House Bill 4842, Revise state liquor wholesale rate detail: Passed 33 to 2 in the Senate
To allow liquor makers to get a higher wholesale price if 40 percent of the grain they use is grown in Michigan. Under Michigan’s extraordinarily detailed “liquor control” regulatory regime, the state government is the sole statewide wholesaler of all distilled liquor, and sells to retailers at uniform statewide prices.
34th Dist. State Sen. Jon
35th Dist, State Sen. Curt
VanderWall, R-Ludington, yes
House Bill 5968, Create state “opioid healing and recovery fund”: Passed 89 to 10 in the House
To create a segregated state account (“fund”) to hold money extracted from pharmaceutical companies in lawsuits related to their sales of opioid pain killers, and spend it in a manner consistent with the “judgment, settlement, or compromise of claims” in legal settlements with certain drug producers (called the “Janssen settlement” and the “National Prescription Opiate Litigation”).
100st Dist. State House Rep. Scott VanSingel, R-Grant, yes
101st Dist. State House Rep. Jack O’Malley, R-Lake Ann, yes
Senate Bill 627, Adopt another remonumentation of Michigan-Indiana state line plan: Passed 99 to 0 in the House
To create a Michigan-Indiana state line commission comprised of the county surveyors of Berrien, Cass, St. Joseph, Branch, and Hillsdale counties, to oversee a survey and remonumentation of the Michigan-Indiana state line. This would be paid for from an existing state account that collects fees on recording deeds. It would be the eighth law passed in the past 20 years related to this task.
Senate Bill 258, Mandate newspapers post printed legal notices on free website: Passed 61 to 38 in the House
To require a newspaper in which government legal notices are published to also place these on a section of a website that can be accessed at no charge. Note: Before the internet even most small communities had daily or weekly newspapers, and state laws required them to publish certain local government notices to the public, for which they were paid. As the 21st century advances these laws have been modified to reflect changes in technology and the newspaper industry, with some changes opposed by newspapers previously paid to run the notices.
House Bill 5512, Resolve medical marijuana law/drug court law conflict: Passed 87 to 16 in the House
To clarify that where there are inconsistencies between the Michigan Medical Marijuana Act and certain parts of the revised judicature act of 1961 related to drug treatment courts, the provisions of the latter are the ones that apply. Because the bill amends an initiated law placed on the ballot by a petition drive, amending it requires a three-fourths majority in the House and Senate. The bill addresses an issue in “drug specialty courts” of judges excluding defendants who use “medical marijuana.”
