MichiganVotes Weekly Report: September 23, 2022

Senate Bill 184: Impose drinking water safety mandate on schoolPassed 35 to 1 in the Senate on September 20, 2022

To require schools and child care facilities to develop a “drinking water safety plan” that meets detailed standards and reporting requirements, and have at least one “filtered bottle-filling station” for every 100 occupants. State grants would be authorized, but no funding source is specified.

Senate Bill 1081: Stop naming roads after politiciansPassed 27 to 9 in the Senate on September 20, 2022

To no longer name Michigan roads after politicians, living or dead, and instead name them only after individuals who died in service to the state or a local community, or members of the military who were killed or performed acts of great heroism or valor. The bill would assign the duty of naming roads to a state board.

House Bill 5732: Increase spending on some communities' road patrol subsidiesPassed 34 to 2 in the Senate on September 20, 2022

To earmark $15 million in liquor tax revenue to a “secondary road patrol and training fund,” with the intention of increasing subsidies for some local governments that come in the form of having State Police patrol their local roads.

House Bill 5956: Let courts keep imposing building and personnel costs on defendantsPassed 98 to 10 in the House on September 22, 2022

To extend for three more years a law that permits courts to impose a portion of their operating expenses on guilty defendants, such as building maintenance, employee benefit costs and more.

House Bill 6369: Extend driverless car facilitation lawPassed 106 to 2 in the House on September 22, 2022

To extend until 2027 the 2022 expiration of a 2016 law that prohibits local governments from imposing a local fee, registration, franchise, or regulation on an “on-demand automated motor vehicle network” devised for driverless cars.

House Bill 6195: Revise laws to incorporate lessons learned from COVID epidemicPassed 62 to 36 in the House on September 22, 2022

To cap at 28 days the authority of the state health department to impose emergency orders in response to a “menace to public health,” after which legislative approval would be required to extend the order. This is one of a number of Republican bills to add various limits and reporting requirements to state agency emergency response measures.

House Bill 5751: Prescribe standards for “emotional support animal” certificationPassed 108 to 0 in the House on September 22, 2022

To make it a civil infraction subject to fines up to $2,000 for a health care provider to falsely certify that an individual has a need for an emotional support animal, for the purpose of allowing the individual to have an animal on or in property where pets are not allowed. A 2015 law requires the Department of Civil Rights to create credentials and vests for service animals to permit bringing them into a rental unit or public accommodations where animals are not allowed.