Court rejects Democrats’ meritless lawsuit to save their botched bills

The Michi­gan Court of Claims has reject­ed the Democ­rats’ friv­o­lous law­suit seek­ing an order to com­pel House Speak­er Matt Hall (R‑Kalamazoo) to present expired leg­is­la­tion to Gov­er­nor Gretchen Whit­mer to be signed into law.

In Decem­ber 2024, the Democ­rats passed a raft of bills with lit­tle to no Repub­li­can sup­port in the “lame duck” ses­sion. 85 of these bills were only signed by the gov­er­nor well into the new year — some hav­ing been pre­sent­ed to her as late as Jan­u­ary 8 — and anoth­er 9 of them nev­er reached the gov­er­nor at all.

Humil­i­at­ed by their own fail­ure to per­form even basic tasks of leg­isla­tive work, Sen­ate Democ­rats vot­ed unan­i­mous­ly on Jan­u­ary 22 to waste fur­ther tax­pay­er dol­lars to sue the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, seek­ing an uncon­sti­tu­tion­al order to com­pel the Speak­er to deliv­er the expired bills to Gretchen Whit­mer to be signed into law. The res­o­lu­tion false­ly assert­ed that “Arti­cle IV, Sec­tion 33 of the Michi­gan Con­sti­tu­tion requires that every bill passed by the Leg­is­la­ture be pre­sent­ed to the Gov­er­nor.”

Arti­cle IV, Sec­tion 33 of the Michi­gan Con­sti­tu­tion reads in rel­e­vant part: “Every bill passed by the leg­is­la­ture shall be pre­sent­ed to the gov­er­nor before it becomes law.”

Plain­ly, the arti­cle only states that a bill can only become law after it is pre­sent­ed to the gov­er­nor. The bills were nev­er pre­sent­ed to the gov­er­nor. There­fore, they can nev­er become law.

Judge Sima Patel sided with the Democ­rats’ delib­er­ate mis­read­ing of the Michi­gan Con­sti­tu­tion, but declined regard­less to issue an injunc­tion or writ of man­damus to order the House to send the expired bills to the gov­er­nor’s desk on a sep­a­ra­tion of pow­ers the­o­ry: that a court can­not com­pel leg­isla­tive action.

“Sim­ply put, all bills passed by the Leg­is­la­ture must be pre­sent­ed to the Gov­er­nor with­in time to allow 14 days for the Governor’s review pri­or to the first date that they could take effect – even those passed dur­ing a ‘lame duck’ ses­sion in an even year,” Patel ruled. “The pro­ce­dures through which this takes place is a leg­isla­tive func­tion in which the Court will not inter­fere.”

In a fit of com­plete delu­sion, Sen­ate Major­i­ty Leader Win­nie Brinks (D‑Grand Rapids) claimed their total defeat was a vic­to­ry, and alleged that the rul­ing com­pels the House to present the bills to Gretchen Whit­mer by March 19.

We look for­ward to the Democ­rats’ freak-out when the expired bills don’t arrive.