Republican leadership in the Michigan House announced its picks for several House committee chairs Thursday.
The chairs will be responsible for holding hearings on legislation making its way through the House.
House Speaker Matt Hall (R-Richland Twp) said he didn’t want outside influences having a say over who was selected for the leadership positions.
“We did not share them with any lobbyists. We shared them with the members. So, I did not receive any feedback from any lobbyist on these committees and that was one of the reasons I did them this way. Because I didn't want lobbyists influencing these committees because they should be based on the merit of the members,” Hall told reporters during a press conference.
Republicans expanded the roles of the House oversight and appropriations committees this year, possibly setting up clashes with Michigan’s Democratic governor and Senate, especially in the budget process, which starts in earnest next week when the governor says she'll present her spending plan to the Legislature.
Earlier this week, Gongwer News Service reported this is among the latest times in recent history that House committee assignments have been announced.
Ahead of the decision, there was attention directed toward who the Democratic minority vice chair picks would be. Hall had suggested to reporters that he felt House Minority Leader Ranjeev Puri (D-Canton) was using the picks to hold his own caucus members in line, something Puri had emphatically denied.
At a press conference Wednesday, Puri asked several House Democrats how they felt about the suggestions.
“There's this narrative out there that, you know, we were the ones holding up the committee process, that I was punishing people. I want to ask everyone here, am I punishing our members?” Puri asked.
The response from the members of his caucus was a resounding “no.”
Still, many of the minority vice chairs Hall selected don’t line up with the list Democratic House minority leadership provided to reporters earlier this month.
Thursday, Hall blamed that on having multiple tweaks to the suggestions sent his way.
Also Thursday, Hall poured cold water on the prospects for a Freedom of Information Act expansion.
Bills now before the House would expand laws that make government records available to the public, so they would apply to the governor and state Legislature.
They just passed the Senate on the same day the House passed its own resolution requiring lawmakers to publicly claim any budget line-items they’re asking for.
Both received wide bipartisan support, raising speculation that the House and Senate could strike a deal to take up one another’s policies.
But Hall said flat-out he’s not doing the FOIA reform.
“There doesn't have to be a deal. This is a part that some people are missing. We put it in our rules. So our rules say if it's an earmark that isn't submitted, submitted by May 1, we're not doing it, period,” Hall said.
He said his focus would be on budget transparency, keeping lawmakers from immediately becoming lobbyists after leaving office, and requiring two-thirds supermajorities to pass bills during lame duck — a period between an election and the end of the legislative session.
The FOIA bill sponsors say they’re still optimistic.
