Michigan Votes Forum

Introduced in the Senate on November 14, 2006, to impose a 48 month lifetime limit on cash welfare payments to able-bodied recipients (with a number of exceptions), and establish recipient tracking, work and training requirements that conform with the limit. A one-year extension could be granted under certain conditions. Sanctions would be imposed on recipients who fail to comply with work and training requirements (three months of no benefits for the first two failures, and one year for a third violation). The bill establishes more exceptions to the sanctions and the four-year cap than previous time limit legislation vetoed by Gov. Jennifer Granholm. Exceptions include mothers of a child less than age three, people who are temporarily disabled, or when the county unemployment rate exceeds nine percent. The four-year cap would not be retroactive. Recipients could also earn more by working without losing benefits than under current law

The vote was 22 in favor, 16 opposed and 0 not voting

(Senate Roll Call 768 at Senate Journal 91)

Click here to view bill details.

for quality control purposes

Senator Johnson, under her constitutional right of protest (Art. 4, Sec. 18), protested against the passage of Senate Bill No.1501. Senator Johnson's statement is as follows: Back in the early '60s when my sister's husband, brilliant man that he is and was, decided to rob--armed robbery--a music store. He got caught in the music store, gun in hand, looking for the guitar of his choice. Brilliant, right? Well, it turns out, unbeknownst to my sister, this was the man's second offense. He had already spent five years in prison, so now he was about to spend another five to ten. My sister's pregnant with her second child. She never finished her first year in high school. Okay, so much for the Dickey family. Anyway, as my sister applied for welfare as a result of not having any income and being pregnant, the state of Illinois did as follows. Now this is called real welfare reform. They visited my dad. He spray painted machines for a living. The poor guy constantly qualified for some sort of assistance but refused to take it. That's probably where the Republicanism comes with me, but in any event, there's dad alone, widowed, and living in his one and a half room basement apartment on the southside of Chicago. Clearly, he cannot help her. Had he been able to, had his income been decent enough, he would have been required by the state of Illinois to help support my sister, but he couldn't. So then the state of Illinois knocked on our door. Now Cliff and I are living in Evergreen Park in Illinois in an attic apartment, one room, kind of divided. You could barely move in the john; I mean move around. Cliff was going to law school, and according to Lyndon Johnson, Clifford and I, who were both working at the time, lived under the poverty level, or just at the poverty level because we were at $3,000 annually. He was at school, I was working, and the mother-in-law took care of our son. It is quite clear that a number of individuals who end up on welfare have families--same with Medicaid, as a matter of fact--but they have families who could help bail out that individual. Why not do that first? Why not see if there isn't some family member who can help that individual before you kick her off and her children starve?