Police would be required to intervene if they see that excessive force is about to be used and schools would be prohibited from including the “1619 Project” in their curriculum under bills recently introduced in the Michigan Legislature. Those are just two of the bills members of the House and Senate introduced in May on topics ranging from police reforms to schools to guns.
Category Archive: State
A unanimous U.S. Supreme Court ruling last week is being seen as a step in the right direction toward untangling complex jurisdictional issues that often result in crimes against Indigenous people going unaddressed in Michigan and elsewhere throughout the country. The case, United States v. Cooley, essentially upholds tribal law enforcement’s authority over non-Natives who commit crimes on tribal land. Previously, courts had employed patchwork enforcement of the power.
The Michigan Senate Elections Committee voted on three bills Wednesday that could reform voting procedures to mandate photo identification being presented when applying for an absentee ballot or casting a ballot.
Dozens of bills aimed at boosting ethics, transparency and financial disclosure laws have been introduced in the Legislature this year from both parties, with lawmakers making the case that their respective bills would give Michiganders the most access to state government.
U.S. Rep. Cindy Axne is pushing for tenants’ rights to extend to residents of manufactured housing communities to protect them from predatory rent hikes.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer announced Thursday her priorities for K-12 education that uses federal funds and a state surplus to close the equity gap for Michigan’s schools.
Members of a U.S. House panel on Monday debated whether some state elections laws disenfranchise certain voters, including people of color, and split along party lines in their conclusions.
“Michigan has gone farther than other states in dealing with the toxic legacy of PFAS contamination, [but] unfortunately, these chemicals are so persistent and so widespread that they are literally accumulating in our own human waste.”
– Christy McGillivray, political and legislative director at Sierra Club Michigan, commenting on a new report from the Sierra Club and the Ann Arbor-based Ecology Center of Michigan
From statehouses to Congress, Republicans have launched into a fight against the teaching of “critical race theory,” which just a year ago was a niche academic term. Experts in critical race theory say it’s about acknowledging how racial disparities are embedded in U.S history and society, and the concept is being mischaracterized by conservatives. But GOP lawmakers in the past few months have succeeded in pushing it to the top of state legislative agendas.
Michigan’s governor would be required to report when they travel out of state to legislative leaders and undocumented individuals would be able to receive a driver license under bills introduced recently in the Michigan Legislature.
State and national experts on Thursday discussed the need to incorporate equity in current and future infrastructure plans while wrapping up the Michigan Environmental Justice Conference.
Michigan’s coal-fired power plants are annually generating more than 1 million tons of waste that’s laden with lead, mercury and arsenic and poses significant dangers to the health of residents and the state’s groundwater and surface water, the Michigan Environmental Council said in a new report released Tuesday morning.
Todd A. Heywood writes, “Despite all the hoopla and PR, one group of Americans continues to get a confusing message about when and whether to take the vaccine: the immunocompromised community. But federal guidance on vaccination for this group is complicated. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website recommends vaccination, but then refers individuals to their primary care doctors to discuss their specific case. Why?”
Anna Gustafson writes, “But it is that absence that has been so vital this year; it is that emptiness that has paved the way for life. Do not mistake this silence for a lack of numbers: Those of us who have followed the COVID-19 health orders coming from Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) fill our state. And, now, after more than a year of listening to the scientists, wearing our masks and social distancing, life is moving towards something almost jarringly familiar, towards something that is beginning to remind us of the lives we were living some 14 months ago.”
The University of Michigan health system is joining a growing number of major medical institutions opening clinics specifically aimed at treating and studying patients with lingering, serious symptoms from a brush with COVID-19. That could be as many as 10% of people who caught the coronavirus, one of the nation’s chief doctors recently testified.
The Michigan Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission (MICRC) in charge of drawing the state’s new U.S. House and state House and Senate district lines for the 2022 elections is gearing up to kick off its series of 16 public hearings across the state which begins today, Tuesday, May 11.
Senior Policy Advisor at FLOW (For Love of Water) Dave Dempsey asks the State of Michigan to stop neglecting Michigan’s groundwater which according to Dempsey is “increasingly under threat.”
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has been named one of seven John F. Kennedy Library Foundation’s Profile in Courage Award recipients for her effort to address the COVID-19 pandemic.