Michigan has a state budget deal done.
Wednesday night the legislature sent an $81.7 billion deal to Governor Gretchen Whitmer for her signature.
It’s the largest budget in state history, up from about $76 billion last year. It was the first budget done with total Democrat control in 40 years and that has the area’s Republicans feeling left out.
“As you comb through numbers over the coming days, you’ll see a lot of great things in there for the state of Michigan that we’re really excited about,” said Senate Majority Leader Winnie Brinks, of Grad Rapids, after the Senate passed the budget.
Michiganders are finally getting a chance to comb through the state’s $82 billion budget deal, after it was unveiled late Wednesday afternoon and voted on just a few hours later. In the Senate, six Republicans joined Democrats in passing the budget.
“We understand the reality of what it’s like to govern and work together so we knew we had to include those voices from the very beginning,” said Brinks, “We were very rigorous in our process to do that.”
The Senate Democrats touted the transparency and cooperation needed for these big bills.
“We don’t have ‘Republican roads,’ we don’t have ‘Democratic schools.’ This is one Michigan and we took that very seriously,” said Sen. Sarah Anthony, of Lansing, the Senate Appropriations Chair.
In the House, it wasn’t so cordial.
“I don’t know who was advocating on behalf of the Republicans, but I can probably tell you which Republicans they were advocating for,” said Rep. Andrew Beeler, Republican from Port Huron.
Five House Republicans voted for the budget, out of 110 representatives.
“It’s perplexing what just took place tonight,” Said Speaker of the House Joe Tate after the vote. “We have 47 House Republicans that shirked their responsibility to fund the government.”
Gaylords’s Ken Borton was one of the 47.
“It wasn’t that I wanted to shut down the government. It wasn’t the plan at all. I wanted to come back to the table and work out some of our differences,” said Rep. Borton. “I think this was jammed through too quickly. I know everything that I had in the budget was pulled. There’s absolutely nothing for Northern Michigan in the budget that I could support.”
Borton and other Republicans pointed to the three quarters of a billion dollars spent on pet projects and the billions spent on enhancement grants, a vast majority of which went to urban areas. The Democrats don’t disagree.
“All of the big cities in the state of Michigan, received a large amount of help to improve their streets, to improve their downtowns and to improve their communities,” said Rep. Angela Witwer, Democrat from Grand Ledge.
They say it was justified after 40 years in the minority.
“Our large urban cores are mostly democratic. It’s been a very long time since we’ve had a democratic majority, and they have been ignored,” said Rep. Witwer, House Appropriations Chair.
Borton sits on the House Appropriations Committee and made specific requests for funding.
“I wanted to restore the fish habitat in the AuSable and Manistee Rivers that was all totally pulled out of there,” said Borton.
Northern Michigan wasn’t fully cut off. The area will receive $15 million for a freshwater research center and $2.2 million for Benzie County emergency radio tower are among other northern projects. This includes added money for small school district bussing.
“Rural transportation costs for school districts are astronomical,” said Rep. Betsy Coffia, of Traverse City. “That’s money that doesn’t go into the classroom, that doesn’t go towards mental health, it goes right into the gas tank.”
But Rep. Coffia is a Democrat so it makes sense her district received funding. It’s the ugly side of partisan politics that certainly goes both ways.
“My guess is two years ago there was a Democrat standing where I’m standing saying the same thing,” said Beeler. “That how bad the process was and they didn’t fix it. So why can’t we come together and decide to do the process better?”
Lessons were learned on both sides in this new dynamic and the repercussions showed in the budget but will extend into future negotiations.
“None of us on this side of the aisle have served in the minority before, so we’re going to have to take a different look at our strategies and see what we can do,” said Borton. “To make sure that we bring things back to the district that our people sent us here to get.”
