After the Republican-led House Government Operations Committee passed a terrible substitute to S.B. 934 that only raise the minimum wage to an insulting $8.50/hour and strips out indexing the minimum wage to inflation, the full House passed a version (pdf) that is much closer to the original bill passed by the Senate this afternoon on a 76-34 vote. Shortly thereafter, […]

NOTE: this story has been updated HERE. The Republican-led House Government Operations Committee passed a substitute to S.B. 934 that reduces the final minimum wage to $8.50/hour and strips out indexing the minimum wage to inflation, ensuring that, if it is passed, workers will not keep up with the shrinking value of the dollars they earn. $8.50/hour means that full-time […]

I was speaking with a Democratic state legislator today and they raised an interesting point. If the House passes the bill to hike the state minimum wage that was passed by the Senate last week, unless both chambers give the bill “immediate effect”, it won’t become law until 90 days after the end of the current legislative session which ends […]

Hold the right people responsible and GET OUT THE VOTE! After my post yesterday, there has been a LOT of push back here at Eclectablog and on Facebook from people accusing Michigan Democrats, including gubernatorial candidate Mark Schauer and Senate Democratic Leader Gretchen Whitmer, of “selling out” minimum wage workers. This is absolutely unfair and entirely untrue. Was this legislation […]

This afternoon the Michigan Senate passed S.B. 934 which raises the minimum wage in Michigan but by less than an indirect initiated state statute ballot referendum would have. This legislation short-circuits the ballot initiative. However, the legislation as passed by the Senate does reflect some changes since it was first introduced. In the beginning, the legislation only increased the minimum […]

It’s been more than three years since Rick Snyder took the reins of power in Michigan and, despite having Republicans in charge of both chambers of the legislature along with all of the major administration posts, his favorability is still under 50% with 52% giving him failing grade. Among the data was a question asking how voters would rate the […]

Michigan Republicans want to move authority over K-12 assessment testing to the Department of Treasury. It’s a move that tells you all you need to know about how Republicans feel about schools. Currently, the responsibility for school assessment lies with the Department of Education. That’s exactly where you’d imagine it would be and where it has been for years. It […]

As I have written about before, Republicans are petrified of a drive to put raising the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour on the ballot in November. It’s such a winning issue for Democrats that Republicans know that they simply must kill it or risk losing big on election day as more Democrats than usual turn out to vote in […]

When Republicans passed their odious “rape insurance” law, they did it on the basis that women should have to pay for their own abortions. It was a faux argument because there was nothing about insurance companies offering abortion coverage that forced anyone to pay for someone else’s abortion. But that, of course, didn’t stop them from making the argument. Now […]

When Mike Rogers decided to go play conservative satellite radio host instead of running for reelection in Michigan’s 8th Congressional district, there was a flurry of activity by Republicans to throw their hats into the ring. Most of them pulled their hats back out again just as quickly. All except former Republican Senate Leader Mike Bishop. Mike Bishop has been […]

Republican House Jase Bolger is on what appears to be a one-man effort to extort money from Detroit labor unions. He recently laid down a new condition for state support of the so-called “grand bargain” in Detroit, a carefully-crafted and complex agreement that would protect the priceless art collection held by the Detroit Institute of Arts and dramatically minimize the […]