Though the election is nearly a month behind us, big political news just keeps coming. Welcome to your weekly political newsletter from MLive!
A whole lot of people breathed sigh of relief this week amid outrage from a fringe few as Michigan passed the last significant hurdle to put the midterm election in the rear-view mirror. The results of last month’s election were certified Monday with a unanimous vote from the four Republicans and Democrats on the Board of State Canvassers.
It was a stressful moment for folks across the political spectrum, given the long shadow cast by the same event after the 2020 election, where one Republican appointee, Norm Shinkle, abstained from certifying the election, a boon for conspiracy theorists who sought to cast doubt on the election’s legitimacy.
That drama was avoided this time, as the Michigan Republican Party had replaced members from that election with canvassers who had little patience for baseless conspiracies of widespread election fraud. Shinkle resigned to undertake an unsuccessful bid for state House.
The canvassers still sat through hours of complaints and objections from fringe activists after the vote — chock full of accusations but essentially devoid of evidence — that the election had been in some way fraudulent. Former secretary of state candidate Kristina Karamo also made an appearance to object to the results..
(Karamo also has announced a run to next lead the state GOP chair in a field that’s looking increasingly crowed. Ben Orner has made a guide of who’s in, who’s out, and who still hasn’t made up their mind.)
Back on topic: the canvassers made it clear throughout that process that their role was ministerial, and any claims the election had been in some way stolen should be taken up in court. So far, no substantial challenge has been filed.
And even as Michigan was finalizing this election, some attention has already been turned to the next presidential contest in 2024. I had hopes we’d at least inaugurate this past election’s winners (that comes Jan. 1) before we started looking to the next.
Not so in the age of the permanent campaign, where presidential speculation has already been running riot. A panel of Democratic poobahs— that is, the Democratic National Committee’s Rules and Bylaws Committee — has greenlit Michigan to be the fifth state in the nation to host a presidential primary, a big get for a state had previously sat middle of the pack on Super Tuesday.
President Joe Biden announced the order he wanted late Thursday night and, as the leader of the party, the committee’s committee went right along with his wishes. Under the DNC plan, Michigan’s date would be Feb. 27, with South Carolina, Nevada, New Hampshire and Georgia holding contests in the weeks preceding The Great Lakes State.
Democrats in Michigan’s congressional delegation, who’ve spent decades pushing for the change, consider it a big deal. They claim it will bring more attention to the issues Michiganders care about, with more visits from candidates and national media.
It’ll be a few months yet before things are settled. The full DNC still has to approve the plan in February, but Michigan only has until Feb. 1 to formalize the change in state law.
What Republicans will do, nationally and in Michigan, remains an open question. They could get punished with reduced delegates for moving the date ahead of the status quo the Republican National Committee has already finalized.
If it becomes a reality, it’ll be interesting to see if presidential contenders start popping up at iconic Michigan events like the Woodward Dream Cruise, the Labor Day walk across the Mackinac Bridge or Traverse City’s National Cherry Festival.
As perhaps a final flourish in the months-long wooing process, the Republican-led Senate voted nearly unanimously to move the date into February, a gesture to national political officials Michigan has bipartisan support for an election schedule shakeup.
It was just one of a couple unexpected moments in the Senate this past week in what is otherwise gearing up to be a lame lame duck.
The other was watching a passion project of Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey, an integration of physical and behavioral health services under Medicaid, go down in flames with bipartisan disapproval in a Senate floor vote.
Shirkey had spent months working on the bills, which had been sitting waiting for a vote for a similarly long period of time. It likely will be the last major push he makes as leader of the chamber, given he’s term-limited out of office at the end of the year.
Where things will go in the House, which will meet next week, remains less clear. House Speaker Jason Wentworth didn’t mince words about his frustration with Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s, as he put it, unwillingness to engage on a broader range of legislation in the session’s final month. (He was speaking to reporters at the formal unveiling of a new subterranean hall beside the Capitol, which was just completed after years of construction.)
Whitmer’s office pushed back on this characterization, given on of her slogans that she will “work with anyone to get things done for Michiganders.” Democrats are on the cusp of controlling all three branches of state government after a sweeping victory in November and that’ll give the Governor much broader leeway to shape policy to her liking.
As she looks to that second term, Whitmer also announced Friday some broad changes to her cabinet, including the departure of a number of major department heads. While not unusual for a Governor to do between terms the scope of the changes is notable. Whitmer has weathered crises in office to a degree that few of her predecessors have, and the symbolism of breaking with that past for a hopefully calmer next four years wasn’t lost on some political observers.
On that note, I’m over the climatic turbulence of this past month. Once snow hits the ground and sticks around, as it briefly did in November, let’s just keep it coming. Lots of wind and cold with no snow is the worst sort of weather.
As I and the rest of MLive’s politics team continues to chase news in and around the Capitol, I’ll be hoping for a proper snowy winter to get out and enjoy some of Michigan’s many cross-country ski trails.
