Michigan State Legislature

From Ballotpedia

Jump to: navigation, search
Michigan State Legislature


General Information
Type:   State legislature
Term limits:   2 terms (8 years) in Senate, 3 terms (6 years) in House
2012 session start:   January 11, 2012
Website:   Official Legislature Page
Leadership
Senate President:   Brian Calley (R)
House Speaker:  Jase Bolger (R)
Majority Leader:   Randy Richardville (R) (Senate),
Jim Stamas (R) (House)
Minority leader:   Gretchen Whitmer (D) (Senate),
Richard Hammel (D) (House)
Structure
Members:  38 (Senate), 110 (House)
Length of term:   4 years (Senate), 2 years (House)
Authority:   Art IV, Michigan Constitution
Salary:   $79,650/year + per diem
Elections
Last Election:  November 2, 2010
38 seats (Senate)
110 seats (House)
Next election:  November 6, 2012 110 seats (House)
Redistricting:  Michigan Legislature has control

Contents

The Michigan Legislature is the state legislature of Michigan. It is organized as a bicameral institution consisting of the Michigan Senate, the upper house, and the House of Representatives, the lower house. Article IV of the Michigan Constitution, adopted in 1963, defines the role of the legislature and how it is to be constituted. The Michigan Legislature meets in the Capitol in Lansing, Michigan.

Legislative process

Sessions

The Michigan Legislature, according to Article 4 Section 13 of the Michigan constitution, must convene by noon on the second Wednesday in January. The Legislature is at liberty to choose when to adjourn, though all bills carry over into the next session.

2012

See also: Dates of 2012 state legislative sessions

In 2012, the Legislature will be in session from January 11 though a date yet to be determined.

Major issues

For the first time in years, legislators are anticipating an estimated $1 billion surplus. They are expected to consider proposals regarding autism, concealed weapons, elder abuse, mining and ending the personal property tax. Controversial "right-to-work" legislation may also be on the table.[1]

2011

In 2011, the Legislature will be in session from January 12 through mid December. A specific date is yet to be decided by the Legislature. [2] The 348 calendar days that the Michigan Legislature is in session during 2011 is the longest legislative session in the country.[3]

Session highlights

Tax reform

In the 2011 session, Michigan was a key battleground on corporate taxes. Governor Rick Snyder had made promises during his campaign to eliminate the “Michigan Business Tax,” which was costly and difficult to calculate. Governor Snyder delivered, replacing the tax with a flat 6 percent corporate income tax. The state will recover the $1.8 billion in lost business tax revenues with $1.5 billion in higher personal income tax revenues. Current Michigan law requires the state income tax to drop to 3.9 percent by 2015. Governor Snyder's measure keeps the income tax rate at its current 4.35 percent until January 1, 2013, when it will drop to 4.25 percent. During 2011, Michigan also became the first state in more than 50 years to cut state-level unemployment benefits. [4]

Snyder was also able to secure a controversial measure to extend the state's income tax to pensions, a move the governor said would bring $343 million in new revenue during the coming fiscal year. Public employees, who stand to lose about $90 million of the $343 million total, reacted with outrage. The Michigan State Employees Association promised to file a lawsuit to block the pension tax provision, arguing that taxing state employee pensions violated the constitutional prohibition against "impairing or diminishing a vested public pension." Snyder beat employees to the punch, asking the state supreme court to issue an advisory opinion on the issue by October 1.[5]

2010

In 2010, the Legislature convened its session on January 13th, and it remained in session throughout the year.[6]

Senate

The Senate is the upper house of the Legislature. Its members are elected on a partisan basis for four-year terms concurrent with the election of the governor of Michigan. The Senate consists of 38 members elected from single-member election districts. Each member represents an average of 260,096 residents, as of the 2010 Census.[7] After the 2000 Census, each member represented 261,538.[8] Senators' terms begin at noon on January 1 following their election. The Senate chamber in the State Capitol is located in the south wing of the building. Following the 2010 elections, Republicans held a majority of seats in the Senate with 26; Democrats held 12 seats. Under the Michigan Constitution, the lieutenant governor of Michigan serves as President of the Senate but may only cast a vote in the instance of a tie. The Senate selects its other officers and adopts its own rules of procedure at the start of a new legislative session.


Party As of May 2012
     Democratic Party 12
     Republican Party 26
Total 38


House of Representatives

The House of Representatives is the lower house of the Legislature. Its members are elected on a partisan basis for two-year terms at the same time at which members of Congress are chosen. The House of Representatives consists of 110 members who are elected from single-member election districts. Each member represents an average of 89,851 residents, as of the 2010 Census.[9] After the 2000 Census, each member represented 90,349.[10] Representatives' terms begin at noon on January 1 following their election. The House of Representatives chamber in the Capitol is located in the north wing of the building. Following the November 2, 2010 election, Republicans took control of the House, winning 63 seats, while the Democrats won 47. The House of Representatives selects its own Speaker of the House and other officers and adopts its rules of procedure at the start of a new legislative session.

Party As of May 2012
     Democratic Party 47
     Republican Party 63
     Vacancy
Total 110


Legislators

Salaries

See also: Comparison of state legislative salaries

As of 2011, members of the Michigan Legislature are paid $71,865/year. Legislators can use up to $10,800/year for expenses.[11]

The $71,865/year that Michigan legislators are paid as of 2011 is a decrease from a salary of $79,650 from the 2010 session, which was the same as they were paid during legislative sessions in 2007. Per diem is also the same.[12][13]

Terms and sessions

Every two years the entire House of Representatives stands for election, whereas the Senate does so at four-year intervals concurrently with elections for Governor. For reckoning periods of time during which the legislature operates, each two-year period coinciding with the election of new members of the House of Representatives is numbered consecutively as a "Legislature" dating to the first legislature following Michigan's admission as a state.

Each year during which the legislature meets constitutes a "session" of the Legislature. According to the state's constitution, Article IV Section 13, a new session of the legislature begins when the members of each house convene on the second Wednesday of January every year at noon. A regular session of the Legislature typically lasts throughout the entire year with several periods of recess and adjourns sine die in December.

There is no minimum or maximum number of days for which a session of the Legislature must meet each year. Although there is no universal definition as to what constitutes a full-time legislature, the Michigan Legislature is one of only eleven full-time state legislatures in the nation.[14]Michigan's legislators receive a base salary of $79,650 per year which makes them the second-highest paid legislators in the nation, after California. Legislators also receive a $1,000 per month per diem in addition to their base salary. [15] Unlike those states which are considered to have a part-time legislature and whose members are paid only for actual days in session, Michigan's legislators are paid an annual salary regardless of the number of meeting days and are considered to be full-time.

Any legislation pending in either house at the end of a session that is not the end of a legislative term of office continues and carries over to the next legislative session.

Term limits

The electors of the State of Michigan adopted an amendment to the Michigan Constitution in 1992, Section 54 of Article IV, which became effective in 1993. This amendment limits the length of time any individual may serve as a member of the Legislature. Pursuant to this amendment, one may not be elected to the state senate more than two times or to the state house of representatives more than three times. The result of this is that there is now considerable turnover in membership in both houses of the legislature. Formerly, many seats were held by the same office holder, sometimes for decades. Although measures to repeal the term limits amendment have been introduced in both houses since it took effect, none of them have yet reached a vote on the floor of either house or received serious deliberation in the legislature.

Unicameral petition drive

An unsuccessful effort to collect petition signatures was launched in January 2006 by Unicameral Michigan, a ballot question committee registered with the State of Michigan, to provide for an amendment to the state's constitution to change from a bicameral to a unicameral legislature. It failed to qualify for the November 2006 ballot. If the amendment had succeeded, Michigan would have become only the second U.S. state, after Nebraska, to have a single-chambered state legislature.

Joint legislative committees

The Michigan State Legislature has no joint standing committees.

External links

References

  1. ↑ Detroit News, "Michigan Legislature sets priorities in new session," January 12, 2012
  2. ↑ Michigan State Legislature Sessions Schedule
  3. ↑ South Carolina Policy Council "50 State Legislative Session Interactive Map," February 2011
  4. ↑ Stateline.org, States balance budgets with cuts, not taxes, June 15, 2011
  5. ↑ Mlive.com, "Gov. Rick Snyder asks Supreme Court to protect new tax on pensions," June 2, 2011.
  6. ↑ 2010 session dates for Michigan legislature
  7. ↑ Population in 2010 of the American states
  8. ↑ Population in 2000 of the American states
  9. ↑ Population in 2010 of the American states
  10. ↑ Population in 2000 of the American states
  11. ↑ National Conference of State Legislatures, "2011 Legislator Compensation Data"
  12. ↑ National Conference of State Legislatures, "2010 Legislator Compensation Data"
  13. ↑ Empire Center, "Legislative Salaries Per State as of 2007"
  14. ↑ Full- and Part-Time Legislatures, National Conference of State Legislatures, Updated January 2007, Accessed 2007-05-26
  15. ↑ National Conference of State Legislatures
v • d • e
State legislatures
Legislatures
Alabama (H, S) · Alaska (H, S) · Arizona (H, S) · Arkansas (H, S) · California (A, S) · Colorado (H, S) · Connecticut (H, S) · Delaware (H, S) · Florida (H, S) · Georgia (H, S) · Hawaii (H, S) · Idaho (H, S) · Illinois (H, S) · Indiana (H, S) · Iowa (H, S) · Kansas (H, S) · Kentucky (H, S) · Louisiana (H, S) · Maine (H, S) · Maryland (H, S) · Massachusetts (H, S) · Michigan (H, S) · Minnesota (H, S) · Mississippi (H, S) · Missouri (H, S) · Montana (H, S) · Nebraska · Nevada (A, S) · New Hampshire (H, S) · New Jersey (GA, S) · New Mexico (H, S) · New York (A, S) · North Carolina (H, S) · North Dakota (H, S) · Ohio (H, S) · Oklahoma (H, S) · Oregon (H, S) · Pennsylvania (H, S) · Rhode Island (H, S) · South Carolina (H, S) · South Dakota (H, S) · Tennessee (H, S) · Texas (H, S) · Utah (H, S) · Vermont (H, S) · Virginia (H, S) · Washington (H, S) · West Virginia (H, S) · Wisconsin (A, S) · Wyoming (H, S)
2012
2011
2010
2009
Features of
state legislatures
State senates
State houses
Leadership positions
Retrieved from "http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/Michigan_State_Legislature"
Personal tools