Gretchen Whitmer vetoes Democratic bills that Michigan House had blocked
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer on Friday vetoed nine bills approved by fellow Democrats in 2024. Photo credit: Emily Elconin for Bridge Michigan.
Michigan’s Democratic-led Senate had sued the House over a refusal to send Whitmer the bills that Democrats approved in late 2024 but did not immediately transmit before Republicans took over the chamber in 2025.
In a Friday morning order, Michigan Supreme Court justices said they were “not persuaded” to take up the case, letting stand an October ruling from the Court of Appeals that the House must send the bills to Whitmer.
The decision was a long-sought win for legislative Democrats, but in a veto letter issued Friday afternoon, Whitmer said bills were effectively overripe because they would have an effective date of April 2025.
Signing them into law now would lead to “endless litigation” and “overwrite law that has since gone into effect” while complicating the budget, Whitmer wrote.
“Implementing these bills retroactively would impose an insurmountable administrative burden on the state and all Michiganders affected,” she added, telling lawmakers she was “regrettably” vetoing them.
The nine measures would have placed corrections officers in the state police pension system, required governments to pay a larger share of employee health care premiums, exempted public assistance from debt collection and allowed Detroit historical museums to propose a millage.
Whitmer called the protracted battle over the bills “political gamesmanship at its worst” and criticized the House, but that didn’t stop some Democratic sponsors from taking issue with the governor’s vetoes.
Rep. Will Snyder, a Muskegon Democrat who had sponsored the state police pension bill, said Whitmer “has decided to side with the House Republicans” and noted she had not initially backed the Senate’s arguments, “which could be why (the bills) were not transmitted to begin with.”
Labor unions had fought for some of the bills and, in a joint statement, said Whitmer’s veto “betrays democratic values and abandons the very people who have supported her in office.”
“This veto is an insult to every hard-working Michigander fighting for economic justice,” said the coalition, which includes the Michigan AFL-CIO, UAW and the Michigan Education Association.
“We condemn her betrayal of Michigan workers, and call on political leaders who value our state’s working families to do the same.”
Before Whitmer vetoed the bills, Democratic Senate Majority Leader Winnie Brinks had called the Supreme Court decision a “clear victory” for the Michiganders impacted by the stalled legislation.
“Today’s win is about more than specific bills,” Brinks said. “The Supreme Court is reminding everyone who plays a role in our democracy that they are not above the law, and the Michigan Constitution must be followed.”
In a statement issued after the governor’s veto, House Speaker Matt Hall said he decided to “help out” Democrats by sending the bills to Whitmer after a recent state budget deal.
“My sympathies to the Democrats that they went through all of this work just for the bills to end up vetoed,” added Hall, R-Richland Township.
The backstory
Lawmakers approved the bills in December 2024, but for unclear reasons, Democrats who held a House majority at the time did not send them to Whitmer that month for signature.
Hall and fellow Republicans who took over the House in January 2025 declined to transmit the bills, prompting a lawsuit from Senate Democrats and a prolonged legal battle.
Patel, the Court of Claims judge, initially ruled the House had a duty to send the measures to the governor but declined to force the Legislature to act, citing separation of powers in the state Constitution and calling the presentation of bills “a legislative function in which the Court will not interfere.”
The Senate appealed to the Court of Appeals and found a panel of judges more willing to wade into legislative affairs. The three-judge panel granted the Senate’s request for an order that would force the House to move the legislation, prompting a House appeal to the state’s highest court.
At issue was whether the Legislature must send passed legislation to the governor — and whether a court can even compel them to do it.
Democratic nominees hold a 6-1 majority on the Michigan Supreme Court. The lone Republican nominee, Justice Brian Zahra, disagreed with the majority order released Friday.
In a written dissent, Zahra took issue with the earlier Court of Appeals’ ruling and said he thinks not hearing the case “is an error that may have longstanding implications damaging the balance of power between this Court and the Legislature.”
He argued the suit was not even legitimate because the state constitution does not include a timeline for when bills must be presented to the governor.
That the Supreme Court declined to weigh in, Zahra said, “will foster future political gamesmanship and adversely affect the interaction between the two chambers of our Legislature.”
Patel, the Court of Claims judge, initially ruled the House had a duty to send the measures to the governor but declined to force the Legislature to act, citing separation of powers in the state Constitution and calling the presentation of bills “a legislative function in which the Court will not interfere.”
The Senate appealed to the Court of Appeals and found a panel of judges more willing to wade into legislative affairs. The three-judge panel granted the Senate’s request for an order that would force the House to move the legislation, prompting a House appeal to the state’s highest court.
At issue was whether the Legislature must send passed legislation to the governor — and whether a court can even compel them to do it.
Zahra, the GOP-nominated justice who dissented with the majority opinion, argued the suit was not even legitimate because the state constitution does not include a timeline for when bills must be presented to the governor.
That the Supreme Court declined to weigh in, Zahra said, “will foster future political gamesmanship and adversely affect the interaction between the two chambers of our Legislature.”
This article first appeared on Bridge Michigan and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
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