Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed the state budget into law this week. Although lawmakers missed the July 1 deadline, the budget was finalized earlier than it was last year.
Plus, with less than two weeks until Election Day, Michigan's Democratic U.S. Senate primary race is heating up as early in-person voting begins Saturday.
WKAR Capitol Correspondent Colin Jackson joins WKAR Morning Edition host Melorie Begay to break down some of the week's biggest stories.
Interview Transcript:
Melorie Begay: Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed off on the new state budget this week. Also, the U.S. Senate primary race is heating up just in time for early in-person voting, which kicks off this weekend. These are some of the biggest stories we've been following, and here to break it all down is WKAR Capitol correspondent Colin Jackson. Thanks for being here, Colin.
Colin Jackson: Thanks for having me.
Begay: Let's start with Whitmer signing her final budget before her term ends later this year. She signed both the K-12 budget and funding for the rest of the state government on Tuesday. Colin, what's in these budgets?
Jackson: A lot of the focus came to the school's budget, and that's because you saw a lot of bipartisan support leading up to this to boost more money for teacher training, specifically around what they call LETRS, also known as the science of reading. There's been a big push to get kids caught up on reading, so there was a huge investment in teacher training, some literacy support coaches. These are things that Whitmer has called for. These are things that Democrats and the Senate leadership have called for, that Republicans and House leadership have called for.
Another big thing that's changing this year is just the weighted school funding model, and that can get into the weeds. But really, it just comes down to schools getting extra money to serve kids who may need extra help at the end of the day. This was, again, something where there was some agreement on concept, but not necessarily agreement on how this would play out.
As far as the omnibus budget, there's a few less sexy items here. A lot of this was just kind of continuing what people had fought for in past budgets. You know, this was no secret going into this budget season that the state would have less money to play with, and that it would be tighter, and so you really saw a lot of lawmakers just saying they were proud of the things that they were able to hold on to, like social services, making sure people didn't lose their coverage, people didn't lose their assistance programs.
Begay: The signing of this budget came in well after the the July 1 deadline, but it did come a lot earlier than last year. This was one of the concerns about the timing of when this would happen. Why do you think it came together faster this time around?
Jackson: Well, I think this year is an election year, and it's a lot harder to go home for the summer and start campaigning for re-election when you haven't done literally just the only thing that the state constitution requires you to do as a state lawmaker, and that's pass a state budget. I think that's a big part of it, especially for school groups.
Last year, school groups were very upset having to start their new fiscal year, which starts on July 1, even sooner than the rest of state government, without a state budget. They turned up the pressure last year, and they were kind of left hanging for a while. Last year, there was also a lot of discussions around getting a road deal done, and it was kind of clear that getting a road deal done was one of the main factors holding up a budget last year. There wasn't necessarily that same level of commitment to another big agenda item that was holding up the budget this time around.
Begay: And speaking about campaigning and election season, the U.S. Senate race is heating up between Congresswoman Haley Stevens and former Wayne County health official Abdul El-Sayed. We've seen a lot of high-profile endorsements roll in for both candidates, and as we close in on Election Day, should we expect to see more over the next few days?
Jackson: You've talked about some of the high-profile endorsements. These are people like Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, New York Congresswoman AOC, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez supporting Abdul El-Sayed's campaign.
We've seen the Congressional Black Caucus weigh in in favor of the Stevens campaign. You know, Representative Jim Clyburn being a massive factor in President Joe Biden winning the Democratic nomination in 2020. I think as far as the heavy hitter endorsements we've seen, I think that we've kind of seen them all.
For example, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, she said she's not going to weigh in in some of these races. I would be surprised if she weighed in at this exact point. Then again we heard the same thing from Sen. Gary Peters, whose seat they are running to fill, he ended up endorsing Haley Stevens a few weeks ago. So, never say never, but I think at this point we're getting pretty close and pretty late in the game for these endorsements.
Begay: Yeah, and you know the winner of this race will of course face off against Mike Rogers, who is the lone Republican running for U.S. Senate. Before we get to the November election, we need to get through the primaries, which tomorrow is the first day of early in-person voting.
The Michigan Secretary of State announced this week there is a significant increase in requests and returns for absentee ballots compared to the same time during the 2022 midterms. Do you think we'll see similar turnout tomorrow?
Jackson: I'm curious to see what will happen here. Typically, primary elections are relatively low turnout elections in general. Already, we've seen a little under 2 million absentee ballots sent out. You know, to what you're saying, that over 650,000 of those have already been, I'm not the best at math, but I can tell you that's at least a quarter. That's more than a quarter of those. And again, eight days of early person voting is a chance for a lot of more people to show up.
What I'm looking for during all of this is who shows up, who votes early versus who votes on Election Day, and where those returns and where those early votes are concentrated, because you don't need me to tell you, we've seen TV ads just flood this race left and right. The more people that already vote, the less effective those TV ads are going to be. So that's kind of what I'm looking for on top of the numbers.
Begay: All right, Colin Jackson is WKAR's Capitol Correspondent. Thanks for being here, Colin.
Jackson: Thanks for having me.
This conversation has been edited for clarity and conciseness.
Correction: An on-air version of the story incorrectly identified the Michigan Secretary of State as the U.S. Secretary of State. We regret this error.
