Two controversial measures have cleared the Michigan Legislature and will soon await Governor Snyder's signature.
One would repeal the law that requires store owners to put price tags on most items in their stores, and the other would grant sweeping power to emergency financial managers.
Republican Senate Majority Leader Randy Richardville says he agrees with Governor Rick Snyder that Michigan’s item pricing law is outdated, and it’s time to allow retailers to upgrade their systems.
"I've been a proponent for, I don’t know, most of my career I’d say," said Richardville.
Once signed into law, store owners will soon no longer be required to put price tags on almost every item on their shelves.
Richardville says removing price tags will not hurt customers or confuse seniors:
"I don’t think anybody’s trying to maliciously cheat senior citizens. I think if the market demands such, people will make it easy to see what the prices are. Whether it’s individual item pricing, or something different, I think the store owners are pretty responsive to their customers," said Richardville.
Democrats say price tags protect consumers from being overcharged in checkout lines.
The item pricing vote fell mostly along party lines, but that wasn’t the only partisan bill moving through the Legislature.
The Republican-led House also gave final approval to a proposal that gives more authority to emergency managers of cities, townships or school districts.
The legislation passed on party-line votes.
Democratic House Minority Leader Rick Hammel says there are many "union-busting" pieces to the emergency manager bills, including elimination of collective bargaining rights at the local level.
"And on top of that, doing away with contracts of other folks that are just doing business with the local unit of government, so a lot of things that are really problematic for us in this," says Hammel.
Democrats railed against the measure for eliminating collective bargaining rights for public employee unions.
Representatives for the labor movement say they will be at the Capitol all week protesting those and other Republican proposals.
