State Representative Donna Lasinski holds Manchester coffee hour
State Representative Donna Lasinski held a coffee hour in Manchester Saturday morning.
State Representative for the 52nd District, Donna Lasinski held a coffee hour Saturday morning in the Village Room on the lower level of Village Hall with twenty-six in attendance. Representative Lasinski started by thanking constituents for re-electing her for what will be Michigan’s 100th legislative session.
She transitioned into discussing the legislature’s lame duck session. A “lame duck” session is the period of time between the election and the seating of the newly elected legislators. During this period of time, legislators who have lost their seats in the election or couldn’t run again because of term limits are still able to vote on legislation. Representative Lasinski stated that more than half of the legislators currently voting fall into these categories and are functionally unaccountable to any constituency. She noted, in contrast to these few weeks of continuous frenzied voting, almost nothing was put up to vote by the House leadership in the months leading up to the election to prevent representatives up for reelection from having to vote in an unpopular way which may have hurt their reelection. She noted that Michigan ranked dead last among the states in 2015 in a ranking by the Center for Public Integrity of government accountability and transparency and that Michigan received an overall grade of F. She stated, “If I was in charge of the world, we’d be like many other states and wouldn’t have a lame duck session.”
Lasinski noted that many of the pieces of legislation being voted on during the lame duck session are business-as-usual bills and are passing with bipartisan support, but a few are very controversial. One of the more contentious pieces of legislation, however, is House Bill 4205, known as the “no stricter than federal” bill. This bill bars state agencies from adopting environmental protections more stringent than federal rules. Michiganders have many unique characteristics like having more private wells, spending more time outdoors in water-related activities and eating more hunted items, all of which could call for standards different than national standards to keep us safe. But the issue of most concern currently is that while Michigan is facing PFAS contamination of drinking water and wildlife, there are no federal regulations on PFAS. Representative Lasinski mentioned the recent ban on eating bluegills from specific Washtenaw County lakes and the ban on eating deer in parts of Iosco County, both because of PFAS contamination.
Some of the other contentious bills are bills to limit the powers of the incoming Democrats replacing Republicans in specific elected positions including bills to “water down” the power of the Attorney General and to create an appointed committee that would have greater power than the elected State Board of Education. Lasinski noted that an appointed committee having more power than the State Board of Education appears likely to be unconstitutional.
A coffee hour attendee asked what can be done to stop lame-duck legislating. Lasinski answered that the ability to legislate during the lame duck session can only be changed by a constitutional amendment.
Another attendee asked about Michigan losing ground academically compared to the rest of the country. Representative Lasinski reported that Michigan is currently 44th in reading among middle class white 4th graders and 50th among non-white 4th graders, noting that states like Mississippi do a better job educating non-white students than Michigan does. She talked about how school districts have cut everything possible in order to keep teachers, but when there are no longer any school nurses, counselors, or reading interventionists and students have 1-1/2-hour long bus rides, there is so much pressure on teachers their jobs become impossible. She also explained that no state-wide test has been in place for more than two years so the demands on the teachers change constantly. Representative Lasinski talked about knocking on doors this summer while campaigning and that she and her team knocked on 24,000 to 30,000 doors and every time she talked to a teacher she asked if they would recommend to the child to go into teaching and it was universally a “no.” She also noted that military recruiters in Michigan are having a very hard time finding recruits, as only 18 to 25% of Michigan graduates are qualified enough to join the military.
In the next legislative session, Michigan will be moving from a single-party government where Republicans controlled the governorship, house and senate to having a Democratic governor and a Republican-controlled house and senate. Although, Lasinski noted, the Republican control in the legislature will be by smaller numbers than previously. When asked how the system will work with a Democratic governor and a Republican legislature, Rep. Lasinski explained that incoming Governor Gretchen Whitmer has served in the legislature, which neither Granholm nor Snyder had done, which will give her insight into how best to influence bills. Governor-elect Whitmer also has stated she will re-instate quadrant meetings, where she will meet on a regular basis with minority and majority leaders. These meetings were held by Governors Engler and Granholm, but were quickly discontinued by Governor Snyder. Representative Lasinski stated, “Hopefully, these two things will begin to shape working partnerships.”
If you missed the coffee hour but would like to contact Rep. Lasinski you can email her at DonnaLasinski@house.mi.gov, call her office at (517) 373-0828, or write to her at P.O. Box 30014, Lansing, MI 48909-7514.
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