Grand Rapids Business Journal
Rate reduction.
The information was compiled by
Jack McHugh, editor of MichiganVotes.org, a project of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.
Three senators and three representatives each missed 50 or more votes in 2020. But 12 senators and 60 representatives missed no votes this year.
Among those with a gold star for attendance in West Michigan were Democrat
Winnie Brinks and Republicans
Terry Sabo and Republicans
David LaGrand showed up on the more-than-50 list.
The 3,791 missed votes in 2020 is understandably up from recent years, as a number of lawmakers either spent time in quarantine or contracted the COVID-19 virus during the ongoing worldwide pandemic. Michigan lawmakers missed just 768 roll call votes in 2019.
Who’s new in the Michigan House of Representatives
Updated Jan 05, 2021;
Posted Jan 05, 2021
The House Chamber pictured at the Michigan State Capitol in Lansing on Thursday, April 25, 2019.Neil Blake
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The new legislative session brings with it substantial turnover for the Michigan House of Representatives, which will have 28 new lawmakers serving their first full terms in office.
Most of the freshman class will fill House seats vacated by members who hit their six-year term limit serving in the state House, although some defeated incumbents or are replacing members who sought other offices last fall.
Speaker-elect Jason Wentworth, R-Clare, and Democratic Leader-elect Donna Lasinski, D-Scio Township, will fill the leadership slots left open by the departures of former Reps. Lee Chatfield and Christine Greig.
Whitmer bill signings include tightened sex offender registration protocols, boosts in medical staffing
Updated Dec 30, 2020;
Posted Dec 30, 2020
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LANSING, MI - Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s major signing Tuesday was the partial approval of a COVID-19 relief supplemental equaling $106 million. Later on Dec. 29, though, she inked a series of other bills.
The governor ratified more than 80 bits of legislation to immediate effect, notably the tightening of registration protocols for sex offenders and the loosening of license restrictions to boost medical staffing to fight COVID-19 surges.
The approval of changes to the state’s Sex Offender Registration Act fulfills a 4-year-old mandate from the U.S. Court of Appeals, which ruled that it was unconstitutional to impose new restrictions on people convicted before the Act was updated.
LANSING Gov. Gretchen Whitmer says she is “skeptical” of legislation passed with bipartisan support during the Legislature’s lame duck session aimed at giving significant tax breaks to Grand Rapids-based grocer Meijer for the purchase and retention of automation equipment.
Whitmer must decide whether to sign Senate Bills 1149, 1150 and 1153, which remove sales tax from the purchase of automated material handling systems and remove personal property tax from such systems, once installed.
The bills have reached Whitmer s desk as the state is facing declining revenues and increased costs during the coronavirus pandemic, and as Michigan grocers are seeing sharply increased profits. Still, the bills have support from what many would consider an unlikely source the United Food and Commercial Workers Union that represents tens of thousands of grocery workers in Michigan.
CoStar Group Inc.
Meijer Inc. s distribution facility in the Lansing suburb of Delta Township would qualify for an exemption on personal property, sales and use taxes for new equipment that automated the repackaging of food and consumer goods under a three-bill package headed for passage in the Michigan Legislature.
With their legislative session nearing an end, Michigan lawmakers are racing to give Meijer Inc. a new break on paying sales, use and personal property taxes for automated consumer goods processing equipment for a distribution facility outside of Lansing.
A three-bill package nearing passage in the Michigan Legislature would exempt Meijer from paying sales or use tax on new equipment for a 190,000-square-foot distribution center in Delta Township that stores, sorts, recombines and palletizes goods to be sent to Meijer stores across the state.