The committee heard from election officials and experts on the eight bills that would, among other things, create a minimum of nine days of early voting, provide prepaid postage for certain election documents and require absent voter drop boxes.
Category Archive: State
More than 500,000 people across 11 states have lost their Medicaid coverage since the unwinding of a policy that allowed people to stay in the program throughout the pandemic.
HB 4596, sponsored by state Rep. Betsy Coffia (D-Traverse City), seeks to improve youth voter turnout by pre-registering at a younger age.
Currently only Maryland and New York have statewide bans on declawing cats, with various cities around the U.S. banning the practice on a local level. More than a dozen states currently have bans introduced in their legislatures.
As the U.S. Supreme Court approaches a ruling on President Joe Biden’s proposal to forgive a portion of student loan debt, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has instructed various state agencies to explore cost-cutting mechanisms for borrowers in Michigan.
As much as two thirds of North America could face shortages of electricity this summer in the event of severe and protracted heat, according to the regulator in charge of setting and enforcing standards for the electric grid.
In bipartisan fashion, the state Senate on Wednesday approved legislation to make Juneteenth, a holiday widely celebrated by Black Americans for years, an official holiday in Michigan.
Jeff Timmer, the one-time executive director of the Michigan Republican Party, told the Advance that he and other former Republicans will petition the Board of State Canvassers at their May 19 meeting to form the Michigan Common Sense Party.
The coalition wants the state to build on Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s MI Healthy Climate Plan, which was developed in 2022 with stakeholders from across the state. Among other priorities, it calls for achieving 100% economy-wide carbon neutrality by 2050.
Such a boost would also allow the Food Bank Council to increase the amount of produce purchased from Michigan farmers, officials say.
Mark Totten, U.S. attorney for Michigan’s Western District, on Thursday announced that four people were charged in federal court for participating in the bribery of Rick Johnson, former chair of the Michigan Marijuana Licensing Board.
Following the sunset of the federal government’s pandemic-related programs like extended unemployment and rental assistance, about 1.3 million Michiganders will receive at least $95 less in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits beginning this month, according to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS).
Garnering uniform support among Democrats and largely condemnation from Republicans, Senate Bills 76–86 would mandate universal background checks for all firearm purchases in Michigan, require that gun owners safely store firearms that could be accessed by minors, and permit a court to order the temporary removal of guns from someone who may be a danger to themselves or others.
With Thursday’s planned signing by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of an expansion of the 1973 Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act (ELCRA), LGBTQ+ advocates are savoring a hard-fought victory and looking ahead to where the fight for equal rights goes now.
Nearly 300 incarcerated Michiganders, currently serving out life sentences for crimes they committed while juveniles without the possibility of parole, may finally be closer to having their sentences reconsidered — more than a decade after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled those sentences unconstitutional.
With Monday morning’s announcement that U.S. Elissa Slotkin (D-Lansing) was officially in the running for U.S. Senate, the race to replace retiring U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Lansing) in 2024 is starting to take shape.
This article is part of Overloaded and (Often) Unpaid, a joint solutions journalism project on caregiving and mental wellness between the Southwest Michigan Journalism Collaborative (of which Watershed Voice is a member) and the New York and Michigan Solutions Journalism Collaborative, a partnership of news and community organizations dedicated to rigorous and compelling reporting about successful responses to social problems. The groups are supported by the Solutions Journalism Network.
Rural hospitals were already closing at a rapid rate before the pandemic — more than 150 closed between 2005 and 2019, according to the Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform. Without the federal money to prop them up, the Center estimates that 200 rural hospitals across the country are at risk of closing within the next two to three years.