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12 hours ago | 
michiganpublic.org | Rick Pluta
In a new legal filing, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson says a Republican-led legislative committee is abusing its power to subpoena her office and is asking a judge to refuse to enforce it. The Democratic secretary of state, who is also seeking her party’s nomination for governor, and the Republican leadership of the House Oversight Committee are at odds over election training and management materials.
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20 hours ago | 
michiganpublic.org | Rick Pluta |Zoe Clark
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1 day ago | 
michiganpublic.org | Rick Pluta
The U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled the state of Michigan does not have to destroy data gleaned from infant blood samples collected by hospitals at birth. A unanimous three-judge panel reversed a lower court and held keeping the data does not violate the 5th and 14th amendments to the U.S. Constitution. The appeals court panel ruled that keeping the data does not violate the parents’ constitutional rights to supervise their children’s medical care.
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2 days ago | 
michiganpublic.org | Rick Pluta
A state House committee voted Wednesday to advance legislation to blunt the impact of a Michigan Supreme Court decision on automatic life-without-parole sentences for young adults. The bills could allow for longer sentences for 19- and 20-year-olds convicted of first-degree and felony murder, among other serious crimes, and allow prosecutors more time to review cases for potential resentencing.
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2 days ago | 
michiganpublic.org | Zoe Clark |Rick Pluta
The clock continues to count down to next Tuesday’s July 1st deadline for a budget deal at the state Capitol. By all accounts, the Republican-led House and the Democratic-led Senate are still far apart as schools districts, higher education and some local governments wait to hear what their budgets will look like for the new fiscal year. Bridge Michigan Capitol reporters Jordyn Hermani and Simon Schuster join It’s Just Politics for the latest from the state Capitol.
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2 days ago | 
michiganpublic.org | Lester Graham
Tonight is the second and last virtual public meeting on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Environmental Impact Statement on Enbridge’s proposed tunnel under the Straits of Mackinac to hold Line 5. President Donald Trump ordered the Army Corps of Engineers to fast-track the tunnel proposal under his declared “energy emergency.” The Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) draft by the Corps has been criticized as ignoring all the impacts that tunneling under the Straits of Mackinac could cause.
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3 days ago | 
michiganpublic.org | Rick Pluta
Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson sat before the Michigan House Oversight Committee for roughly an hour and a half Tuesday testifying on glitches in the portal for elected officials to file legally required financial disclosure statements. Benson, a Democrat, acknowledged the problems while defending her department’s work. “There are sometimes bumps in the road and things don't go as smoothly as I would have liked,” she said. “Transformational change does not happen easily. It is the harder path.
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4 days ago | 
michiganpublic.org | Kate Wells
The Trump administration is investigating the University of Michigan Health system in the case of a physician assistant who claimed she was fired after requesting religious exemptions from providing gender-affirming care to transgender patients. A spokesperson for the U of M health system confirmed the employee in the case is Valerie Kloosterman, who sued her former employer in 2021.
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4 days ago | 
michiganpublic.org | Rick Pluta
Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson will appear Tuesday before a legislative committee to explain how her office is fixing glitches in the state’s financial disclosure portal for lobbyists and lawmakers. The GOP-led House Oversight Committee asked Benson to personally appear after she sent her chief of staff to testify at a hearing last month on why the expensive new system to collect the reports and make them available to the public was not working.
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6 days ago | 
michiganpublic.org | Scott Simon
Sophie and Colin Hortman suffered a grievous loss last weekend. And this week, they gave words of grace to the world. Their parents, former Speaker of the Minnesota House of Representatives Melissa Hortman, and her husband, Mark, were murdered in their home in the Minneapolis suburbs in the early morning hours, a week ago today. John Hoffman, a Minnesota state senator and his wife Yvette, who lived nearby, were also shot, but survived.