Legislative Update Special Edition (Election Wrap-Up)

As the election results get finalized, we wanted to pass along to you the unofficial results from the recent election.  As you’re well aware, President Barack Obama soundly defeated Governor Mitt Romney here in Michigan, but here are other noteworthy elections in the state last night:   

·         Senator Debbie Stabenow also scored a strong victory over former Congressman Pete Hoekstra. 

·         The state Supreme Court returned Justices Markman and Zahra to the bench and Democratic nominee Bridget McCormack locked up the third open seat on the court.  The Republicans retained their 4-3 majority on the high court. 

·         All six ballot proposals were defeated.

 

The House Republicans retained their majority by a 59-51 advantage (down from 64-46).  Here are some of the key races highlighted:

·         House District 76 - Representative Roy Schmidt was defeated by Democrat Winnie Brinks. DEMOCRATIC PICK-UP.

·         House District 84 - Republican Dan Grimshaw was defeated by former Representative Terry Brown.  DEMOCRATIC PICK-UP.

·         House District 101 - Representative Ray Franz (Republican) defeated Democrat Allen O’Shea 51%-48%.  REPUBLICAN HOLD.

·         House District 91 - Representative Holly Hughes (Republican) was defeated by Democrat Colleen LaMonte in a razor thin contest by 333 votes.  DEMOCRATIC PICK-UP.

·         House District 57 - Representative Nancy Jenkins (Republican) faces former Democratic State Senator Jim Berryman.  Ms. Jenkins prevailed by over 2000 votes.  REPUBLICAN HOLD.

·         House District 71 - Representative Deb Shaughnessy (Republican) faced a rematch with her 2010 opponent, Democrat Theresa Abed, whom she narrowly defeated. Representative Shaughnessy was defeated by more than 3000 votes. DEMOCRATIC PICK-UP.

·         House District 63 – Republican Speaker of the House Jase Bolger faced Democrat Bill Farmer on Tuesday.  Speaker Bolger survived a scare by 800 votes.  REPUBLICAN HOLD.

·         House District 110 - Representative Matt Huuki faced Democrat Scott Dianda.  Mr. Dianda capitalized on the increased turnout and defeated Representative Huuki by just over 1000 votes.  DEMOCRATIC PICK-UP.

·         House District 52 - Representative Mark Ouimet (Republican) faced Democrat Gretchen Driskell in this that covers parts of Washtenaw County.  Ms. Driscoll defeated Representative Ouimet by over 3000 votes. DEMOCRATIC PICK-UP.

·         House District 39 - Republican Klint Kesto faced Democrat Pam Jackson in this open seat previously held by a Democrat which includes West Bloomfield, Commerce and Wixom in Oakland County.  Mr. Kesto prevailed by almost 3000 votes. REPUBLICAN PICK-UP.

·         House District 25 - Republican Sean Clark faced off against Democrat Henry Yanez in this seat consisting portions of Sterling Heights and Warren.  Mr. Yanez prevailed by just over 1000 votes. DEMOCRATIC HOLD.

·         House District 67 - Republican Jeff Oesterle faced Democrat Tom Cochren in this seat covering southern Ingham County. Mr. Cochren defeated Mr. Oesterle by over 5000 votes.  DEMOCRATIC HOLD.

·         House District 103 - Representative Bruce Rendon faced Democrat Lon Johnson in this seat that includes Kalkaska, Crawford, Missaukee, Roscommon, and Ogemaw Counties. Representative Rendon defeated Mr. Johnson by over 2500 votes.  REPUBLICAN HOLD.

·         House District 108 - Representative Ed McBroom faced Democrat Sharon Gray in this seat covering the Southwest Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Representative McBroom defeated Ms. Gray by over 3500 votes. REPUBLICAN HOLD.

·         House District 70 - Representative Rick Outman (Republican) faced a rematch versus former Representative Mike Huckleberry (Democrat) in this seat that includes Montcalm and parts of Gratiot Counties.  Representative Outman defeated Mr. Huckleberry by just under 3000 votes.  REPUBLICAN HOLD.

·         House District 23 - Representative Pat Somerville (Republican) defeated Democrat Tom Boritzki .  REPUBLICAN HOLD.

·         House District 106 - Representative Peter Pettalia (Republican) defeated Democrat Kenneth Hubbard in this seat covering Iosco, Alcona, Alpena, Presque Isle, and Cheboygan Counties. REPUBLICAN HOLD.

Legislative Update: Primary Wrap-Up

With the elections season for state offices finally kicking off this past Tuesday with the Michigan primary colleagues were pinned against each other and a first happened for Republicans in Michigan. Let’s review the election:

Federal

Senate:

With Senator Stabenow not having a challenger, her primary was warm up for November. On the Republican side of the ticket, it was a different story with four names on the ballot with three only running since Gary Glenn had dropped out putting his support behind Clark Durant. After weeks of super pac ads between Pete Hoekstra and Durant, many voters were happy to see primary day come at last. Durant was only able to obtain 246,560 while Hoekstra got 398,470 votes. Randy Hekman who really was not heard from much in the campaign received 48,742 votes and Glenn who had dropped out snagged 71,614 votes. November sets up for what should be a show down between Hoekstra and Stabenow, where it is seen by most of Michigan's election wonks an uphill battle for Hoekstra.

House:

Let's go through the House races quick:

1st: The first district has one of the few physicians running in elections across Michigan Dr. Dan Benishek who did not face an opponent in the primary will face the same person he did last election, Gary McDowell, former Michigan legislator who did not have a primary contest as well. This sets up for a repeat of 2010.

2nd: The second featured Bill Huizenga who ran unopposed in his primary and is looking to run unopposed in his general election, but Democrats are trying to get the word out to write-in their hopeful for the second.

3rd: The incumbent Justin Amash did not face a primary but will be facing a general election from Stave Pestka. Many Democrats in Michigan and beyond are excited about Pestka and feel that they can switch this district from red to blue in November.

4th: Current Ways and Means chairman Dave Camp will be facing Debra Wirth in the general election in November. Both candidates did not have a primary contest and it is very likely that Camp will continue his work in Washington for the people of the fourth.

5th: The fifth will see another Kildee (Daniel Kildee) on the November ballot and is expected to win handedly in that district. Jim Slezak, former democratic Michigan House member switched parties and will have the opportunity to face Kildee on the November ballot.

6th: The sixth sees a return to 2010 with Jack Hoogendyk facing Fred Upton and the results did not change from 2010. Upton was successful holding off the surge from Hoogendyk by winning the majority of precincts in the district, including Hoogendyk's. Upton will now face a challenge from Mike O'Brien which most are saying will not be too difficult.

7th: Tim Walberg, current member of congress, fought off his opposition Dan Davis by just over a three to one margin. Walberg will not face Kurt Haskell who doubled his vote totals from his opponents.

8th: Mike Rogers faced a challenge from two other candidates but was easily elected to face Lance Enderle in the November general election.

9th: Gregory Dildilian and Don Volaric both were fighting for the right to face Sander Levin in the November general contest. Volaric rose to the top and now faces an even bigger challenge to beat Levin.

10th: Candice Miller found herself without a primary opponent on Tuesday which allowed her to focus on November where she'll face Chuck Stadler who beat Jerome Quinn on Tuesday.

11th: With the voter fraud scandal still ongoing for Thad McCotter, many Republicans were working hard to support write-in candidate Nancy Cassis against Kerry Bentivoli. Those efforts failed with Bentivolio leaving Cassis in the dust at the end of the day. Bentivolio will be facing Dr. Syed Taj, an internist and also endorsed in the primary by MDPAC. This race is set to be another district that the Democrats would like to see turn blue.

12th: The lion of the House John Dingell will be moving on to November and the general election facing Cynthia Kallgren who surpassed Karen Jacobson by just over 350 votes. Dingell is expected to continue his work in Washington after the general election.

13th: The thirteenth had a host of Democrats running trying to unseat John Conyers but none were able to do so. Conyers won handedly and is expected to return to DC for another term after the November election. He will face Harry Sawicki.

14th: Two sitting members of Congress were pinned against each other in this primary along with others but at the end of the day it was Gary Peters who outlasted them all beating current incumbent Hansen Clarke. Peters will now face John Hauler in the general election.

State

The only contests at the state level for the primaries were for the House. Some races had incumbents facing each other leaving competitive primary all around Michigan. Republicans for the first time lost an incumbent with Kurt Damrow falling to the Tuscola county Register of Deeds Dan Grimshaw. With Damrow involved in controversy it was not a surprise to many election watchers that Damrow fall. Grimshaw now has a fight on his hands since he'll be facing former Representative, Terry Brown in November.

The legislature will be one physician short come January 1, 2013 with Dr. Jimmy Womack losing his bid for reelection from a current House colleague John Olumba. The legislature will also be down one nurse with Lesia Liss losing in her bid for a third term to her colleague John Switalski. Other incumbents that lost in elections against their colleagues were Maureen Stapleton and Tim Bledsoe.

As for local races around Lansing, current staffer to Rep. Mark Meadows, Susan Schmidt, was taking on MDPAC endorsed and former East Lansing Mayor Sam Singh. Singh was just too much for Schmidt leaving now Susan McGillicuddy in his way to the State House. In the 93rd House seat with is just north of Lansing, MDPAC endorsed Tom Leonard was able to hold off the valiant effort from Kevin Kirk to make his way to the November general election. Leonard will now face Paul Silva in November.

In the Upper Peninsula Ed McBroom in the 108th district has the possibility of facing a rerun from 2010 when he ran against former House member Judy Nerat. Nerat was not able to overtake her opponent though, Sharon Gray who won by 93 votes. Gray will now face McBroom in the general election.

With all of the controversy some were speculating that Roy Schmidt after changing parties would not be able to make it out of the primary. Many Republicans in the area were working hard to get Bing Goei, candidate against Schmidt in 2010 to run a write-in campaign against Schmidt. Goei did fall short. Schmidt will now face Winnie Brinks, a write-in candidate who did receive enough votes to be considered for the November general election.

Stay with MDPAC to get more information on endorsements and elections around Michigan at http://www.MDPAC.org and get your advocacy news at http://www.msms.org/advocacy.

Legislative Update: Week of May 14th (Election Edition)

Throughout the coming months, MSMS will be doing special editions of the legislative update that is specifically for the elections.  This year Michigan will see Presidential candidates parade through the state with one of Michigan's former sons Mitt Romney pinned against President Obama. Michigan traditionally has been a blue state since the 1990's with Ronald Reagan and most predict the trend will not change, but some say that Romney's ties to Michigan could help sway some voters to cast their vote for one of their own.

On a state level, the House of Representatives sees the action this year, along with justices on the Supreme Court and US Senator Debbie Stabenow looks to face competition what is a field of several candidates on the republican side. Lets review the different races effecting Michigan directly:

US Senate:

Senator Stabenow looks to continue her tenure as one of Michigan's two senators to the US Senate. She currently sits as the chair of the Senate Agriculture committee, a position that has several positives for Michigan. Stabenow sits on quite the campaign nest egg, positing in her last campaign finance filing have almost $7 Million cash on hand, dwarfing any of the republicans candidates hoping to unseat Stabenow.

On the Republican side of the ticket, former US Representative Pete Hoekstra leads the other challengers in the money game by having just over $2.7 Million on hand. Clark Durant is the next hopeful having just under $2 Million in the bank, with the rest of the field still under the $200,000 ceiling. Many pundents say that the possibility of a Republican unseating Stabenow is very unlikely due to the amount of money and clout Stabenow has.

US House:

Lets take a quick look at the US House races around the state:

1st: The first district has Michigan's only physician in congress with Dr. Dan Benishek facing off against this opponent from the last go around Gary McDowell. McDowell a former Michigan House member has once again been recruited to run as the democrat. The district picks up the Northern Michigan stronghold of Traverse City which has been leaning more liberal in years past. This race will be an interesting one to watch.

2nd: Representative Huizenga is running unopposed in his coming election, which will give him the ability to help out his Republican colleagues with their coming elections.

3rd: Representative Justin Amash, Republican,  has two democratic challengers in his coming election. Rep Amash is expected to win being from one of the more conservative districts in Michigan.

4th: Rep. Dave Camp, Chairman of the House Ways and Means committee, will be facing a virtually unknown democratic opponent in November. Rep. Camp is expected to win handily.

5th: With the stepping down of Rep. Dale Kildee in the 5th, this will be one of the open seats in Michigan's congressional races. Dale's nephew Dan Kildee will be seeking the seat on the democratic ticket. For the Republicans, Jim Slezak, who was a member of the Michigan House as a Democrat has switch parties and is now running against Kildee as a Republican. Slezak will have a primary with Tom Wassa.

6th: Long term and Chairman of the House Commerce committee Fred Upton sees a primary challenge from former Michigan House member and former US Senate candidate Jack Hoogendyk. Jack has a unique base that has been compared by some as being similar to Rep. Ron Paul. It is projected that Upton will win the primary but could see some stiff competition from Hoogendyk. Mike O'Brien, a name not familiar with most will be on the Democratic side.

7th: Current Rep. Tim Walberg faces two opponents before he even gets to November. Dan Davis and Mike Stahly have filed as Republicans for the 7th. Who ends up coming out of the primary in August will have to face either Richard Haskell or Ruben Marquez.

8th: Rep. Mike Rogers faces a primary in August from Brian Hetrick and Vernon Molnar. Rogers is expected to come out of the primary the victor facing either Lance Enderle, or Michael Magdich.

9th: Rep. Sander Levin, brother of US Senator Carl Levin, is expected to skate through his election facing either Don Volaric or Gregory Dildilian in this widely blue district.

10th: The 10th features Rep. Candice Miller in a primary-less contest looking forward towards November to face either George Quinn or Chuck Stadler. It's expect that Miller will have a return trip to Washington in this predominately red district.

11th: Rep. Thaddeus McCotter faces a primary this go around with Kerry Bentivolio. McCotter is expected to work his way through the primary to face either William Roberts, or Syed Taj in the general election in November.

12th: The 12th features the Dean of the House, the longest serving member, Rep. John Dingell. Dingell is expected to return to the House passing Daniel Marcin in the primary and either Karen Jacobson or Cynthia Kallgren in the general election.

13th: Rep John Conyers faces a tough primary this coming August with some high profile names in Detroit politics throwing their names in the ring. Michigan Senators Glenn Anderson and Burt Johnson and Michigan House member Shanelle Jackson seek the primary win against Conyers. Other names in this six person primary are Godfrey Dillard and John Goci. Whoever emerges from the primary they will be facing Harry Sawicki, small race compared to the primary.

14th: With redistricting Michigan loses one congressional seat in the US House, which at the end pins two sitting representatives against each other. We find that race here in Michigan's 14th where current Reps. Hansen Clarke and Gary Peters are pinned against each other in the primary. Joining them though are other profile names, Brenda Lawrence, who was the Lieutenant Governor pick for the Democratic gubernatorial ticket last election and Mary Waters a former member of the Michigan Legislature. Out of those, whoever is the winner of the primary will face John Hauler in the November general election.

Michigan House:

With the seats being redrawn due to redistricting many changes have been seen in who lives where and also party changes. One of the biggest surprises in the election happened on Tuesday May 15th, the state's filing day for those wishing to run for elected office where Representative Roy Schmidt a Democrat switched parties at the last minute to the Republican party leaving the Democrats scrambling finding someone to run for his seat. This hasn't happened since Sal Rocca did the same maneuver int he early 90's. The switch, safe to say, left a bitter taste in the mouths of the House Democrats, lashing out at their former colleague for his last minute party switch.

All Detroit members have a primary which isn't unusual for Detroit. Mirs news reports that the last time a Detroit member was unseated in a primary election was in 2002 with Rep. Belda Garza and Steve Tobocman. Surprising many Republicans are facing primarys as well. Some of the Republicans considered vulnerable and are facing a primary this coming elections are: Rep. Paul Muxlow, Rep. Andrea LaFontaine, and Rep. Kurt Damrow who was kicked out of his own county's Republican party due to what some call shenanigans on the part of Damrow.

This year with only the Michigan House up for election, they are seeing the majority of the campaign dollars flow their way. The House Republicans filed their April campaign finance report and had just over $1 Million of cash on hand for the coming elections. The House Democrats being in the minority still had a pretty respectable report by having just under $650,000 cash on hand for the coming election. With just under a month left in the Lansing, House members will be feverishly raising money before they take off for the summer break.

Lets support those that support Michigan physicians! Go to http://www.mdpac.org to help MSMS keep supporters of Michigan phyiscians in the legislature.

Legislative Update: Week of January 23rd

The legislature is back in session starting out what will be a feverish six months of work. The legislative schedule has the lawmakers in session until July 4th, provided the spring break that is in the middle of the schedule block. Issues facing the lawmakers in the coming months are the budget, changes to Michigan's auto no-fault insurance system, health insurance exchange, and others. Lets review the happenings over the past couple weeks:

Revenue Estimating Conference:

Every January and May the House and Senate Fiscal Agencies along with the Michigan Department of Treasury come together to forecast the revenue for the state in the coming year. Michigan has been showing positive but slow growth since the bottom in 2009. Jobs are on the increase with the all three sectors of jobs, high paying, medium paying, and low paying jobs all growing over the past year and also growing faster than the national average. Housing sales and start ups still continue to be sluggish and are forecasted to continue to stay that way in the coming year. Overall though Michigan is finally on its way out of its long recession with revenues starting to pick up and unemployment slowly moving down. General Fund / General Purpose revenues are forecasted to be up 2.5% from last May's projection placing it at just over $9 Billion. School Aide funding though is projecting for a decline losing 4.3% from this current fiscal year but projections are up from the May conference.

State of the State Address:

The Governor in his State of the State address pointed to his dashboard noticing that Michigan is getting more overweight than we were in the previous year. In trying to combat that trend the Governor is creating a program called Pure Michigan Fit which provides nutrition training to parents and caregivers of children at an early age. The Governor plans to partner with the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, The Michigan Health and Hospital Association, and the Michigan Grocers Association to provide the education and resources on nutrition to both parents and children.

House:

The House Health Policy committee had it's last hearing on the health insurance exchanges last Thursday providing the opportunity for those in the general public to address the committee and submit their thoughts about the implementation of a health insurance exchange. The committee was in the House Appropriations chambers, which holds more people, to allow for the number of individuals that wished to testify on the issue.

Senate:

The Senate Health Policy committee did not meet but they did consider one issue. House Bill 4893 on the Senate Floor. This bill provides optometrists the ability to receive a special volunteer license, similar for physicians, and to provide the liability protections offered under the statue. The Senate Health Policy committee has not scheduled a date for an upcoming hearing.