Now that the dust has settled, I’m back in your inbox with a final report on the 2023-24 legislature: Our wins and losses, the balance of power in the legislature, and what it all means.
Tenant Source of Income protections signed into law
Tenants with housing vouchers, social security, child support income, or other fixed incomes have one fewer barrier to housing, thanks to the new Source of Income protection law. SB 205-207 cleared a final hurdle in the Senate during the Lame Duck session, and was signed by the governor.
Flowers go to Michigan Coalition Against Homeless, who worked on this bill with grassroots and political allies for over 4 years. Rent Is Too Damn High is proud to have played a small role in promoting this bill over the last year and getting it over the finish line in Lame Duck.
House melts down
While most of the Housing Homestretch bills stalled in House committees early in Lame Duck, a couple made it farther.
Eviction Expungement (HB 5238) managed to pass the House altogether, a minor miracle and a credit to our champion legislators who kept pushing for it. The Homeless Bill of Rights (HB 4919) ended up one vote shy of House passage.
Rep. Karen Whitsett of Detroit was the lone Democratic no vote on this bill. She would soon walk out on the session and thus bring the whole proceedings to an embarrassing crash-landing.
Speaker Joe Tate immediately came under withering fire from across the political spectrum, for his failure to hold the caucus together.
As a cherry on top of this s*** sundae, Tate’s House failed to send to the Governor, the handful of bills that did pass the House and the Senate. As of today, it’s unclear whether nine of these bills (priorities of labor, and local governments) will be signed into law.
Senate mops up, but leaves the job unfinished
Following the face-plant in the House, Senate Democrats tried to retain some dignity for their party by pulling an all-nighter in the chambers and passing dozens of bills that the House had left for them.
They deserve credit for making an effort, but only so much. The Senate still left important bills unaddressed when they adjourned for the year after their all-nighter. Most frustrating for us, the Eviction Expungement bill that had passed the House, was ignored by the Senate.
Over the last two years, Democratic Senators presented themselves as the sober and experienced counterparts to their dysfunctional House colleagues. But when it came down to it, the Senate was equally lackadaisical about advancing bills throughout the year. The House served as a convenient excuse for the Senate not to do its job.
Both chambers share responsibility for the fiasco of Lame Duck.
Where’s Whitmer?
Through this drama, the Governor was posting unrelated fluff on Instagram, offering no acknowledgement of the Lame Duck fiasco, or any attempt to rally the party to unity.
Even the Majority Floor Leader, Abraham Aiyash, told the press he did not hear anything from the Governor through the entire Lame Duck period.
Her most public contribution to Lame Duck was only more rancor, when she made an unexpected threat to veto bills if her unpopular corporate handouts didn’t pass.
There was never any plan. The Governor knew that Lame Duck was going to be a mess, that her party had no agreed-upon priorities, and she decided to let it fail.
If you ask me, it looks like she’s just as happy to negotiate on a bipartisan basis with a Republican House Speaker, than attempt the work of uniting a fractious Democratic caucus.
Advocates left furious
It wasn’t just tenants who got left behind by the Lame Duck disaster. It was every single constituency of the Democratic coalition.
Reproductive health advocates…
…and these are just a few of the dozens of disappointed and angry statements I could have shared with you.
All of these groups did things “the right way” — working with bill sponsors and skeptics, being patient, working through the process. They did the things party leaders told them to do, but the leaders turned out to be incapable of delivering.
Tenant power comes from the grassroots
You can bet that our legislative champions and allies will continue to work on tenants rights bills in the legislature. But we need to be real that it’s difficult to envision much passing in the next two years, with an even less favorable balance of power under Republican House control.
What we can say for certain, based on the last two years, is that landlords are organized and powerful throughout the ranks of the political elite, both Democrat and Republican. They’ve had 30+ years to sow their influence without much organized pushback from Michigan tenants.
The answer is for all of us to deepen our local tenant organizing wherever we live. We need to be more numerous, more organized, and even more focused. We need to form tenant associations at the building level, and tenant unions at the city-wide and regional levels. We must become a thorn in the side of unscrupulous landlords and their political allies. And we should equip more tenants to run for local office and win.
This winter, RITDH coalition members are having meetings in Lansing, in Detroit, and around the state to continue their work at the local level. Get (re)connected with your local tenant organization, and let’s keep up the good fight for all tenants!
In solidarity, for good housing for all,
Will