Oct. 23, 2026 | This Week in Government: Gubernatorial Candidates Show Real Contrast on Economic Development; Business Groups, Legislators Have Wide Array of Asks for Policy
October 23, 2026
Gubernatorial Candidates Show Real Contrast on Economic Development; Business Groups, Legislators Have Wide Array of Asks for Policy
Business leaders say Michigan has lacked a stable economic development strategy for decades, and the two gubernatorial candidates are hoping to change that trajectory with two very different platforms.
The race to be the state’s next governor has not drawn much fanfare for the last few months, overshadowed by the U.S. Senate race in national coverage and social media drama alone. However, the gubernatorial race seems to be where the real policy conversations that shape the state’s future are happening, especially in the face of Michigan lagging in economic rankings among the 50 states.
Michigan is currently ranked 43rd in the nation on economic outcomes. This is a sharp decline from 2018 before Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s administration, when the state was 22nd. The state is also 46th in employment, 39th in economic growth, and 40th in economic opportunity.
Some key stakeholders like Sen. Mallory McMorrow, D-Royal Oak, wants to see the current approach “blown up and rebuilt.” McMorrow is chair of the Senate Economic and Community Development Committee.
What does she want to see instead?: “Who is going to just actually listen to what Michiganders are saying and put a plan into place that isn’t just trying to do the same thing we did in the past?”
One of the open-ended questions left by Whitmer’s administration is economic development policy and where to go next.
There’s been a lot of change in just the last few years of the administration in the economic realm, with the disenfranchising of tools such as the state’s Strategic Outreach and Attraction Reserve Fund and a shift away from site readiness fund appropriation. After SOAR was sunset, the state went about a year without an economic incentive tool. In July, the Legislature passed and Whitmer signed legislation reviving a program that enables companies leading economic development projects to recoup state income tax withholdings instead of remitting those to the state.
The administration also saw crushing blows to potentially huge moneymaking projects with the termination of deals with Sandisk and Gotion, years-long contracts that ended with legal battles and chatter on what comes after.
There is also the question of the Michigan Economic Development Corporation, which not one stakeholder can say should look exactly the same in the next administration as it looks now, an appearance of public trust slipping away amid investigations into public funds as well as reports that jobs are not coming out of the woodwork as promised.
Economic development policy is also a question where Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jocelyn Benson and Republican gubernatorial candidate John James differ the most, with a large spectrum in approaches where Benson and James tend to land on opposite sides.
To envision what the next approach in economic success could look like for the state, Gongwer News Service asked Benson and James for their proposals, while interviewing key legislators and business groups on what they think could change the tides for the state’s economic growth for potentially the next eight years.
What are the Candidates’ Main Policy Platforms?
Neither Benson nor James agreed to a sit-down interview with Gongwer News Service after weeks of attempts. Benson instead sent a statement while James did an eight-minute call after a business roundtable on the day of publication while also sending a statement.
In her statement, Benson focused on the three pillars of the state’s economic engine: “people, places and jobs.”
“We will invest in people – developing a world class work force – and places – communities where people can live and thrive – to keep our talent here and help us grow,” Benson said. “Then to diversify our economy and bring more well paying jobs to our state I’ll reform our state’s approach to economic investment — including overhauling the MEDC to bring in best practices from other states and ensure it is transparent, accountable, and delivering results.”
She insisted she would be “ruthless” in going anywhere and using every tool in her toolbox to retain jobs in the state, “leading the way towards the jobs of tomorrow.”
In the statement from James, he said “economic development is more about flesh and blood than it is about brick and mortar,” and that his plan “is to retain the businesses and talent we have, reclaim the hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs we have lost and recruit new investment by lowering taxes and energy costs and cutting red tape.”
He also called for a comprehensive audit of the MEDC to focus on delivering results for the state.
Tools and Taxes Versus Economic Gardening
With the state’s main economic tool the only recently revived transformational brownfield program, a debate as old as economics itself has resurfaced in Michigan: does the state continue to lure businesses in with tax incentives, a popular strategy, or work around the edges on business environment in hopes that businesses will surface naturally without large checks?
James has been extremely anti-tax incentive throughout his campaign, criticizing the budget given to the MEDC and continuously vowing he would use that money elsewhere, such as paying for tax cuts or cutting state spending in the budget in general. He has also championed rolling back the regulatory environment on businesses to make it easier for development and creating pipelines into the trades for workforce development.
Benson has been vocal about aspects of economic gardening to bring businesses, including strengthening academic institutions to enhance the workforce.
“Tax credits aren’t going to be enough,” Benson said at the Detroit Economic Club in September. “In fact, they’re not going to do the job. Increasing our workforce capabilities are critical. So, reforming our education system, investing in apprenticeships, working with current employers to build out our manufacturing base and advanced manufacturing and other workforce training programs will be critical to ensure, as we attract new jobs and raise our wages, that we’re building out and equipping our workforce.”
However, she has not cut incentives out of the game plan, instead focusing on establishing enforceable return on investment mechanisms for transparency purposes, and to easily return money if jobs are not created as outlined in initial talks.
Business leaders and legislators seem to be leaning away from tax incentives overall, wanting to focus on success for a workforce overall.
While Brian Calley, president of the Small Business Association of Michigan, said the two strategies are not necessarily exclusive, people already based in the state achieving economic success will then lead to future growth and attraction of new businesses.
“There are a lot of things that need to happen for that environment to be favorable, but consistency and competitiveness, and providing a high quality business environment is really important, particularly for smaller enterprises,” Calley said.
Arthur Havlicek, president and CEO of the Southwest Michigan Regional Chamber, said if it came down to a big funding source like SOAR or investing in the businesses already here, then he would “go all in on the latter.”
The return on investment on doubling down in businesses already placed in Michigan is “exponentially greater than the large scale attraction projects that never fully materialize,” Havlicek said. He said the criticism on the large business attraction has been deserved.
Meanwhile, McMorrow is taking a harsher approach, saying at this point, “you can’t continue to throw money and incentives at a system that’s just not working.”
“The reason incentives exist is to make up for a deficiency elsewhere,” McMorrow said.
Economic development also looks like building places that young people want to live, McMorrow said, investing in larger cities with access to transit and outdoor recreation. This investment strategy has also come up in conversations of increasing personal income, creating cities young professionals want to live, and work in.
James said in an interview that he wants to partner with regional chamber leaders to fix the transit issue, because if you look at where young people are moving, they’re looking for places with reliable and safe transportation options.
Benson’s plan for statewide high-speed light rail connecting major cities has been a cornerstone of her campaign.
The current economic strategy is a “categorical failure” with taxpayer money spent on few good-paying jobs, Rep. Bill Schuette, R-Midland, said. Schuette spoke at the Mackinac Policy Conference about how to change the economic rankings.
“I think that our state needs to take better care of our overall economic burden instead of just focusing on trying to hunt down big game that never seems to land,” Schuette said.
Rep. Kristian Grant, D-Grand Rapids, minority vice chair of the House Economic Competitiveness Committee, though, said the investment from certain incentive programs can be impactful, such as the neighborhood investment in urban economic development.
However, she said the state is also in a place where it must be intentional in the use of taxpayer funds.
Rep. Jasper Martus, D-Flushing, minority vice chair of the House Appropriations Labor and Economic Opportunity Subcommittee, said economic development needs to be an all-of-the-above approach. Incentives cannot make up for the places where the state is lacking, with companies turning down massive incentive packages due to a lacking workforce.
“SOAR became unpopular with a lot of folks, and I do think that we were chasing after big projects when we could have had a bit more of a holistic approach of doing from small, medium to large businesses,” Martus said.
What Will the MEDC Look Like?
What happens to the MEDC in the next administration has surfaced a lot of different answers across a spectrum of get rid of it and burn the scraps to incremental changes to the tax incentives that many have deemed problematic.
But one thing you won’t hear in Lansing outside of the MEDC headquarters is that it is working the way it should.
While both candidates have not called to abolish the agency, they have strongly criticized it.
The MEDC began in 1999 through an interlocal agreement between the state and local governments and functions as a quasi-government agency.
Benson has said she would establish new leadership in the MEDC as well as change the structure, even possibly creating a focused agency meant for small businesses only.
James has called for pulling funding for corporate incentives and a major overhaul on operations in the agency.
The role of the MEDC, in the minds of business groups and leaders, is wide ranging, but most want to see the local chambers in control of overall policy and a shift in authority.
Sandy K. Baruah, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Detroit Regional Chamber, argued the MEDC “has grown into a Christmas tree over the last 25 years,” and said the agency needs consistency after being hobbled by inconsistent policies.
“Every time there’s a party flip in the Legislature or a party flip in the governor’s office, we kind of veer from one set of policies to another, and you can look at states across the country and success isn’t really defined by are they a red state or a blue state. They’re really defined by consistency in policy,” Baruah said.
The economic killer, Baruah said, is the inability of companies to guess what the state will look like 20 years down the line.
Baruah also said small business development cannot be run out of a state agency, with regions and localities knowing how to focus their own industries. Detroit has a much different approach than the west side.
McMorrow also said there needs to be a more regional approach to creating a climate with the best talent, “whether it’s leaning on the existing economic development organizations or building something that just isn’t in Lansing.”
Havlicek said it has been cumbersome to access some of the incentives that exist for regional chambers through the MEDC, and that decentralization of those tools could help.
James said in the interview that he would also support a more regional approach.
Right now, McMorrow said the MEDC in its current form is “not working and is too opaque.”
“It seems to reward people who are insiders versus a real transparent system that has to be completely reimagined,” McMorrow said.
McMorrow did say she would support a small business sector of the MEDC like Benson has proposed, focusing on the companies that are never going to leave instead of attracting new companies.
Calley said there are some positive moves happening on small business at the MEDC, and if there is a major overhaul, it could stop the future governor from building upon that portfolio such as the hub services for technical support and management.
“I would suspect that once a new governor takes office and they really dig into ‘what do I want to do with this agency,’ they will be pleasantly surprised that there’s some good work that is happening that has been overshadowed by the bigger projects that tend to be controversial, especially these days,” Calley said. “Most communities don’t really want landscape-changing projects in their backyard, and so that gets a lot of attention, even though there are some totally different and really good things happening.”
On the other side of the spectrum, Scheutte said the agency has “a track record that (he) thinks is a batting average no one would want to bring into a new administration,” and the next administration needs to eliminate the agency first to rebuild it again.
The next agency should instead be built as a “customer service solution agency” to help businesses with getting permits and starting a new business, Schuette said. The MEDC in the past has argued that this is already a large part of their role as an agency.
Transparency has been a large part of the discussion when it comes to the MEDC and how the state handles its business dealings.
Baruah said there has to be a balance when it comes to transparency, not wanting to push away businesses by making them show all their cards to competition but there are still transparency reforms the MEDC needs to undergo.
How does the economy need to diversify?
With less growth and wages falling, one of the questions business leaders and candidates alike are turning to is how to diversify the economy and bring more industries in. It’s been a quest governors have pursued, to great challenge and frustration, going back to Gov. William Milliken in the 1970s when the domestic auto industry first faced turbulence.
Benson has been particularly vocal, telling the Detroit Economic Club that she wanted to “aggressively and ruthlessly” recruit new businesses in the aviation, aerospace, defense, clean energy and climate tech industries, saying there are so many industries the state has not been part of.
James also called for diversification of the economy into energy sectors, tech sectors, aerospace, defense, hospitality and film, but that it has to be spearheaded by regional groups for more flexibility and speed to market.
“I’m very bullish on what can happen when we get unnecessary government out of the way and to create opportunities for entrepreneurship,” James said in the interview with Gongwer.
Where the state comes in for diversification is providing better access to capital, contracts and compliance concierge, playing a support role to keep costs down and move quickly, James said.
He said he wants the businesses to “continue to move at the speed of business and not at the speed of government.”
However, others believe the state should not control what industries are settling here.
McMorrow said she believes “it is a mistake for Lansing to try and dictate that,” pushing those decisions to the regional chambers.
Having a natural advantage for a certain industry is different from subsidizing the growth of that industry because “somebody just picked” it, Calley said. However, they should not allow for one industry taking a hit to bring the whole economy down.
Havlicek said he can appreciate a free market making decisions, but there does need to be a focus on the knowledge economy and creating those jobs. He would like to see even more investment in healthcare across the state, with West Michigan being a current hub for those positions.
What is the appropriate tax structure?
Tax structure may be one of the standout arguments where Benson and James have a completely different approach.
Benson has called for a better revenue-sharing model for local communities with property tax revenue while also acknowledging taxes have to be lowered, but in a weighted model. She has also proposed a $5,000 caregiver income tax credit.
Benson also proposed a complete review of the tax structure before specifics of her plan can be decided. She has vowed, however, to reporters that a review would not result in higher taxes for middle class families.
James plans to get rid of the personal income tax, though he has not said how quickly. In a recent debate, he spoke of getting the income tax rate, now 4.25%, below 4%. He also proposed a tax credit for retention and relocation for workers and a 100% tax credit for businesses investing in scholarships for skilled trades.
At a business roundtable on Wednesday in Battle Creek, James and Rep. Steve Frisbie, R-Battle Creek, theorized that Benson would back a higher corporate income tax from 6% to 10%. Benson has not proposed increasing the corporate income tax, but did tell reporters after last week’s debate that she would review tax “loopholes for the wealthy and well-connected.”
For Martus, he believes a progressive income tax would be helpful in the tax structure and an additional land value tax on speculators and large landholders to lower property taxes while maintaining revenue.
McMorrow also called for a graduated income tax to end middle class families paying disproportionately a higher percentage of income than some of the wealthiest in the state.
The Constitution prohibits a graduated income tax, so moving to a graduated structure would require a constitutional amendment in 2028.
She said she hoped a Benson administration would “take a really big look at not just nibbling around the edges, but what is a fair tax structure that ensures everybody pays their fair share” and “that we are not overtaxing people who are already really struggling to make ends meet.”
But Schuette argued states without an income tax are growing the most and can be competitive in economic performance and pulling in more workers.
What do stakeholders want from their ideal next administration?
Benson’s line, then adopted by James in the last gubernatorial debate, has become popular in proving where Michigan is in the pecking order of the Midwest: “Indiana and Ohio are eating our lunch.”
The next governor, no matter the policy platform or party, will have to decide overall what it means to compete with other states to rewrite the state’s economic future.
Tyler Rossmaessler, CEO of the Flint and Genesee Economic Group, even urged the state to take a page out of Indiana’s and Ohio’s book and glean their best practices for the next economic development model, with a multi-year decision timeline, not “changing policy up and down, left and right every couple years.”
One of his suggestions is to structure the MEDC around Jobs Ohio, which he says has a predictable funding stream “removed from legislative ups and downs.”
However, Jobs Ohio is also private. Rossmaessler said he isn’t sure there needs to be a private arm of economic development though, because they still want to keep it transparent and accountable.
For Havlicek, he said the first step to competing with other states is just a taxes to taxes comparison and creating an economic development approach that lasts for longer than 10 months at a time.
He pointed to Ohio, which has a stable plan until 2050 as the blueprint to the economic future.
When it comes to partnership, businesses and legislators alike hope for more than platitudes after January 1.
While Calley said he was encouraged that has heard a lot of recognition for small businesses across the election cycle, he hopes “that the goodwill towards small business doesn’t fade with the election” and there will “be true dedication and and follow through and actions that show or prove that small businesses are the main event in our economy.”
Martus just wants to see a strategic vision on day one where Benson, whom he believes will win, articulates where she sees the economy now, which is not working, and where it’s going.
“If you think the status quo is working, you should find a different job, so we do need to be bold and to do some big things, and I really do believe for as much progress as we’ve made in the past couple years that there’s going to be (changes),” Martus said.
El-Sayed, Rogers Make Cases for Differing Visions on Economy in Detroit Forum
Both candidates for U.S. Senate made their case Tuesday that the state and country is at a crossroads and a major course correction is needed on economic policies to chart a better path for Michigan residents.
The way to chart that path was where both candidates sharply differed.
Republican candidate Mike Rogers and his Democratic opponent Abdul El-Sayed took turns taking questions before the Detroit Economic Club sharing their opposing visions while taking a few jabs at each other. The two took questions separately from a moderator.
Rogers said the state has lost more than 200,000 manufacturing jobs over the last 25 years, and the state’s median wage is nearly $10,000 less than the national average.
“We have huge challenges,” Rogers said. “Adding more costs, adding more expensive utility bills is not going to solve or answer that. I think we’ve got to go the other way.”
Rogers said ways to lower costs of living include increasing domestic energy production to put downward pressure on gasoline prices and energy costs.
He said tax rates also need to be kept low and then swiped at El-Sayed. Rogers and Republicans have repeatedly contended that economic and healthcare policies backed by El-Sayed would further raise costs on families.
“There’s folks who want to increase taxes generally, number one. Increase taxes on healthcare, number two, which I think is a disaster for our economy and (would) end your healthcare,” Rogers said. “Then you have the problem that they want to undo … no tax on overtime, no tax on tips, no tax on Social Security. Those are powerful tools to keep the economy humming. I think we’ll go back and make sure we do those.”
Federal tax law changes enacted by Congress in 2025 allowed for tax deductions on workers’ tips and exempting taxes on overtime. These, along with an additional senior tax credit, expire Dec. 31, 2028.
El-Sayed criticized large corporations, which he said essentially have monopolies on key markets in the country’s economy and can also have significant influence on politics.
“I think we need to actually start standing up to monopolies and oligopolies and start regulating them so we can get back to a system where there’s competitiveness in a market which of course is essential to any sort of system of capitalism,” El-Sayed said.
He said agencies like the Federal Trade Commission were founded to rein in such things from happening nearly a century ago during the progressive era, but have since been stripped down and allowed large monopolies to again gain sway.
While discussing tariffs, El-Sayed took aim at President Donald Trump, calling his approach nonsensical and “dumb” in their scope and application.
He also repeated an attack used in ads against Rogers, quoting a past comment from a U.S. House debate years ago in which he said he believed the North American Free Trade Agreement would be good for the state and country in the long term.
“If you’re an autoworker, it has not been a good thing for Michigan; we’ve hemorrhaged jobs,” El-Sayed said.
He repeated an analogy he’s used on the campaign trail, comparing major trade deals to cancer and tariffs being like chemotherapy. El-Sayed said in targeted doses it can be effective, but if used all at once is deadly.
“I’m not against tariffs, per se, I’m just against dumb tariffs,” El-Sayed said. “Like all things that Donald Trump does, they are chaotic, they are ham-fisted and they are self-serving.”
El-Sayed said Trump’s approach has been terrible for the auto industry, workers and people who are paying higher costs stemming from large-scale tariffs.
He added that U.S. automakers should create cheap, longer-range electric vehicles with subsidies to help remain competitive with China and not cede the market.
Rogers reiterated his support for undoing the trade war with Canada.
However, he said some tariffs enacted by Trump are good and automotive manufacturing has shown some signs of ramping up and returning to places including Michigan is a positive effect.
“If it’s good for Michigan, I’m going to be for it, and if it’s bad for Michigan, I’m going to be against it,” Rogers said.
He pointed out how tariffs with Canada involving automotive parts is particularly harmful since many parts during the manufacturing process cross national borders several times.
“I don’t know if they didn’t understand that,” Rogers said. “If we don’t fix that part, we’re going to be in trouble. This really is disruptive to the automotive guys.”
Rogers said a solution is simple: elect someone like him who has a good relationship with the president who can set up a meeting, explain the situation and address such problems. He contrasted that with El-Sayed.
“Sending somebody else back that all they want to do is gouge the president’s eyes out is not going to help us,” Rogers said.
As to what can be done in the U.S. Senate to address the lack of skilled workers in the state, Rogers said the state should ensure shop classes should be in every Michigan high school and more should be done to ensure students have access to skilled trades training.
Fixing the state’s literacy issues for students and ensuring they can read at grade level through phonics and other programs so they have the basic skills to succeed later is also critical, he said.
“This is a crisis like I have never seen,” Rogers said. “We all ought to be bothered by this. Any student that gets to the eighth grade and can’t read, it’s shame on us. I think it’s criminal.”
El-Sayed said the issue is skills and lack of equitable investment into public education. Higher education costs have become prohibitive. Additionally, schools have not integrated enough apprenticeship and trades programs.
Put these factors together with other factors including a lack of good-paying jobs and affordable housing, people are going to leave the state.
“If you just invest in skills, what you’re doing is you’re creating very, very marketable young talent, they go somewhere else,” El-Sayed said.
Candidates were also asked about whether artificial intelligence systems development needs to be reined in.
Rogers said guardrails are needed for AI, noting that antitrust provisions prevent AI companies from cooperating with each other on safety concerns.
“I think we ought to tailor a very narrowly-crafted exemption so that you can cooperate on safety,” Rogers said, which he said can help avoid problems developing within AI systems that companies create.
El-Sayed urged a slowdown in the advancement of programs to ensure they do not grow out of control as well as provide for public board membership and government ownership of AI companies and provide assistance to workers whose jobs may be eliminated under AI.
“We need an SEC or FDA-style regulatory agency that can oversee the development of these models to make sure we don’t open Pandora’s box,” El-Sayed said.
Rogers, in his final pitch, said there is a stark difference between the two candidates for the seat.
“If we’re going to get our state right, we have to have everybody included in this forward progress,” Rogers said.
Rogers said El-Sayed and his supporters are pushing for policies that would raise costs and harm the public.
“There are two very different visions,” Rogers said. “They’re talking about big government, government control, more rules, more regulations, another Green New Deal. If you do that, guess what? We are going to continue to ride this thing out to number 50. I have plans to get us to where we’re the envy of the country again. But it’s going to take a little work, a little innovation.”
El-Sayed closed by saying he wants to push policies to help create an economy that works for everyone, not just a select few companies and wealthy individuals.
He said outdated ideas have failed and a new direction is badly needed to chart a new path forward for residents and families.
“I believe in this country,” El-Sayed said. “I know what this country did for me, but I also know we’re a long way away from being our most effective.”
Con-Con Opponents Say Polls Show Reduced Support
The $3 million paid campaign urging voters to vote no on a Constitutional Convention is working, a leader of the group opposing Proposal 2026-1 said during a press event on Monday.
Former Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, Promote the Vote Michigan Executive Director Micheal Davis, Jr., and Detroit Ecumenical Ministers Alliance CEO Rev. Horace Sheffield III were among those speaking in opposition of a Con-Con on Monday hosted by the Detroit Regional Chamber.
Protect MI Constitution from Special Interests organized the press event, with John Sellek, one of the campaign’s leaders, hosting a forum.
Sellek, without providing specifics, said internal polling is showing support decreasing for Proposal 1. He said more information will be released this week.
“We’re seeing it moving the direction that we expected it to,” he said, adding it’s not just the group’s internal polling but other internal polling shows similar results.
A September poll from the Glengariff Group showed 47% of respondents said they would vote yes on Proposal 1 on November ballots.
Sellek said Monday that polling done in the aftermath shows support decreasing rapidly.
“We’re very confident in the messaging that we’ve used in communicating with voters with our $3 million paid campaign, which mostly is on streaming TV and targeted digital and mail, that we’re going to be able to beat this thing,” he said. “It’s just a question of letting voters know first of all that it exists. And secondly, yeah, you’re upset or bothered, but is this what’s going to give you the power to fix things and they change to a no really quickly, because they realize, for all the reasons we heard today, they won’t be able to be in charge.”
Attorneys Face New Reality After Supreme Court Upends Precedent
The Michigan Supreme Court overturned precedent and ruled on decisions this past session that will overhaul the way prosecutors and defense attorneys alike approach certain cases.
Many decisions passed down in the 2025-26 term that ended July 31, changed precedent on how cases could be handled, the evidence allowed to be presented and sent more rounds of resentencing down the pipeline.
Some of the consequential cases included orders to expand double jeopardy protections due to prosecutorial misconduct, probation terms not being able to bar the use of cannabis simply because of its federal status and warrantless DNA testing being considered an unreasonable search.
The biggest difference for defense attorneys is a change in the mental health defense, which allows for mental health to be added into evidence.
The Supreme Court also made decisions that would further burden the courts with continued resentencing, a particular thorn in the side of prosecutors and defenders alike in recent years as they face staffing shortages to handle the amount of cases coming down the pipeline.
This year, the Supreme Court ruled some mandatory life-without-parole sentences for felony convictions before a 1980 court decision are unconstitutional as well as 50-to 75-year-sentences for minors convicted of second degree murder.
Other resentencing cases, such as the juvenile lifers that were resentenced under the 2025 Michigan Supreme Court decisions in People v. Czarnecki and People v. Taylor perpetuated the need for more employees in the State Appellate Defender’s Office and funding to chase all the cases they needed to resentence.
Now, Jessica Zimbelman, deputy director of SADO, said just beginning this resentencing with the parole board should start as soon as possible, as it will be a long-term process and deals with a large population of elderly people.
She said even with a whole host of people sitting in prison with unconstitutional sentences, they struggle finding attorneys to represent people. Finding representation is what she spends most of her days doing, she said, even as she represents three of the felony murder resentencing cases herself.
On the prosecutorial side, Calhoun County Prosecutor Dave Gilbert said the biggest effect from the resentencing is not on the prosecutors themselves, but the victims.
Gilbert said when someone who has been in prison for 20 years gets to have “another bite at the apple,” it dredges up old memories and forces victims to relive traumatic experiences.
“They’re not looking at the victim’s rights. They’re looking at the rights of the suspect,” Gilbert said.
He said this is another example of judges “legislating from the bench.”
Matthew Schneider, former U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan, said since he started working in the Supreme Court in 1998, there is more animosity now than in the past between the justices and the prosecutors. He said the Supreme Court has reversed lots of cases, leading to questions on how they should handle cases going forward.
Gilbert said prosecutors only have a certain amount of time to bring their petitions and investigate the case in resentencing, putting pressure on smaller offices with fewer attorneys or large offices like Wayne County, which has received 400 cases on their desk since the resentencing order.
“We have to show clear and convincing evidence that this person basically cannot be rehabilitated, and how do you do that? That’s quite a burden for us,” Gilbert said.
For the criminal culpability changes based on mental state, the court would allow defendants to bring evidence of legal insanity to be used as a defense.
Justice Noah Hood wrote in the majority opinion that he knew the decision to overturn a ruling in People v. Carpenter “carries with it a deluge of logistical, operational, and funding challenges that will have both immediate and distal impacts on our court” and that “it will create widespread slowdowns in criminal cases, which will affect defendants awaiting trial, victims and witnesses waiting for their day in court, and the public, which has a continuing interest in courts administering criminal cases as quickly as we can do it fairly.”
But, Zimbelman said, the decision really “allows people who are on trial to give the full picture of what’s going on with their particular client to the jury.”
“From the perspective of criminal defense attorneys, it’s a critical piece of evidence that juries have been prohibited from hearing for decades,” Zimbelman said.
However, this is not a total 180-change, but a return to form, in which Michigan had practiced mental illness evidence for 30 years before People v. Carpenter, which she said was wrongly ruled.
She said the only way it complicates any court processes is the addition of more expert witnesses, but she does not see this as a total complication but a “vital protection of our client’s constitutional right to put on a defense.”
There are still details up for debate with a Michigan Court Rule on how to administer the changes currently up for public comment.
Zimbelman also touched on the marijuana use ruling, which abided by the state legalization instead of the federal law. She said the ruling proved the idea that probationary conditions need to be personalized and geared toward rehabilitation, not overruling statute.
“Any time in criminal law we have a bright-line rule that prohibits something without considering the individualized person, that’s a problem,” Zimbelman said.
Gilbert agreed, saying there is no purpose to prohibit something if it was not part of the problem in the first place.
For the DNA case, Zimbelman said it just “makes sense” to her that you need a warrant for “the most personal information.”
Another recent change that has been causing headlines from the Supreme Court is the changes to the Sex Offenders Registry Act, in which the court ruled unanimously to pull sex offenders off the list with crimes pre-dating 2011. The order has led to questions on who would be taken off by the Department of State Police as a result of the order.
Gilbert said the Supreme Court has found it to be an “ex post facto penalty,” and that it isn’t considered part of breaking the law, meaning that person should not be subject to that penalty.
Schneider said the problem of laws consistently changing and prosecutors needing to react to it is not new, but there is work to do to respond to them, especially in cases of sentencing.
There has been an increase in decisions like this that change proceedings though since the pandemic, Schneider said. A lot of these stem from the composition of the court, being more open to resentencing and reform conversations as well as a general approach shift, in which many prisoners were making motions under the compassionate release statute.
Audit: Water Regulators Lagged on Permit Applications
State regulators failed to process water permits in the timeframe required under the law, a new audit found.
The report, released Tuesday by the Office of the Auditor General, flagged delays in the the Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy’s processing of wastewater and groundwater permits. Those permits are overseen by the Water Quality Program in the department’s Water Resources Division.
Auditors’ overall assessment was that the efforts to process permit applications were moderately effective, but the review found that the program “did not always process permit applications within federal or statutory timeframes.”
Auditors found that state regulators missed the statutory deadlines for approving or denying permit applications for 74% of the sample of 25 permit applications reviewed.
EGLE is required under the law to review applications within 30 days for new or increased use permits and within 90 days for renewals. After regulators determine the applications are complete, they are obligated to grant or deny permits by Sept. 30 of the following year for reissuances or within 180 days for new, increased or groundwater permits, according to the audit.
Regulators are required to return the application fee and provide a 15% discount on the annual permit fee when the permits aren’t processed within the law’s required timeframe.
In 20% of the applications reviewed, regulators missed deadlines to perform initial reviews to determine whether applications were complete, the audit found. The regulatory program also did not refund the application fees or discount annual permit fees for the 14 applications auditors identified as not being processed before the deadlines.
Timely processing helps the water regulators “ensure permits provide environmental protection by reflecting the most current scientific information” and can help avoid issuing “application fee refunds or discount annual permit fees,” the audit says.
In its response to auditors, the department said its water division agrees with recommendations that it process permit applications within the federal and legal timeframes and issue refunds and discounts as required.
EGLE spokesperson Dale George in a statement said the agency has made “significant progress” during the last eight years in speeding up permitting and making the process simpler.
“With workload exceeding available staff, we prioritized new projects and expanding facilities to better support economic growth and environmental protection, issuing 89% of permits for these facilities on time,” he said. “The audit’s review didn’t consider this prioritization and focused almost solely on routine renewals that, even when delayed, allow a facility to continue operating. EGLE will continue to pursue the necessary personnel and technology investments to ensure that the agency is appropriately resourced and that these types of choices are no longer necessary.”