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Michigan Supremes weigh fate of nine blocked bills

State Rep. Mai Xiong, D-Warren, sponsored a bill that would increase the share of health care premiums paid by government employees. It was approved in late 2024 but never sent to the governor. Photo credit: Simon Schuster/Bridge Michigan.

by Simon D. Schuster, Bridge Michigan

LANSING — Nearly 18 months later, the Michigan Supreme Court is set to decide whether nine bills passed by the Legislature but not immediately sent to the governor desk should become law.

The nine would place corrections officers in the state police pension system, require governments to pay a larger share of employee health care premiums, exempt public assistance from debt collection and allow Detroit historical museums to propose a millage.

Lawmakers approved the bills in December 2024, but majority Democrats did not send them to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer that month for signature, and Republicans who took over the House in January declined to do so.

The Michigan Supreme Court, where Democratic nominees hold a 6-1 advantage, heard arguments in the case Wednesday.

Lawyers for Senate Democrats contend the state constitution requires the bills be sent to Whitmer, but House Republicans deny that claim and argue the court should not interfere in a co-equal branch of government.

There no set timeframe for the court to issue an opinion.

Outside the Hall of Justice on Wednesday, a group of union officials, state legislators and public employees gathered to urge the court to rule in their favor.

Kim Sandefur, a fourth-grade teacher in Comstock Public Schools, said when her daughter got sick last year, health care costs pushed them into financial instability.

“Between her unexpected illness and my heart medications, we blew through that deductible within 21 days,” Sandefur said. “Pharmacies don’t take payment plans, so I had to figure out how to come up with the money, which was more than my monthly income as a teacher.”

Michigan schools and government employers have a “” on what they can pay for insurance coverage — $21,049.85 in 2026 — after which the employee is solely responsible for costs. held in limbo by the House would have required public employers to cover more of the costs, though it would’ve only raised the hard cap slightly.

Sandefur said the high cost of health care borne by teachers is “driving great educators out of the profession” and alleged “Michigan families have had to forgo seeking medical treatment for their kids because of (GOP House Speaker) Matt Hall’s power trip.”

Rep. Mai Xiong, a Democrat from Warren who sponsored the legislation, said the House has spent $300,000 in legal fees on the case.

“What would it mean for the future of our state, and what good are the laws that we pass, if one person or chamber can hold them,” she said.

A constitutional debate

Hall, who took over as House Speaker last year, declined to send the previously approved legislation to Whitmer desk, prompting a lawsuit from Senate Democrats and a prolonged legal battle.

The Michigan Court of Appeals in October ruled in favor of the Democrat-controlled Senate and ordered the House to send the bills to Whitmer. But that order was paused as the Supreme Court reviewed the case.

At issue is whether the Legislature must send passed legislation to the governor — and whether a court can even compel them to do it.

A main point of contention in the lawsuit is the meaning behind the constitution instruction that “every bill passed by the Legislature shall be presented to the governor before it becomes law.”

The Court of Appeals ruled the constitution “leaves no room for discretion in the fact that this act ‘shall’ be performed,” determining sending passed bills to the governor is a requirement.

Kyle Asher, the lawyer representing House Republicans, told the justices that requiring lawmakers to move the bills would “relegate the Legislature from a co-equal to an inferior branch of the judiciary

Asher argued the Court of Appeals seemed to interpret the constitutional provision as meaning “every bill passed by the Legislature shall be presented to the governor — period,” a reading he disagreed with.

Justice Elizabeth Welch asked Asher about the Senate citation of five other instances where one chamber had presented bills to a governor after the end of a legislative session, something the House had argued they had no power to do.

Asher acknowledged “that was the practice then,” but asserted the circumstance had never been previously foreseen.

During arguments from Mark Brewer, the lawyer for the Senate, Welch raised a hypothetical: What if a future legislative leader knew, with a change in governor, they could hold off on sending a passed bill to the governor to change the legislation odds of becoming law?

Brewer argued the delegates who wrote Michigan most recent constitution in 1963 had never intended for that to happen.

“That kind of gamesmanship would be, should be intolerable, and would be intolerable under the constitution,” Brewer argued.

A long legal battle

Democrats had approved the legislation during their trifecta control of state government, but for reasons that have never been explained, the House Clerk failed to send the bills to Whitmer before Republicans took control of the chamber in January 2025, having won a majority in the 2024 election.

Hall initially said his office would undertake a “legal review” and wouldn’t commit to any course of action. But after about a month the Senate, led by Democratic Majority Leader Winnie Brinks, and the House.

At the time, Brinks said Hall, with whom she has long had a frosty relationship, had “failed to fulfill his responsibilities as an elected official” and “failed to abide by our state constitution.”

Not long after, both sides declared victory from a Michigan Court of Claims ruling. Judge Sima Patel ruled the House had a duty to send the nine measures to the governor, writing that “all bills passed by the Legislature must be presented to the Governor within time” to review them before they take effect.

But Patel declined to force the Legislature to act, calling the presentation of bills “a legislative function in which the Court will not interfere,” and citing the separation of powers baked in the state constitution.

The Senate appealed to the Court of Appeals and found a panel of judges more willing to wade into legislative affairs, granting the Senate’s request for an order that would force the House to move the legislation.

This first appeared on and is republished here under a .

by Sara Swanson

Sara Swanson is an editor, writer and a founder of the Manchester Mirror.