Senators Prusi and Gleason, under their constitutional right of protest (Art. 4, Sec. 18), protested against the passage of House Bill No. 5596 and the adoption of the first conference reports on Senate Bill Nos. 981 and 926 and House Bill Nos. 4787 and 4788.
Senator Prusi’s statement, in which Senator Gleason concurred, is as follows:
I know there is going to be a lot said and done about this education reform package that we have worked on here, and much will be made in the media about the fact that the Senate Minority Leader and a number of his caucus members voted "no" on this. The rhetoric will come out that we stood in the way of reforming Michigan’s education system and that we put at risk the potential for $400 million to $600 million of federal money, but nothing could be further from the truth. There were a number of reasons why I voted "no" and why my members also voted "no."
Chief among them is we want to see reform on the education system here, but I believe and members of my caucus believe that there was a lot of stuff thrown into this mix that has nothing to do with Race to the Top and has nothing to do with actually reforming our education system. It is simply a philosophical position that the majority caucus has taken over the years and was never able to accomplish until we ginned up a crisis in education, and we ginned up a sense of urgency over federal money. We still had a lot of time to work on these reforms. We still had weeks and weeks until the applications were due.
This was rushed through in a sense of urgency that I don’t believe merited us stumbling around here for three days when we could have been working over the past few weeks to get this done. We could have done it in a normal time frame. We would not have had to be here on the Saturday before Christmas rushing through this most sweeping reform in 20 years. I saw no need for us to do it in the fashion that we did.
So part of my objections to these bills was the philosophical differences between the caucuses on it and the misunderstanding that these were necessary to achieve success in our application process for the hoped-for, not guaranteed, $400 million of federal money.
The second reason, why I voted "no" has to do with the process. Throughout the years and as long as I have been here—and that is over 13 years now—and in talking to people who have been here a whole lot longer than I was and have been here a lot longer in history, the protocol and the custom is when there are items of difference on bills between the caucuses and between the chambers, the Minority Leaders are allowed to name conferees, or at a minimum, are consulted on conferees. That was totally ignored in this process.
Today, after stumbling around for three days and waiting and waiting and waiting for these critical pieces of legislation to arrive, we were given 15 minutes in our caucus room to discuss with staff the intricacies and the complexities of the most sweeping reforms that are being done in 20 years.
Within 15 minutes, the majority was out here voting on another piece of legislation. That shows an ultimate disrespect for the deliberative nature of this body. We want to work with people to make the changes necessary in this state, but we will not be forced. We will not be pushed. We will not be ramrodded or steamrolled by a majority who has the votes and says let’s just start casting votes. That is disrespectful. It ignores custom, and it ignores protocol. This is a deliberative body. I said this when we were doing the budget; yet, we ignore the deliberations, and we treat this like it is your way or no way at all. You have 85 percent of what you wanted in this package of bills, and you treat us like the red-headed stepchild and shoved in the corner. That is going to change, my friends. That is going to change. There are going to be some things done in the year ahead. We have one year left. I have one year left in this body, and I will not be treated disrespectfully in the year ahead.