Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed five bills into law on Wednesday.
The bills cut taxes by exempting delivery and installation costs from sales tax, update sentencing guidelines for providing false statements on firearm sales, establish the volunteer employee criminal history system, and modifies membership on the Michigan Strategic Fund Board.
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More than 21,000 Michigan online charter public school students face a $42 million funding cut under Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s 2024 proposed budget.
Each online charter public school student would lose at least $1,463 for a total cut of $42 million under the budget because Whitmer says online schools have less brick and mortar facilities.
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Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed gun restriction bills that will establish universal background checks for all firearm purchases as well as require safe firearm storage.
The gun package follows a February shooting at Michigan State University that killed three students and wounded five others. However, none of the bills would have stopped the shooting if enacted beforehand.
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Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has signed a bill to repeal right-to-work legislation.
Michigan is the first state to repeal right-to-work laws and restore collective bargaining rights since 1958. Signed Friday, the legislation requires private sector employees to join a workplace union or face termination.
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Gov. Gretchen Whitmer spent at least $44,117 of taxpayer money on her European trip to Davos to speak at the World Economic Forum, according to documents obtained by The Center Square in response to its Freedom of Information Act request.
That includes $26,222 for hotels, $13,779 for travel, $4,000 in miscellaneous expenses, and $116.15 in meals, says a document from the Michigan Economic Development Corporation. A separate FOIA request for the governor’s security costs is still pending.
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A Pennsylvania state representative announced this weekend she plans to sponsor a bill to end state subsidization of pregnancy-resource centers, accusing these organizations of improperly trying to dissuade women and “birthing people” from getting abortions.
“Crisis pregnancy centers are organizations that purport to provide medical services to pregnant women and birthing people but instead engage in deceptive practices to prevent them from having abortions,” Representative Melissa Shusterman (D-Paoli) wrote in a memorandum encouraging colleagues to cosponsor her measure. “The damage these organizations inflict upon people cannot be understated [and] amounts to a public health emergency.”
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Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s proposed 2024 budget cuts for online public charter schools are receiving some pushback from school choice advocates and legislators.
On Friday, a group of eight lawmakers led by Rep. Luke Meerman, R-Coopersville, sent the governor a letter seeking to convince her to change course from her proposed 20% per-pupil cut for online charter schools, whereas online public school students did not receive a per-pupil funding cut.
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Michigan’s online charter public schools have a 20% decrease in spending in Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s 2023-24 budget proposal.
The second-term Democrat’s fiscal plan unveiled Wednesday includes a 5% increase for traditional public school online teaching.
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Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s proposed $79 billion budget for fiscal year 2024 aims to require taxpayers subsidize electric vehicles and chargers with $318 million.
Whitmer’s mobility budget includes $160 million for capital investments in rail, bus, and marine transit service expansions, $65 million for EV charging stations, and $48 million over two years for an EV sales and use tax exemption.
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Barry Croft Jr. was sentenced to 19 years and seven months in prison Wednesday after being convicted of planning to kidnap Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
A jury found Croft guilty in August of conspiracy to commit kidnapping, possession of a weapon of mass destruction and possession of an unregistered destructive device, with his associate Adam Fox being convicted of the first two crimes. The men intended to kidnap Whitmer from her Michigan vacation cottage and hold back her security detail and any law enforcement responders with destructive devices, according to the Western Michigan U.S. Attorney’s Office.
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Adam Fox was sentenced Tuesday to 16 years in prison for his lead role in a 2020 plot to kidnap Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, according to NBC News.
A retrial jury found Fox guilty in August of conspiracy to commit kidnapping and possession of a weapon of mass destruction, also convicting Barry Croft Jr. of those charges and possession of an unregistered destructive device. The prosecution had lobbied for Fox to receive a life prison sentence, according to NBC News.
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Three people, including a man and his son-in-law, were sentenced to prison Thursday for assisting the leader of a plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in 2020.
Pete Musico received a minimum sentence of 12 years in prison while his son-in-law Joe Morrison was sentenced to 10 years, The Associated Press reported. A third person, Paul Bellar, received seven years behind bars during the sentencing hearing for all three men in Jackson County, Michigan.
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Election of Democratic majorities in the Michigan House and Senate is a warning shot for the state’s public charter schools.
The incoming bicameral majorities and reelected Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer have already signaled antipathy toward public charter schools. Drawing much of the Democrats’ ire are for-profit education management organizations operating 42% of public charter schools in Detroit alone as of 2021.
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A federal judge next month is scheduled to sentence two men convicted of conspiring to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer from her lakeside cottage in the fall of 2020. Adam Fox, the alleged ringleader, and Barry Croft, Jr. face years in prison.
During the first trial in April, Fox and Croft received a hung jury while two co-defendants were acquitted on all charges based on extensive evidence of FBI entrapment. A jury found Fox and Croft guilty after a second trial in August thanks to the same judge putting his thumb—body?—on the scale in favor of the government.
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Steven D’Antuono, the FBI agent in charge of the investigations into both the Gov. Gretchen Whitmer kidnapping plot and the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, is set to retire at the end of the month, just weeks before the Republican Party is projected to take the House and likely apply increased scrutiny to those probes.
An internal FBI memo, written by FBI Director Chris Wray and circulated on social media, revealed that D’Antuono will be retiring at the end of the month from his role as assistant director of the bureau’s Washington field office, to be replaced by Agent David Sundberg.
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With control of the state legislature and Governor’s office for the first time since 1983, the Democrats will likely try to repeal the state’s right-to-work law, the signature accomplishment of Michigan’s Republican party.
In January 2019, the Michigan House Dems introduced two bills to repeal the right-to-work law. If a current effort is successful, it would only impact union members in the private sector. That’s because the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2018 in the Janus decision that public sector unions can’t require non-members to pay agency fees. The Supreme Court ruled the Constitution prohibits it.
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Less than a week before Election Day, Michigan Republican gubernatorial candidate Tudor Dixon received two pieces of good news.
First, her poll rankings against Democratic incumbent Gov. Gretchen Whitmer have tilted significantly in Dixon’s favor. Second, she garnered the endorsement of the Michigan Chamber of Commerce.
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Three men accused of supporting the plan to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer were found guilty Wednesday of providing “material support” for a terrorist act as part of a paramilitary group.
A Jackson, Michigan, jury also convicted Pete Musico, his son-in-law Joe Morrison and Paul Bellar of a firearms crime and being members of a gang, the Wolverine Watchmen, The Associated Press reported.
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Republican candidate Tudor Dixon is now polling within one percentage point of Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan in the state’s gubernatorial race, per a new poll.
Dixon received 47.9% support while Whitmer received 48.4%, a difference of 0.5%, according to a poll from The Trafalgar Group. The small margin between them is a marked difference from earlier in the year when, in August, Whitmer was ahead by up to 15%, according to RealClearPolitics.
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Republican candidate for Michigan Secretary of State Kristina Karamo joined her fellow parents at a Dearborn school board meeting to condemn sexually explicit materials and lessons in school libraries when academic achievement should be the focus of education.
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Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) is tied with Republican challenger Tudor Dixon (44 percent to 44 percent), a new Insider Advantage poll shows. The poll, which surveyed 550 likely voters on October 11 and 12, showed 3 percent support for Libertarian candidate Mark Duzuma, and 2 percent for Green Party candidate Kevin Hogan. One percent of likely voters chose “other,” and 7 percent had no opinion.
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A request for $50 million in Michigan taxpayer funding of family planning services is as notable for what it does not say as what it does.
Abortion services were not included by name, and an emailed request for clarification from The Center Square to those making the announcement – Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services Director Elizabeth Hertel – was unsuccessful.
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Republican gubernatorial candidate Tudor Dixon has narrowed the polling gap with Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan by over 30 points since May, per a new survey released on Sunday.
The poll shows Dixon behind Whitmer by 6 percent, garnering 47 percent to her 53 percent support, per YouGov Research, which conducted the survey for CBS News. The single-digit margin is significantly narrower than earlier in the year when some polls showed Whitmer in the lead by as much as 37 percent.
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After Michigan agreed to spend $951 million of taxpayer money on two electric vehicles companies – Our Next Energy and Gotion Inc – the question remains: what do taxpayers get?
Politicians get election fodder, companies get money but taxpayers are left paying $951 million to create up to 4,460 jobs, or a per-job cost of $213,133. The deal is meant to last decades, with one tax break lasting 30 years.
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Defense attorneys representing two men recently convicted for conspiring to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer in 2020 are seeking a new federal trial for their clients amid claims of jury and judicial misconduct. (The men, Adam Fox and Barry Croft were found guilty in August in a second trial; a jury in April failed to reach a verdict on them. Two co-defendants were acquitted after jurors concluded the men had been entrapped by the FBI.) A separate state trial for three other men accused of participating in the scheme is now underway in Jackson, Michigan.
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The Michigan Supreme Court will likely be weighted toward Democrats after Chief Justice Bridget McCormack announced she’s leaving the bench later this year.
The vacancy will allow Democrat Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to appoint a judge to the bench whether or not she wins re-election in November.
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Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson is “wrong” in claiming that she bears no responsibility for Michigan election officials accepting millions in grants from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg to underwrite the cost of the 2020 general election, an attorney representing voters in a lawsuit naming Benson says.
“Evidence confirms that Benson was aware of this private funding scheme and even encouraged election officials to participate,” Mark “Thor” Hearne, special counsel with the Thomas More Society, told Great Lakes Wire.
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A juror who helped convict two men last month of plotting to kidnap Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer was allegedly “far-left leaning” and had said they would seek to “hang”, the defendants’ legal team alleged a witness said in a court filing this week.
A retrial jury found Adam Fox guilty Aug. 23 of conspiracy to kidnap and possession of a weapon of mass destruction, while Barry Croft Jr. was convicted of the same crimes in addition to unregistered destructive device possession. Fox and Croft’s lawyers asked Tuesday for a hearing on whether the juror committed misconduct, and a new trial because of the juror’s purported misconduct and an alleged appearance of judicial bias affecting the retrial proceedings.
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Two men recently convicted of conspiring in 2020 to kidnap Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer called for a third trial Tuesday following an allegation of a potential rogue juror in their retrial, according to the Detroit Free Press.
A retrial jury found Adam Fox guilty Aug. 23 of conspiracy to commit kidnapping and possession of a weapon of mass destruction, while Croft Barry Croft Jr. was convicted of the same crimes in addition to unregistered destructive device possession. U.S. District Judge Robert Jonker heard of an allegation during the retrial that one juror said at work prior to selection they “had already decided the case and intended to ensure a particular result at the conclusion of the trial,” a filing obtained by the Free Press said.
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Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has taken measures to mitigate the temporary shutdown of BP’s Whiting, Indiana, oil refinery due to a fire that is expected to impact Michigan.
According to a news release from the governor’s office, Whitmer is hoping to secure fuel supplies for motorists by suspending guidelines on motor vehicle hours-of-service rules.
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A national poll has concluded that most Americans oppose the Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act.
Don’t count Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI) as part of the opposition. Whitmer celebrated the bill after the U.S. Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act.
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The Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC) will award over $2.8 million to the Michigan Strategic Fund (MSF) in hopes of honing skills of prospective employees.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI) made the announcement Aug. 19, according to a press release from her office.
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Adam Fox and Barry Croft on Tuesday were found guilty of conspiracy to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in 2020.
After eight hours of deliberation, the jury also found Fox and Croft guilty of conspiring to obtain and use weapons of mass destruction. Croft was also declared guilty on another explosives charge. Another pair of defendants, Ty Garbin and Kaleb Franks, had already pleaded guilty to charges brought against them. Garbin and Franks cooperated as witnesses in the Fox and Croft trial.
It was the second trial for Fox and Croft after a mistrial was declared last April. In the first trial, a jury found two other defendants, Brandon Caserta, 33, and Daniel Harris, 24, not guilty of all charges them, but could not reach a unanimous verdict for Fox and Croft.
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A new poll shows the Michigan governor’s race is close between incumbent Democrat Gretchen Whitmer and Republican challenger Tudor Dixon less than three months before the 2022 election.
AARP Michigan released a 2022 election survey that shows Whitmer leading Dixon 51% to 46% among all likely voters, with a similar split (50/46) among voters ages 50+.
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Gov. Gretchen Whitmer proposed suspending the Michigan sales tax on school supplies for the upcoming school year, drawing GOP criticism of “pandering.”
“As families gear up for the school year, they should be able to get what they need without spending too much money out of pocket,” Whitmer said in a statement. “That’s why I’m putting forward the MI Back to School Plan, which includes a proposal to temporarily suspend the sales tax on school supplies. Getting this done would lower costs for parents, teachers, and students right now, and ensure that they have the resources to succeed.”
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FBI informants in the case of the alleged 2020 plot to kidnap Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer purportedly shared a hotel room and smoking weed with a target, the Detroit Free Press reported.
Adam Fox and Barry Croft Jr. are undergoing retrial on charges of planning to kidnap Whitmer from her vacation home in 2020 in response to her COVID-19 restrictions. They and two others were originally acquitted in April, with their defense arguing the FBI entrapped them, The Associated Press reported.
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The Oakland County 6th Circuit Court late Monday issued a temporary restraining order against the Michigan Court of Appeals’ ruling earlier the same day allowing county prosecutors to enforce Michigan’s 1931 abortion law.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer requested the emergency ex parte restraining order after the Court of Appeals decision, which was rendered after the state’s 1931 law banning abortion was triggered after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned its 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling in June.
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Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed an executive directive instructing state departments to use federal resources from the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act in an effort to reduce crime and gun violence.
The directive follows a roundtable discussion with law enforcement, parents, students, and faith leaders on how to stop violence and hold criminals accountable for committing violent crimes.
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A conservative group on Tuesday demanded Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson comply with the Michigan Court of Appeals ruling to release unredacted documents in response to their Freedom of Information Act request.
The Michigan Court of Appeals ruled against Benson last Thursday, requiring her office to release the documents in response to a FOIA initially sought by Michigan Rising Action.
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Michigan GOP gubernatorial frontrunner Tudor Dixon attacked Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer as “vindictive” and unresponsive during an interview with the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Dixon, who leads the pack of Republicans running for governor, is a conservative media personality, manufacturing businesswoman and mother. Dixon told the DCNF that Whitmer has not listened to the needs of the people.
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Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is touting the $77 billion 2023 fiscal year budget that she says will improve Michigan’s economy and workforce.
Whitmer bragged that the budget negotiated with Republicans doesn’t raise taxes. However, it also keeps $7 billion of taxpayer money locked in state coffers while spending another $7 billion more than the prior budget.
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Tax cuts are no longer on the negotiating table as Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and the GOP-dominated Michigan Legislature square off before a deadline to submit a budget.
Crain’s first reported the story, citing two anonymous sources familiar with negotiations, and said lawmakers hope to pass a budget on Thursday.
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Attorney General Dana Nessel told Michiganders to “rise up” and gather enough signatures to enshrine abortion rights into the state Constitution via a ballot proposal on November 8.
Nessel was reacting to the United States Supreme Court overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision on Friday, allowing states to criminalize abortion.
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A proposed ballot initiative to allow tax credits for families seeking to send their children to private schools in Michigan sparked a rebuke in the form of a resolution by the State Board of Education.
Proponents are currently attempting to collect 340,047 signatures to place the Let MI Kids Learn program on the November ballot.
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Sixteen Michigan schools have been awarded $205,028 to develop Great Lakes-based science, technology, engineering, and math – STEM – programs.
“These grants will support freshwater literacy programs and offer students access to real world STEM experiences,” Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said in a statement. “Our Great Lakes are our greatest asset, and we must empower young Michiganders to learn more about them and continue advancing conservation efforts. Michigan’s economic competitiveness depends on a workforce proficient in STEM and committed to solving our biggest challenges. Investments like these will help prepare our kids to lead our state into the future.”
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Ford Motor Company says it will spend $3.7 billion across three Midwestern states to create more than 6,200 new union jobs.
The United Auto Workers and Ford say they will convert nearly 3,000 temporary UAW-Ford workers to permanent full-time status and provide all hourly employees healthcare benefits on the first day at work.
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Gov. Gretchen Whitmer celebrated the installation of two of the 30 eventual electric vehicle (EV) charging stations at state parks. She made the announcement at Holland State Park.
“This partnership to install charging stations in our state parks speaks to the collaborative approach we are taking to grow our economy and address climate change head-on through clean, reliable energy,” Whitmer said in a statement. “These charging stations along the Lake Michigan EV Circuit build on our rich Pure Michigan tradition of exploration and bringing together communities and businesses to ensure that we honor our past as the place that put the world on wheels and continue to invest in our workforce as we lead the transition to electric vehicles.”
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As residents of the Great Lakes State and out-of-state tourists prepare to inaugurate the 2022 outdoor vacation season, they’re being stymied by gasoline prices rising steadily toward the $5 per gallon range.
The Michigan Senate has passed a slate of bills designed to alleviate drivers’ pain at the pump. If signed into law by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, the bills would save Michigan drivers between 40 cents to 50 cents a gallon by temporarily eliminating the state’s 6% sales tax and 27-cent-per-gallon excise tax.
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The GOP-dominated Michigan Legislature approved $2.5 billion in far-ranging tax relief amid record 40-year-high inflation.
Meanwhile, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Democrats pitched sending immediately $500 checks to working families. Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey, R-Clarklake, characterized the plan as trying to “pay off” Michiganders for her COVID policies.
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The Democratic Governors Association on Wednesday pledged $75 million for ad buys on behalf of reelection efforts for seven Democrat incumbent governors.
Tony Evers’ reelection campaign gained $21 million in Wisconsin. The group is also promising to spend $2.5 million to reelect New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham; $4.5 million to reelect Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz; $5 million to reelect Colorado Gov. Jared Polis; $5 million to reelect Maine Gov. Janet Mills; $10 million to reelect Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak; and $23 million to reelect Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
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