The sad net product of the Legislature: Six bills

To fully appreciate the historic dysfunction of the current state Legislature, simply look at how many bills it’s sent to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s desk as of July 15, the day I’m writing this column.

The Republican-led House and the Democratic-led Senate have managed to get six bills to the Romney Building this calendar year. Six. 

The number doesn’t include a school budget. It doesn’t include any budget at all, in fact. (That’s a violation of the Legislature’s own law passed after the disastrous 2019 budget cycle.)

During the 188 days that the Legislature could meet, according to the Constitution, they agreed to pass:

 —  Making the state’s new mandatory sick time law less of a headache for business owners.

 —  Taking restaurant waitstaff off the regular minimum wage so they can continue to live off tips.

 —  Allowing state-elected officials to file their personal disclosure forms late because the secretary of state’s contractor screwed up the reporting website.

 —  Allows state-elected officials to email their personal disclosure form instead of fighting the broken website.

 —  Giving Northern Michigan school districts a bunch of extra snow days after that ice storm dropped a ton of trees on their roads. 

 —  Selling a jail to the city of Detroit.

That’s it. That’s all of the public acts sent to the governor by our 147 legislators in 2025. The average over the last 80 years is 182. 

To give this number “six” more historical context, consider this:

The last time the Michigan Legislature passed fewer bills was 85 years ago, when lawmakers passed zero bills. They passed zero because they never attended a session.

Back in the days of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and before, the Michigan Legislature met every other year. They met every odd-numbered year except in special circumstances. That tradition ended in 1952. 

However, in 1942, 1944, 1946, 1948 and 1950, the Legislature met for a few weeks in “special sessions.” Even in those five abbreviated session years, lawmakers still managed to pass, on average, 43 bills per year by July 15.

The second fewest number of bills signed into law since 1940 was in 1946, when then-Gov. Harry Kelly signed 30 bills over two special sessions by July 15.

Before Interstate 96 was built, before people started using personal computers, before the Mackinac Bridge was constructed, and back when rotary phones were in use, lawmakers passed more laws than this current crop of legislators.

This is what political polarization gets you. It gets you a paralyzed legislative body. It gets you public officials who feel as if they can’t get anything done because “the other guys” are in charge of the other chamber.

It’s not as if the House and Senate haven’t done anything. They’ve passed several bills. They’ve held several committees. But the stuff they’re talking about, like an income tax cut or expanded social programs, aren’t going anywhere in the other chamber. And everybody knows it.

Senators and state representatives are talking about expanded gun control and election reforms that bolster their conservative/progressive credentials. The bills that aren’t politically toxic don’t pass because the House speaker and the Senate majority leader didn’t have a one-on-one conversation until around Memorial Day. 

Now they go into a room and look at each other. Neither trusts the other, so nothing gets done. Go figure.

The House has activated a level of executive branch oversight that I’ve never seen in my 25 years of doing this job. House Speaker Matt Hall has held more press conferences than any elected leader since Gov. Jennifer Granholm. Those are good things.

However, the inability to work together to solve problems is not good. It’s forced gridlock designed to make the other bend to their will. It’s not working collaboratively to solve problems. It’s about power and scoring points.

It’s not only taking bad government to a historical level, but it’s also taking bad government to a point where the government has stopped functioning. Literally.

(Kyle Melinn is the editor of the Capitol news service MIRS. You can email him at melinnky@gmail.com.)