Michigan Senator dings House GOP for skipping off to Washington to meet with Trump administration
Senate Majority Leader Winnie Brinks, and Sens. Darrin Camilleri (D-Trenton) and Mallory McMorrow (D-Royal Oak) on the Senate floor on Jan. 8, 2025, the Senate's first day of session for the year. | Kyle Davidson
Several Republican members of the Michigan House of Representatives were in Washington, D.C. this week to meet with members of the Trump administration, which has one state Democratic senator questioning their priorities as the budget deadline looms.
Speaking to reporters following the Senate session on Tuesday, state Sen. Darrin Camilleri said he was disappointed that his colleagues in the House were gone while Senate Democrats were still working. He also laid blame for the slow pace of the budget process at the feet of Michigan House Speaker Matt Hall (R-Richland Township).
'We're here on the floor working hard, not only still figuring out budget priorities and discussions, but we've been working on legislation while House Republicans are in D.C. kissing the ring of the president,' said Sen. Darrin Camilleri (D-Brownstown) in a scrum with reporters following Tuesday's Senate session. 'We have very different priorities, and that's very clear from the contrast this week.'
Camilleri said the goal was to have the two chambers' budgets ready to go by July 1, and the state Senate rose to the occasion by passing its entire budget – including spending plans for schools and higher education – months ago. Meanwhile, the House has only pushed through its education budget. That's left their colleagues in the Senate unaware of their other budget priorities, stymying the negotiation process.
'The span between their budget proposal and ours is about as big as the [Mackinac Bridge],' he said. 'For us to see where they put their priorities, it's only been about increasing costs. They increased costs for retirement. They've increased costs for school operations … [and] university operations.'
Camilleri added that proposed GOP cuts to universal free school meals and preschool will raise costs on families.
The senator said it was troublesome that several members of the House Republican Caucus were in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday to meet with President Donald Trump's administration to talk about the congressional budget bill – and not hashing out their own budget at home.
'The thing I don't understand is what they're hoping to learn out of D.C.,' Camilleri said. 'The budget bill that they passed out of D.C. only makes our jobs harder. It cuts funding to critical services like Medicaid. It puts on the chopping block additional funds that we would rely on to figure out our state budget. I don't know what they're going to get out of that trip, but they are wasting an entire week doing so.'
That said, Camilleri, chair of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on PreK-12, has met with his counterpart in state Rep. Tim Kelly (R-Saginaw Township), chair of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on School Aid and Department of Education. It was an informal breakfast that served as a means to get to know each other better, but Camilleri said if the public school budget negotiations were up to him and Kelly, they could likely have a deal done before July 1.
Camilleri then said that bolstered his belief that Hall was the problem in the process.
'If he were to let [House Appropriations Committee Chair Rep. Ann Bollin] or Tim Kelly do their jobs, I think we could actually get to a deal,' he said. 'I know that [Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Sen. Sarah Anthony] and Chair Bollin have developed a really good relationship the last couple months. Chair Kelly and myself had a great first meeting. I think that there could be some progress here, but because [Hall] has been micromanaging this process from day one, I don't know how we can get a deal if he's not letting his members do their jobs.'
It's not all doom and gloom, though.
Camilleri said there were areas of common ground between the two chambers. He said Hall wants more money funding schools, which the Senate agrees with. The devil is in the details in how that's done. House Republicans passed a public schools budget with many of its past categorical spending on programs like school meals placed into per-pupil funding. Camilleri said the Senate wasn't opposed to wrapping some of those programs up, it was simply a matter of doing that the right way.
Many of the programs that were rolled up into the foundation allowance are things Democrats in the House and Senate care deeply about, Camilleri said, and they fought hard in past budgets when they held all stations of state government to make sure they were funded appropriately.
'Their proposal guts most of them,' he said. 'Are there some things I think we could find ways to just put into a per-pupil allotment? Perhaps. … But gutting the programs like at-risk [student] funding or free school meals, that's just not somewhere where we're going to go.'
Camilleri said it wasn't out of the question for the two chambers to start negotiating by July 1, but he wasn't sure how the entire budget process could be completed by then.
It also wasn't out of the question for the Senate to work through the summer on the budget with their House counterparts, but Camilleri said that if the parties can't get something tangible done by July, he wasn't sure how productive it would be to slog away in August.
'We can come back in September and try again in the fall,' he said. 'But my hope is that if they can get to a target [of] negotiation by July 1, maybe that's the first step of this process. … I'm being optimistic.'
Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Winnie Brinks (D-Grand Rapids) confirmed with reporters after Tuesday's Senate session that she and Hall were meeting on Wednesday to start discussing budget plans.
'I certainly hope that's the main topic,' Brinks said. 'It's June 17. They have still not passed [a full] budget, so I am very eager to make progress there. It's high time that we have those conversations. I am very pleased that he has finally accepted the opportunity to meet and I'm very hopeful that these will be productive conversations.'
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