Aug. 22, 2025 | This Week in Government: Duggan Lands Eye-popping Endorsements From Local Leaders of Both Parties

Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan revealed Monday a giant bipartisan list of endorsements from current and former elected officials for his independent bid for governor, underscoring his unique candidacy that puts pressure on both parties.

Duggan held a thank you event at Michigan Central Station, which he chose as a “symbol of what’s possible when you drop us versus them politics,” to thank over 200 former and current officials for endorsing his campaign for governor.

He called the endorsements, including from former members of Congress and current mayors, “215 acts of political courage,” not taking the easy way in their own parties.

Among the notable Democratic endorsements: Livonia Mayor Maureen Miller Brosnan, former Westland Mayor William Wild, Michigan State University Trustee Rebecca Bahar-Cook (a top political fundraiser), attorney and University of Michigan Regent Mark Bernstein, former Michigan AFL-CIO President Mark Gaffney (now a member of the Wayne State University Board of Governors), and U-M Regent Denise Ilitch.

Topping the list of Republican endorsees was an array of township supervisors in populous exurban Detroit communities like Bruce Township Supervisor Mike Fillbrook, Groveland Township Supervisor Kevin Scramlin, former Independence Township Supervisor Patrick Kittle, and Orion Township Supervisor Chris Barnett.

The main theme of the night included throwing away political labels and curbing partisan politics in Lansing that’s holding up the state budget.

Sterling Heights Mayor Michael Taylor kicked off the night by saying “political labels are irrelevant” and that his town has been forever flipflopping between “the lesser of two evils,” and that this year, they don’t have to elect a governor that works for a political party.

“Many of my colleagues and friends are on the stage with me can attest to that whether it’s a pothole, whether it’s picking up some of these trash, whether it’s getting street lights on, making sure your community is safe, making sure you have clean drinking water, these aren’t Republican issues,” Taylor said. “These aren’t Democratic issues. These are issues that affect everyday people every day of their lives.”

Taylor said he had been working with Duggan to put together a coalition of other elected officials in Metro Detroit “to try to get things done.” A majority of the endorsements on the list tonight were from the metro Detroit area.

Also on the list were a plethora of school board members across the Detroit area. Porsche Laster, president of the Romulus School Board, spoke mostly on her frustration with the Legislature not passing an education budget yet, saying students and teachers now have to walk into the building with “uncertainty” instead of excitement.

“In Lansing, they’re busy pointing fingers,” Laster said. “Republicans blame Democrats. Democrats blame Republicans, and while they argue, our children are caught in the middle, they’re the ones who pay the price. That is not leadership.”

She said Duggan refuses to “accept dysfunction as status quo.”

Farmington Mayor Joe LaRussa also spoke about frustration in the budget, specifically the roads plan. He said that while his city has history, it also deals with aging infrastructure “with little help from Lansing.”

“The local roads package continues to languish in the state Legislature, along with the budget,” LaRussa said. “State regulations preempt and prevent us community leaders from holding utility companies accountable for frequent outages. None of these topics should be treated like political footballs. Yet our hyper-partisan, hyper-polarized politics of the day prevent us from taking meaningful action on many of these topics.”

Also speaking on bipartisan leadership at the event was Hudsonville Mayor Mark Northrup, who received two rounds of applause for saying he was a lifelong Republican who was supporting a lifelong Democrat and being attacked for it, Port Austin Village President Todd Murawski and Dearborn Heights Councilmember Mo Baydoun.

Some of the larger heavy hitters on the list including former U.S. Rep. David Trott of Birmingham, who has broken with the Republican Party over President Donald Trump, whom he opposes, and a plethora of former representatives and senators including former Rep. Brian Banks, former Sen. Marshall Bullock II, now on the State Board of Education, former Rep. Thomas Stallworth III and former Sen. Buzz Thomas.

Duggan said of his endorsements, while some are elected partisanly and have long-standing relationships with their party, that they see “all the ways that Michigan is being hurt from the toxic politics Lansing.”

He also said the endorsees are not asking anyone to leave their party, but support Duggan bringing the two parties together.

One of the major policy points he brought up was gun violence reduction, saying that funding toward these efforts were “locked in a bank account in Lansing because of partisan politics.”

He stood by the side of House Speaker Matt Hall, R-Richland Township, in the effort to get the Senate Democrats to vote on a public violence prevention fund, saying Democrats don’t want to do it because they don’t want Hall and the House Republicans “to get credit.”

He also talked about the “tragedy” of reading levels in the state, saying the budget being delayed was only making it worse due to schools not being able to put money into any reading programs or extra teachers.

Duggan said it would have been easier to run as a Democrat, but he didn’t want to be part “of the same old politics in Lansing.”

To reporters after the event, Duggan spoke about some of the issues facing his campaign including staffing decisions and budget questions.

He said it was too early to decide if he would tap a Republican to be on his legislative team.

In reflecting on matters now in Lansing, he weighed in on Rep. Mark Tisdel‘s cell phone bill, saying it was a “good bill” but Democrats were “directed by their party” not to vote for it.

“The fact that you can’t get something like that passed when Gretchen Whitmer has made it a priority tells you everything you need to know about why somebody’s got to run as an independent,” Duggan said.

He said he would handle a relationship with President Donald Trump in a similar way to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, saying she is “exactly right” in working with both sides. While he said he disagrees with Trump on tariffs, he would talk to him about how it affects the automotive industry just like Whitmer is.

When it comes to road funding, he said he is optimistic Whitmer will get it done but thinks there needs to be a combination of reprioritizing funding and new revenue, including in realizing that electric vehicles are not growing in the way “people predicted every year.”

On the amount of bills signed during this session (just nine so far), Duggan said he would have more momentum.

Ahead of the event, the Michigan Democratic Party released a release that criticized his Republican donors.

Party Chair Curtis Hertel said that Michiganders shouldn’t believe a word from Duggan and that he had “been bought and sold by major pro-Trump, anti-labor donors who just want to drag Michigan backwards.”

“With Mike Duggan set to hold a very swanky event, will any of his major Republican donors appear with him? Because let’s be honest: the big bucks that Republicans like Ron Weiser and J.C. Huizenga have donated to his campaign are helping pay for this event, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they want to check in on their investment,” Hertel said.

The statement did not address the long list of lifelong Democrats that endorsed Duggan.

The governor’s race is heating up with full Democratic and Republican primaries with Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist II, and Genesee County Sheriff Chris Swanson on the Democratic side, and Sen. Aric Nesbitt, R-Porter Township, former House Speaker Tom Leonard, former attorney general Mike Cox, and U.S. Rep. John James, R-Shelby Township, running for the Republican nomination.

Budget paralysis continued in the House Thursday, with House Republicans offering up a joint resolution that would require the Legislature to pass a budget by July 1 or have their pay cut, despite the lack of a full House budget proposal for the upcoming fiscal year.

The resolution and the ensuing fight over its purpose on the House floor came Thursday afternoon with just more than a month left before a government shutdown could be triggered.

HJR M, sponsored by Rep. Jaime Thompson, R-Brownstown Township, would amend the Constitution to require state budget bills be enacted into law by July 1, otherwise the pay of state legislators and the governor would be suspended.

“There will actually be urgency to get things done,” Thompson said in support of the resolution during a floor speech. “If legislators cannot collectively deliver a full year budget for the hardworking taxpayers by the deadline, taxpayers would deliver zero dollars in a salary to legislators until this budget is passed.”

Although there is currently a July 1 statutory deadline for the budget, there are no consequences for missing the deadline.

The resolution, which needed support from two-thirds of the chamber, failed 70-30, with most House Democrats voting against it after caucusing for about an hour.

If it had passed, the resolution would have needed to be approved by two-thirds of the Senate, and then it would have been put on the ballot for voters to consider as a constitutional amendment during the 2026 general election. That means it would have had no effect on the budget process until the 2027-28 fiscal year.

Republicans pointed to the failed resolution as further evidence Democrats are unwilling to negotiate, while Democrats called it another example of political theater and mind games from House Speaker Matt Hall, R-Richland Township.

“I think the people in Michigan would be very frustrated to know that these politicians want to keep their pay and not get a budget done. And then you see what we’re dealing with in the negotiations is a group of unserious people that want to blame their political opponents rather than get a deal done,” Hall said. “If we would have had this bill and we would have got this thing done, I would have had a budget deal done because politicians, particularly the Democrats, would have skin in the game, and we would get it done.”

Rep. Ann Bollin, R-Brighton, who chairs the House Appropriations Committee , said that passing the resolution could prevent the Legislature from being in the same situation in the future.

“We don’t want to see what happened this year happen again,” she said. “It’s somewhat of a preventative measure … this isn’t about politics. This is actually about principle and getting our job done.”

Bollin encouraged Senate Majority Leader Winnie Brinks, D-Grand Rapids, to bring up a similar resolution in her own chamber to see if the conversation could start there. She went on to say that she would be willing to voluntarily suspend her own paycheck this year until a budget is passed.

Democrats, however, had a different perspective.

“This is such a joke,” House Minority Leader Ranjeev Puri, D-Canton, said. “This was just theater. This was more of the same. There’s no plan in place. The question should be where is the House passed version of the budget? That’s not happened. This does not help us get there… We should be focused right now on how to get a balanced budget done.”

Rep. Dylan Wegela, D-Garden City, said that it wasn’t fair to punish rank and file members, and it would be more equitable to fine legislators based on a percentage of their net worth.

“The speaker has a lot of say in when budgets get voted on,” Wegela said. “Withholding my pay as someone who was a teacher and a working-class person is not the same as someone who’s a millionaire, and you have several millionaires in this chamber… We need to take into account that we shouldn’t just be able to wait out working-class people to force them into a position. We should be holding the wealthy individuals in this chamber accountable, too.”

Puri said that his caucus would be happy to discuss a similar resolution after this year’s budget was passed.

“A lot of our members want to be able to have this conversation, but we want to do it in good faith,” he said. “We don’t want to do it under the gun just to make sure Matt Hall can get a political win today. … When there’s a budget, we can talk about this resolution.”

A House committee discussed legislation on Wednesday that would codify the open and obvious liability doctrine in Michigan law, restoring the status quo to what it was before a 2023 Supreme Court ruling.

Related | Chamber Backs Legislation to Reinstate ‘Open and Obvious’ Liability Standard

“This legislation is designed to restore the clarity and balance that Michigan premise liability laws in light of the recent Supreme Court rulings,” Rep. Jerry Neyer, R-Shepherd, told the House Judiciary Committee. “These changes have had costly consequences, liability, and premiums for small businesses.”

In 2023, the Supreme Court ruled in Kandil/Pinsky that the question of whether a condition is open and obvious should be analyzed as part of the breach and comparative fault analyses, rather than as a component of the element of duty.

Amanda Fisher, Michigan state director for the National Federation of Independent Business, testified in support of the bill.

“The open and obvious doctrine meant that, basically, an average person of ordinary intelligence could reasonably be expected to discover and avoid a dangerous condition. The property owner was not typically liable for injury stemming from that condition,” Fisher said. “Michigan is only going to be one of a handful of states that has completely eliminated open and obvious as a bar to duty in premises liability.”

Fisher also said that open and obvious was a standard used by the courts to dismiss meritless claims early in litigation.

“Without it judges and juries must now engage in complex factual inquiries about whether an open and obvious hazard nonetheless posed an unreasonable risk of harm,” Fisher said. “The implication of this new standard set forth by the court will have an impact on all property owners, but significantly on small businesses. … Small businesses are an easy target of frivolous litigation due to their inability to financially bear the cost of drawn out lawsuits, and will be pressured to settle matters, even though they may not be at fault.”

Fisher said the bill could eliminate uncertainty and the subjectivity of the courts.

Randy Gross with the Michigan Chamber of Commerce also testified in support of the bill.

“The court fundamentally changed the playing field,” he said. “Now property owners can be sued and held liable for a truly open and obvious liability – something as simple as a rope across a checkout line.”

He said the bill would address increased litigation costs, higher insurance premiums, and unpredictability for small businesses.

Jacob Manning testified in support of the bill on behalf of the Small Business Association of Michigan.

“Rising costs of health care, effects of inflation, workforce shortages, economic uncertainty – these are all keeping small business owners up at night,” he said. “Unless Michigan’s premises liability law is addressed, liability insurance will quickly join that list.”

Mitch Albers, legal counsel for the Michigan Association for Justice, testified against the bill, saying that the open and obvious doctrine encouraged dangerous physical conditions.

“Open and obvious endangers the disabled and the elderly. It encourages the creation of dangerous conditions and open and obvious creates ridiculous legal puzzles that lead to unjust results for injured individuals and allows property owners to escape liability for their negligence,” he said. “The court ruled that the issue of whether something is open and obvious is not evaluated under what duty the possessor owed the invitee, but instead whether that duty was breached and whether there was any comparative fault on the invites part.”

Rep. Kelly Breen, D-Novi, said she would be interested in finding a middle ground.

“At what point do we make it so that there is a reasonable duty of care for that property owner to mitigate any open and obvious dangers?” she said. “I would like to work with you to make sure that property owners are protected, but also so are the people that deserve the chance to have their case heard, because this would even prevent these cases from getting to a jury to determine if somebody’s more than 50% at fault.”

Rep. Doug Wozniak, R- Shelby Township, also raised concerns about the legislation.

“Does this create an absolute defense for the property owner under open and obvious?” he asked.

Neyer agreed the goal was to find a middle ground and said he was willing to work on the bill.

The Economic Development Leaders for Michigan announced a list of the coalition’s top priorities for growth and prosperity in the business realm in a Tuesday press release, outlining its goals to increase funding for research and development and maintaining key attraction programs.

“EDLM’s legislative priorities reflect the need to keep Michigan competitive with sustainable, long-term economic development strategies,” Maureen Donohue Krauss, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Detroit Regional Partnership, said in a statement. “As economic developers, we know that stability and consistency are key factors to a company’s expansion decision. These tools will give regions across the state the edge they need to win key investments, attract and retain talent, and build stronger communities, now and in the future.”

The group’s priorities include:

• Maintaining the Business Development Program at $100 million for job-creating investments;
• Adopting a performance-based withholding tax incentive to support project attraction;
• Renewing the Revitalization and Placemaking Program at $50 million;
• Renewing the Community Revitalization Program at $50 million
• Modernizing locally driven programs like SmartZone and Transformational Brownfield Programs;
• Funding the Regional Strategic Site Readiness Program at $50 million;
• Maintaining the Going PRO Talent Fund for growth in advanced manufacturing;
• Establishing a $10 million Regional Talent Attraction and Retention Fund to support local workforce initiatives;
• Doubling the state’s R&D Tax Credit to $200 million for more private-sector innovation; and
• Recommitting to regionally led Entrepreneurship and Innovation Programming at $100 million, restoring the funding to 2012 levels.

The coalition said these priorities could be funded through a withholding tax credit and research and development credit, which could both be tied to company activity, which only brings additional revenue to the state when businesses generate economic activity.

The 10 goals are “ambitious, yet achievable,” according to the leaders, who said it is designed for consistency within the current legislative session. They believe the items can be completed within reasonable time and “reflect bipartisan effort.”

“Michigan’s economic future demands consistency and a commitment that keeps us competitive for decades to come. EDLM’s framework provides our communities with the resources to transform potential into lasting prosperity,” Kevin Johnson, president and chief executive officer of the Detroit Economic Growth Corporation, said. “We can’t coast on yesterday’s victories when competitor states are accelerating their efforts to attract the businesses and talent that drive sustainable growth. This strategic approach ensures Michigan doesn’t just compete in tomorrow’s economy—we lead it.”

The coalition also emphasized a “holistic” approach to economic development including focusing on training and employment opportunities as well as creating attractive places to work by addressing the housing shortage and invest in infrastructure like roads, utilities, and water.

“If Michigan is serious about long-term economic stability, we need to continue to invest in order to generate economic returns today and tomorrow,” Jennifer Owens, President of Lakeshore Advantage, said. “The ten legislative priorities championed by Economic Development Leaders for Michigan represent the high-return tools our state needs to retain and attract the next generation of talent and businesses. A robust, fully funded economic development toolbox doesn’t just help local businesses succeed, it drives good jobs for our residents, strengthens our communities, and grows our state’s revenues over time. These are the tools we need to do just that.”

The coalition also emphasized the states that Michigan is competing with including Ohio, which generated $20 billion in capital investment in 2024, Indiana, which signed billion in deals since the 1990s through a performance-based payroll tax capture, Texas and Virginia, which both integrate economic development and their universities and many other southern states that attract business with low taxes and energy costs as well as streamlined permitting and ready sites.

“A competitive economic development toolbox locally impacts all elements of a community — from small businesses, startups, and entrepreneurs, to placemaking projects like farmers markets, and to successfully attracting brand-new investment and good jobs,” Bob Trezise, president and chief executive officer of Lansing Economic Area Partnership, said. “The better funded and more robust our state economic development toolbox and programs are, the more revenue we will generate for the state, supporting the quality services we all want.”

Demand for public transit is growing across the state as providers are seeing less funding from state government, a report from the Michigan Public Transit Association said Tuesday.

The report said in the 2023 fiscal year, transit providers served more than 47 million passengers, a 20% increase from the year prior. The largest increase in demand is for medical trips, the survey said, and riders also want extended hours of service in the evenings and during the weekend.

But those expanded hours are the first to go as transit providers struggling with funding, the report said.

“Public transit is no longer a luxury; it’s an essential service that Michigan voters strongly support,” John Dulmes, executive director of MPTA, said in a statement. “Without necessary funding, local transportation systems across Michigan will be forced to cut routes, reduce service hours and eliminate jobs. This will be disastrous for Michiganders, limiting their ability to get to work, attend school, or travel to necessary medical appointments.”

The MPTA is calling on Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and lawmakers to craft a budget and road funding plan that restores funding to maintain and enhance transportation services.

“Reliable, accessible public transportation strengthens our economy, reduces disparities and supports essential services,” Dulmes said. “We can’t afford to let this be another missed opportunity to invest in a sustainable, 21st-century transportation system – one that works for every person and business in our state. We need our state leaders to act now, or Michigan families, businesses and workers will pay the price.”