Governor Whitmer delivered her 7th annual update on Michigan’s progress and needs this last week. We have extended highlights of her presentation. But there’s also important work from the 2024 session hanging over Lansing: the refusal, to date, of newly elected Republican Speaker Matt Hall to send 9 bills enacted by the Legislature to the Governor for signing or vetoing. The state Senate has taken the unusual step of suing the state House and Speaker Hall to force the Speaker to comply with the state constitution’s requirement that the bills go down the hall to the Governor’s office for final action. The lead attorney for the state Senate is former MDP chair Mark Brewer, commenting on the ruling this past week by Court of Claims judge Sima Patel: “We had a great decision from the judge. People should understand the context of this lawsuit. It’s very difficult for legislators to bring lawsuits. particularly against the other house. There’s always questions where they have what’s called standing to even be in court. And then people always throw up, well, this is just a political fight, political dispute, court doesn’t have any business doing that. And so we had to cut through[...]