Jeff Timmer, the one-time executive director of the Michigan Republican Party, told the Advance that he and other former Republicans will petition the Board of State Canvassers at their May 19 meeting to form the Michigan Common Sense Party.
The coalition wants the state to build on Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s MI Healthy Climate Plan, which was developed in 2022 with stakeholders from across the state. Among other priorities, it calls for achieving 100% economy-wide carbon neutrality by 2050.
Such a boost would also allow the Food Bank Council to increase the amount of produce purchased from Michigan farmers, officials say.
Mark Totten, U.S. attorney for Michigan’s Western District, on Thursday announced that four people were charged in federal court for participating in the bribery of Rick Johnson, former chair of the Michigan Marijuana Licensing Board.
Following the sunset of the federal government’s pandemic-related programs like extended unemployment and rental assistance, about 1.3 million Michiganders will receive at least $95 less in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits beginning this month, according to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS).
Garnering uniform support among Democrats and largely condemnation from Republicans, Senate Bills 76–86 would mandate universal background checks for all firearm purchases in Michigan, require that gun owners safely store firearms that could be accessed by minors, and permit a court to order the temporary removal of guns from someone who may be a danger to themselves or others.
With Thursday’s planned signing by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of an expansion of the 1973 Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act (ELCRA), LGBTQ+ advocates are savoring a hard-fought victory and looking ahead to where the fight for equal rights goes now.
Nearly 300 incarcerated Michiganders, currently serving out life sentences for crimes they committed while juveniles without the possibility of parole, may finally be closer to having their sentences reconsidered — more than a decade after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled those sentences unconstitutional.
With Monday morning’s announcement that U.S. Elissa Slotkin (D-Lansing) was officially in the running for U.S. Senate, the race to replace retiring U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Lansing) in 2024 is starting to take shape.
This article is part of Overloaded and (Often) Unpaid, a joint solutions journalism project on caregiving and mental wellness between the Southwest Michigan Journalism Collaborative (of which Watershed Voice is a member) and the New York and Michigan Solutions Journalism Collaborative, a partnership of news and community organizations dedicated to rigorous and compelling reporting about successful responses to social problems. The groups are supported by the Solutions Journalism Network.
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