The Michigan Legislature officially ended its session Wednesday, December 28, leaving a host of priorities for next year.
Incoming leadership says monetary policy items, like writing the state’s next budget and increasing tax breaks for low-income workers, are among early goals.
Democratic Senator Winnie Brinks will be her chamber's next leader. She says her caucus will have to be strategic about how it handles being in charge for the first time in nearly four decades.
“We’re going to take a thoughtful approach and make sure that we’re doing things well," Brinks said. "That stuff we’ve introduced in the past is really ready for the moment that we’re in. That it’s not five- or eight-year-old policy that was a good idea then that we kept introducing.”
Brinks says she’s not sure what the first bill her chamber introduces will be. But she’s naming an “earned income tax credit” expansion as one of their top priorities. The “EITC”, as it’s known, offers low-to-moderate income residents a tax break.
"[It's been] important to Democrats for decades," Brinks said. "It’s also something that there are many Republicans who support. So that’s not something that I think is a partisan idea, but it is a big idea and it’s important policy that I think we can get done early."
Other priorities Brinks mentioned include expanding civil rights protections and repealing taxes on retirement income. But Brinks says priorities outside of the budget could take longer than people may hope.
"We’ll be training committee chairs in January, we won’t even be sworn in until the 11th, people’s different positions in terms of whose leading which committee won’t be announced until then," Brinks said. "So sometimes it feels a little bit slow when we get off to the committee process."
Brinks also says she also hopes to see early action on repealing the state’s defunct 1931 abortion ban. It's no longer enforceable under a new constitutional amendment.