TitleBytes News & Happenings

Election Results, Legislative Leadership for 2017-18 and Lame Duck

By Cami Pendell, Michigan Legislative Consultants

November’s General Election held many unexpected results for members of the state House of Representatives. It was widely expected that the Republicans would hold their majority in the House, but by a much slimmer margin than what they currently have this legislative cycle. However, their majority will actually remain the same with 63 Republicans and 47 Democrats going into next year.

Following the General Election, each House caucus held their internal leadership elections for the 2017-18 legislative year. The House Republicans selected Tom Leonard (R-DeWitt) as their Speaker-elect, Lee Chatfield (R-Levering) is the Speaker Pro Tem-elect and Dan Lauwers (R-Brockway Township) is the Majority Floor Leader-elect. Shortly following these elections, Rep. Leonard announced that he would name Rep. Laura Cox (R-Livonia) to be the Chair of the Appropriations Committee next year. Rep. Cox will be the first female chair of that committee. The House Democrats also held their internal elections for the top two key leadership posts in their caucus. Rep. Sam Singh (D-East Lansing) will be the next Minority Leader and Rep. Christine Greig (D-Farmington Hills) is the Minority Floor Leader-elect. This caucus plans to hold the rest of their leadership elections for other top posts at a future time yet to be determined.

Before focusing too much on the next legislative cycle, legislators need to complete Lame Duck. At the time of this writing, there are only nine scheduled Session days in the House and twelve in the Senate. Even though the Senate has more days scheduled, it is likely they will only be in for the same number of days that the House is in Session. One item that MLTA is working on to help get over the finish line before the end of the year is the package of bills that will eliminate dower. These bills have been scheduled to be taken up in the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, November 29th. Your MLTA team will continue to keep you updated on this legislation in future editions of TitleBytes.