LANSING, MI (WHTC) – After Governor Snyder unveiled his criminal justice reform initiative yesterday, efforts to change the state’s way in dealing with probation and parole should be resurfacing in the House in the coming weeks. The Lower Chamber’s Criminal Justice Committee Chairman, suburban Detroit Republican Kurt Heise, told MIRS News that bills dealing with those issues have received the “workgroup treatment” and are set to be unveiled “soon.” Similar legislation failed to reach the Governor’s desk last year.
The state House is back in Lansing for the first time since Speaker Kevin Cotter last week unveiled a one billion-dollar annual road funding plan that stresses dedicating future dollars and shifting additional economic development funds to highways, along with eliminating the Earned Income Tax Credit. A new panel of Lower Chamber lawmakers, the Roads and Economic Development Committee, will begin discussion this Thursday on the Mt. Pleasant Republican’s alternative to Prop 1.
The state House apparently won’t fast-track prevailing wage law repeal legislation that the Senate raced through to pass last week. The Lower Chamber has three bills of its own dealing with overturning a 50-year-old law that mandates certain state government construction contracts to be based on wages decided in other collectively-bargained agreements. The House Commerce and Trade Committee hasn’t set a date for the matter. A gubernatorial veto could loom if these bills pass.
