(Anna Liz Nichols photo) Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer gets a tour of the Detroit Auto Show on Jan. 15, 2025 after giving a “Road Ahead Address”

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has vetoed more than a dozen bills passed by the Democratic-led House and Senate during its drama-filled lame duck session last month.

Among the legislation Whitmer rejected on Friday was a series of five bills that would have allowed the bipartisan Board of State Canvassers to codify the use of statistical random sampling to determine the validity of petition signatures. House Bills 5571-5573, 5575 and 5576 were recommended by the board after it convened a workgroup of bipartisan election lawyers and experts to examine the current petition process.

In her veto letter, Whitmer acknowledged a need for change in the process, noting that in 2022, the state was “rocked by record levels of signature fraud” in the petition initiative process. That was a reference to the more than 70,000 fraudulent signatures submitted across 10 campaigns resulting in five Republican candidates for governor being disqualified from the ballot.

More recently, former state Sen. Adam Hollier, D-Detroit, was disqualified from the primary ballot for the 13th Congressional District in August after 690 petition signatures were deemed to be fraudulent. Hollier blamed his paid circulator, Londell Thomas, for the fake signatures.

However, Whitmer said the bills effort to utilize statistical sampling “move Michigan in the wrong direction” as opposed to “requiring exhaustive review of signatures to ensure no fraud exists.”

Among those strongly disapproving of the veto was attorney Mark Brewer, the former chair of the Michigan Democratic Party who’s been a longtime Whitmer ally.

“There is no justification whatsoever for vetoing the petition bills which had the unanimous bipartisan support of the Board of State Canvassers who testified in support of the entire package,” said Brewer.

Another set of legislation, House Bills 4191-4194, would set up a process for Michigan parolees to more easily receive driver’s licenses and state ID cards. However, in issuing her veto, Whitmer said the bills conflicted with legislation she signed in 2023 to automatically register people to vote upon exiting prison and would go into effect on June 25.

“I fully support the policy behind these bills. Unfortunately, many of these bills’ provisions conflict with recent changes I signed into law during the last legislative session,” said Whitmer, who noted “a technical error in drafting” would override “these important changes to the automatic voter registration process,” before they went into effect.

Whitmer said the veto was “a necessary consequence of the Legislature’s failure to reconcile the text of these bills with existing law,” but she hoped to work with the current Legislature “in the near future” on passing on what she called an “important criminal justice reform issue.”

Also vetoed were House Bills 5164 and 5165, which would require notification to the state if employers closed or outsourced a call center, which Whitmer said were already required by the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act.

“Accordingly, these bills would likely result in the unnecessary use of the department’s time and resources,” she said.

House Bill 5827, which would’ve extended the maximum number of weeks people would qualify for unemployment benefits from 20 to 26 as well as change the way the weekly wage was calculated, was vetoed by Whitmer because she said it conflicted with a Senate bill she signed in December that made similar changes to the Michigan Employment Security Act.

“Had enrolled House Bill 5827 been presented to me at the same times [sic] as enrolled Senate Bill 40, the two could have been reconciled,” Whitmer wrote in her veto explanation. “Unfortunately, that didn’t happen.”

Finally, Whitmer vetoed Senate Bill 976 which sought to exempt Unemployment Insurance Agency (UIA) records related to the methods it uses to identify and investigate fraudulent claims from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

“However, this bill has a concerning carveout,” said Whitmer. “The bill allows for the FOIA exemption to be bypassed by any licensed attorney with good standing in the Michigan Bar. This exemption is problematic because disclosure of this information could be a violation of regulations promulgated by the United States Department of Labor and could subject the State to potential penalties including the withholding of funds.”

The governor added that the exemption was “entirely unnecessary,” as attorneys already can access that information through administrative proceedings and the discovery process in court.

—–

Michigan Advance is part of States Newsroom, a national 501(c)(3) nonprofit. For more, go to https://michiganadvance.com.