are there are certain things that, you know, you you d because you got to get them done quick and you want to get them done for legal deadlines.

And there are certain things that need to be met.

But this wasn't that type of situation.

You know, we had that that continuation budget that gave the governor until October 8th.

That was clearly a deadlin that was always going to be met.

And I'll use a little bit of a sports analogy here because we're in football season.

My Michigan State Spartans got soundly, soundly housed by Nebraska last week, and unfortunately, my 20 year old quarterback Aiden Chiles got sacked into oblivion and made himself more available to media in the week that followed.

Then Governor Gretchen Whitmer has made herself to Lansing Press in the last two months.

This is actually totally understandable politics in large extent.

Most politicians are control freaks, okay, If they could, they would take us out of every equatio if they could get away with it.

And most of them do pretty well.

So one of the governor's office do.

She sends out a picture with two D's and two R's standing next to everybody smiling and then the office issues a video.

Okay, now on TV, I got to use it.

I have no choice.

She gets to control the entire message.

Okay.

Now, I didn't run the whole thing.

I took the soundbites that I brought, you know, But I think that's what that was all about.

You think?

Yeah.

You think you you.

You thought deeply and came to that conclusion.

It took me about 3 hour to get there, but I got there.

Yeah, it's.

It's luck.

I mean, in this second term, that.

When's the last time that the governor held a news conference i Lansing in the press auditorium with an open Q&A session.

In 1942.

I can tell you, Rick.

Okay.

Go ahead.

Because it was actually last year's budget presentation.

Afterwards she did hold a press conference in the Romney building at that that beautiful.

It's a very nice press room.

It was the first time I had ever been in it.

And someone told me oh, she used to actually do this during the pandemic every week or something like that.

Like there used about every other day.

And I was shocked by that.

I had I was like, Wait, she used to do a press conference.

But in the salient point being that this is a lot more about controlling the message as we get further and further into this second term.

As because coming out of this budget, there's major unanswered questions.

Absolutely, in my mind is that there's been an agreement that they're going to work on a replacement for th now what is effectively defunded saw her key economic development plan.

And we don't know what the contours of that are going to look like at all.

But not to mention the marijuana lawsuit that was going immediately after that.

Because I don't want to forget this.

The governor give her credit.

She did do a number of Zoo TV interviews after the budget.

Okay.

Which is a little different one on one.

Okay.

Because she can handle the anchor guys in Detroit or the outstate Michigan people.

Okay.

So I give her credit for that.

And we got a phone interview as well.

I mean, it's and that is definitely an excellent and fair point.

And the point was more about open Q&A is where you just, you know, take all questions from the press corps.

It's been a long time since that happened.

If reporters are smart, the bounce off of what somebody is.

Simon raises a good point.

And she shuts off.

You're supposed to pick u where Simon left off and follow.

That doesn't always happen.

All right.

We got to call in our guest who's the House Republican floor leader, Bryan Posthumus.

So, Mr.

Posthumus, welcome back to Off the Record.

It's nice to see you in person.

Last tim I think it was on Zoom, It was.

No fun.

Glad to be here.

This is much more fun.

All right.

So where did you guys screw up on the budget?

Where did we screw up?

I don't know if it had gotten done on July 1st, like we should have had it done, that would.

That would be the ideal situation.

Short of that, I thought we did a pretty good job with.

Who's to blame for missing that deadline?

Politicians in general.

Everybody?

Yeah, well.

I mean.

When you look at it from the standpoint of government functions on deadlines, good, bad or indifferent, I tend to lean toward the bad side of that.

Government functions on deadlines.

And and so that's kind of where we were at.

The clif didn't come until October.

Yes.

We had a we had a functional deadline in July 1st, but we didn't have a real deadline until October 1st.

And so that's why that's why House Republicans united and tried to amend the Constitution to ensur that legislators pay was docked if a budget wasn't passed on time.

What?

No, no, no.

Because it would've been it was a constitutional amendment.

Oh, I see.

Yeah.

So.

So we were we were cutting our off payment, entirely.

But you have to put on the ballot and hope that the public.

Yeah, but.

It didn't get that fa because the Democrats blocked.

It so.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So that was pretty easy.

So it turned out then we knew they weren't going to vote for that.

Right.

If I were the one, whenever you call that would they, why would they not have voted for it?

And you tell me.

I mean, I truly, honestly, I went up to to leader Puri after and I was like, what are you doing?

And and he didn't really have an answer.

But I mean, if the House had met the July one statutory deadline, right.

Do you think that that would have prevented the legislature from having to implemen the continuation spending bill?

Well, first of all, we never implemented a continuing resolution or continuing spending like anything.

Like what we did is we passed the budget shutdown prevention plan that that we passe out of the House back in March when we foresaw this issue coming because we heard Democrats talking on the campaign trail already about shutting down the government.

Now, like, I guess, how many months I mean, you were late to start this process.

How many months did you need to, you know, meet a July 1st deadline?

It's in 84.

Well, at the time, it was an 80 that would the governor had 80, 85 and a half billion dollar budget.

The Senate's proposal was 87 and a half billion dollars, if you included roads.

And so when you go through tha $80 billion budget line by line trying to figure out exactly what everything does, not to mention reform the entire process by which legislative earmarks get brought up, try to bring transparency into the process and successfull It certainly.

So.

Rep.

Posthumus, from moving away from the budget just to you know.

It was a lot shorte on the budget than I expected.

To give you a brain break for a second because you're you're kind of at th at the head of one of two groups that are spearheading petition initiatives for the ballot in 2026 that are trying to get measures to require proof of citizenship to register to vote in the state of Michigan.

And, you know we're kind of seeing right now, you know, everyone's out there gathering their signatures to appear on the ballot.

And we're I thin we're all wondering what happens if two of the if your group's petition and the other group's petition, you guys both end up with enough signatures and appear on the ballot.

Competing ballot.

Proposal.

Exactly.

And yeah, so that will happen.

Yeah.

Basically the campaign side of the operation has been has been turned over to Americans for citizens citizen only voting.

They're handling the petition gathering and the campaign side of it.

So there's only going to be on of those issues if you get the.

names?

As far as I'm concerned.

Yeah.

I would like to return to an aspect of the budget, which is the court case that was filed by actually two court cases filed by marijuana organizations.

That's a $420 million question.

You know, we've all talked to constitutional law experts that there seems to be a split analysis o whether that's going to happen, but it certainly seems like possibility, a real possibility.

Do you have a plan B for replacing that $420 million if you lose in court?

Look, the the revenue increas was what the Democrats wanted.

And so that's that was a concession that Republicans made.

That was a no on.

And I think you all probably know that.

But that was a concession that the Republicans made.

If they can't deliver on that, then it looks like we should probably just go back to the House Republican budge as it stood when we passed that.

So you're willing to cut $420 million out of the budget that was just signed by the governor?

I think the governor is going to have to come to the table with ideas of where where she thinks needs to be cuts.

And she wasn't able to hold up her end of the end of the bargain if that were to transpire.

Now, I will say the way that I read it, I think it'l I think it'll hold up in court.

I think I just I just do.

Now, had we gone after the excise tax and the excise tax had been increased, I think there would be a much better case.

But again, you to your point there's a there's a possibility.

Doesn't the Constitution say you need a three quarters vote on stuff like this and you guys didn't do that?

To amend a voter approved initiative, which is what the marijuana laws.

Right.

That's what I'm saying is had we had we tried to increase the excis tax, I believe that would have then required a two thirds vote.

But not on a general.

Tax.

Not on not on the tax that was done on the wholesale tax.

That's the way I understand it.

I'm not a constitutional law.

I I'm not an attorney.

But that's the way I read it.

That said, to your point, it is possible.

But again, if that happens then then I think the Democrats are going to have to come to the table with.

All right, where do we find more of these cuts?

Part of this budget agreement was a promise, a pledge to work on economic development legislation before the end of the year.

Do you have the faintest idea what that's going to look like at this point?

I can tell you that the economic development package that I'm putting in is to to focus on reining in corporate subsidies, making sur there's more transparency on it, making sure there's more clawbacks.

That's what I'm working on.

As fa as what what has been committed, I don't know what that's going to look like, but I can tell you if there's any additional corporate subsidies.

As far as I'm concerned the only way I get on board is if we put in that package that that I'm working on.

Would you favor language that says you don't get any money till we see the jobs?

I yes, tha that would be part of it like.

Why did you pause?

What's that?

Why did you pause?

I was just trying to comprehend what you're asking.

So so yes that that would b part of it where it's basically, you know, and I don't thin you can do the entirety that way because there is a little bit of economic development that requires like a foundational seed.

Yes.

Even for seed money upfront for sure.

And that's why there has to be clawbacks built in.

But ultimately, what I would like to see is a universal cease fire around the country that's like an interstate agreement.

Ohio is not going to play for that.

That you know, that that.

Maybe it's a pie in the sky, but that's what I would like to see.

I think corporate welfare is not the way that our our stat or our country should be going.

But again, as long as other states have their weapons drawn, you know, Michigan probably has to do that, too.

So how would you present that to other states in a way that you could actually get by it?

It's kind of an amazing idea.

Yeah.

So basically it would be an interstate agreement that says, all right, as soon as we get all of these states involved, I don't know what that looks like.

All of these states whether it's the Midwest or the or the entire country, as soon as we get everybody to agree to that, then it's universal.

Everybody stops, but it doesn' take effect until that happens.

Why would other states buy into that?

Because I think most economists agree that corporate subsidie are a race to the bottom right.

And it just becomes a race to the bottom.

Yeah, we're we're essentially buying job from other states to come here.

Other states are trying to buy jobs to take from Michigan to go there.

And they're using tax dollars to do it.

It just doesn't make sense.

Why not end that universally across the entire stat and across the entire country?

And rather than do it that way, create an economic create economic development by fostering a an environment by which companies here can grow.

And companies outside of here want to come here.

But why would other states barriers to that same reason?

I mean, you don't see this as a zero sum game, that there are just instances where a factory is going to locate in this state or in that state.

I see corporate subsidy as a corporate subsidies, as a means to economic development as the zero sum game.

What are you running for?

I'm not running for a run for reelection.

Probably.

So what about after that?

But as to after that, and I think you're talking three years down the road.

Well, that's that's a blip in politics.

It is.

Look, I have no plans after this as of right now.

Okay.

Well, looking to 2026, generally speaking, you know, we're looking at an opportunity for your party to keep the house in Michigan an potentially reclaim the Senate.

And we've got a governorship on the line.

What what do you think is going to be the issue for Republicans next year?

I think there's going to be a couple of I do believe that citizen only voting is going to be a big issue.

I think that's going to be an issue that you see Mayor Duggan talking about is he's running for governor.

I think it's going to be interesting a way for him to differentiate himself between Jocelyn Benson or whoever the Democrat nominee is going to be.

I also believe that that handling of crime and public safety is going to be a fundamental issue.

Ranked 3% in the polls.

I'm sorry?

It ranks 3% in the polls of concern among voters.

Well, it's always been effective.

It was effective last cycle.

It'll probably be effective this cycle.

But is it fair to use that when overall crime rates are going down?

Why would why would you not talk about your successes?

And that I don't understand the premise of your question.

Of course, just because it's going down doesn't mean that it's not still important to people.

I think maybe what we're getting at is that usually the rhetoric is not that crime has gone down.

It's interesting you mentioned Mike Duggan and his record, given that he's running as an independent, do you think that he's going to help or harm Republicans in a gubernatorial election?

I believe that he's going to help Repub it'll be helpful to Republicans that he's on the ticket.

Now I will say I believe they're for me personally, I'm a little concerned that republicans aren't taking him seriously enough.

I think Republicans need to tak him more seriously than we do.

You think it takes ability of getting elected?

There's a path, bu I think it's a very narrow one.

Anyone on the ballot has a possibility Simon.

But right now.

I think he has a better.

Chance than any independen that's ever run for any major.

So is it your hope that the citizens only voting will reach the same level of driving people to the polls as the abortion issue did?

No, I don't think anybody should expect that.

In fact it will be significantly lower.

Yes.

Now, what I will say is it'll be as close as any.

My view is it'll be as close as any conservative issue on the ballot.

Will be able to get to what what the pro-abortion ballot amendment is represented.

Thanks for showing u did you have fun?

Yeah, I did.

Thank you for having me.

I appreciate it.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah, fellow.

Yeah.

Go ahead.

To our fellow panelist, Zoe Clark.

Happy fifth anniversary.

You know, this is public TV.

Now you've got to make a donation.

You think I don't?

More Off the Record next week right here.

Tune in folks.

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

Learn more at bellwetherpr.com.

For more Off the Record, visit wkar.org, Michigan Public television stations have contributed to the production costs of Off the Record.