Michigan House Republicans walked out of session early Friday afternoon shortly after voting began.
They said they wouldn’t come back until the chamber holds votes on bills dealing with road funding, sick leave policy, and the minimum wage for tipped workers.
House Minority Leader and Speaker-elect Matt Hall (R-Richland Twp) accused Democrats of wasting everyone’s time through three late-night sessions this week.
He said there’s no point in Republicans sticking around further.
“We’re not doing anything serious here anyway. I mean, we'll just stand around for the next eight hours and then they'll put up some bill that, you know, what will it do? It'll do something that nobody even cares about. You know, it'll be like defining the state mouse,” Hall said during an impromptu press conference called in the state Capitol.
Democratic leadership said it’s willing to negotiate but that it can’t with Republicans gone.
“How can we have a conversation if they're not here and decided to, you know, go in and make snow angels out in front of the Capitol, I guess,” outgoing House Speaker Joe Tate (D-Detroit) told reporters.
While Hall’s press conference was happening, Democrats who stayed behind in the chamber began passing bills by themselves. Those include bills that would ban using sexual content to extort someone, and giving corrections officers access to the state police pension system.
On the topic of roads, sick leave, or minimum wage, Tate suggested a desire to pass those in a bipartisan manner when asked if those issues could still see a vote Friday.
Meanwhile, House Majority Floor Leader Abraham Aiyash (D-Hamtramck) said the Republican minority leadership is playing games.
“Leader Hall has indicated on many occasions that he was serious about road funding, but we don't demonstrate that seriousness by walking off of the floor in the middle of a vote on sexual extortion. So that does not demonstrate a level of seriousness in doing the job. That is political grandstanding,” Aiyash said.
The first vote of the day had appeared to be on housing zoning bills but that was pulled in favor of the sextortion package after Rep. Kristian Grant (D-Grand Rapids) had already given a speech on the housing package.
Friday, a day when lawmakers typically don’t meet at the Capitol, WAS among the last scheduled days for bills to pass the Michigan House and still make it to the Senate in time for a vote this year. That’s because of the state’s constitutional rule that a bill must be before a chamber for at least five days before it can be voted on.
Hall noted that during his press conference.
“We're saying put it up today and then we'll come back out on the floor, and we'll vote for it, and we'll vote for other bipartisan ideas, too. But if all they're going to do is sit up there in caucus, strategize, keep us here till 10 p.m. and then put up some bill about changing people's gender identity on their driver's licenses. We don't need to be here,” he said.
Democrats could invoke a tactic known as a ‘call of the House’ that would force Republicans back in the chamber. But it’s unclear if they will. Tate told reporters he’d need to think about it Friday afternoon.
