Lansing — The Michigan House and Senate spent $460,000 on roughly 18 months of litigation tied to the fate of nine controversial bills that Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer eventually vetoed.
The Republican-controlled House, which the Senate sued in February 2025 to force the bills to be sent to the governor, spent more than twice the amount the Democratic-run upper chamber did on attorney fees and costs as the lawsuit worked its way up to the Michigan Supreme Court.
In all, the House reported spending $336,419.48 since January 2025 on legal expenses related to the litigation and the Senate reported spending $124,072.02, according to tallies supplied by the House and Senate business offices.
Neither the House nor Senate provided a breakdown of the hourly costs associated with the litigation. A House spokesman did not return an email seeking information on why the lower chamber’s costs were so much higher than the Senate’s.
State Rep. Mai Xiong, a Warren Democrat whose bill was among those vetoed last month by Whitmer, said she believes the House was “irresponsible” in selecting a firm that would charge so much, let alone that the chamber would continue the litigation for so long.
“This is money that could have gone toward lowering costs,” Xiong said. “This is a significant amount of money over 18 months. And I think they made it clear they were not going to let up, that they would have spent any amount of money to defend their actions.”
The litigation dates back to January 2025, when Republicans, fresh off securing a House majority, stopped the presentation of bills from the prior session just after lawmakers were sworn in and Speaker Matt Hall was elected to lead the chamber.
As Hall took the reins, his new clerk, at his behest, halted the presentation of nine bills that would have allowed communities to levy taxes to support Detroit area museums; allow corrections officers to join the state police pension plan; altered the rules governing debt collection efforts; and required local and state governments to contribute more toward employees’ health benefits.
Hall, R-Richland Township, argued that because the prior House leader, Democratic Speaker Joe Tate of Detroit, failed to present the bills before the close of the prior session, the new Republican majority had no obligation to clean up their failure to present.
Senate Majority Leader Winnie Brinks, D-Grand Rapids, filed an unprecedented suit against the House arguing it had the constitutional duty to present the bills to the governor since they had passed through both chambers of the Legislature. Attorneys involved in the case estimated it was the first time in roughly 200 years that one chamber sued another in Michigan.
The Michigan Court of Claims sided with the Senate, but stopped short of ordering the House to present the bills, out of concern for preserving the separation of powers between the branches of government. The Michigan Court of Appeals also sided with the Senate and ordered the Court of Claims to set a date by which the House had to present the bills to the governor.
The Michigan Supreme Court declined to weigh in on the dispute, which left the Court of Appeals order in place.
On the same day the high court issued its order, Hall ordered the bills be sent immediately to Whitmer, who vetoed them on the grounds that some of the technical implementation language in the bills had become outdated over the 18-month delay.
“Had the House presented these bills to me in a timely manner, as the constitution requires, today would have looked much different,” Whitmer said in her July 10 veto letter.
Senate and House Democrats reintroduced the nine vetoed bills last week, but Hall has demanded large concessions if any sort of deal were to be struck for their passage.
“They’re going to have to make a deal with me to dramatically lower property taxes; cut more waste, fraud, and abuse in the budget; and we’ll look at the hospital cost review board,” Hall said, referring to the House’s $5 billion property tax cut proposal and efforts to curb nonprofit hospital costs.
eleblanc@detroitnews.com
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Senate, House spent $460K on nine bills fight prior to Whitmer veto
Reporting by Beth LeBlanc, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Beth LeBlanc, The Detroit News | USA TODAY Network
