On Wednesday, Michigan House Democrats held a marathon session where they took aim at workers freedom, religious freedom, and second amendment rights all in one day.

The result was a package of bills that repealed Right to Work and pushed anti-business prevailing wage laws, universal background checks for people looking to purchase a firearm, and the expansion of the Elliot Larsen Civil Rights Act to include LGBT people with no stopgap to prevent religious discrimination.

Democrats in the legislature are set to force Whitmer to violate one of her campaign promises, a promise to veto bills controversial bills that have appropriations hidden in them, which effectively makes them referendum-proof.

When the Republican-held legislature passed a Right to Work bill in 2012, union groups engaged in violent protests to prevent the passage of the legislation.

Republicans were not even given a chance to protest the Right to Work repeal as House Democrats put the repeal on the agenda at 8:30PM the night before.

House Democrats included $1 million in appropriations to ‘educate’ Michiganders on the effects of their Right to Work repeal in an attempt to block Republicans from holding a referendum on a measure that was popular among Michigan residents, according to polling.

On the heels of a bill that gave billions in corporate handouts to companies like Ford, Democrats have now repealed right to work to appease their union donors.  As usual, the loser is working and middle class families.

The Detroit News Reports–

“The Democratic-led Michigan House approved a package of bills Wednesday repealing the state’s decade-old right-to-work law and restoring prevailing wage requirements for government contracts, reversing two key policies enacted in the last decade by the previous Republican-majority chambers.

The right-to-work repeal for the public and private sectors includes $1 million in appropriations to make the legislation referendum-proof, a maneuver that Gov. Gretchen Whitmer promised to veto when she took office in 2019. Whitmer has vetoed legislation in the past based on the inclusion of the referendum-proof maneuver. Republicans used the same tool when they passed right to work 10 years ago.

The vote took place after an hour and a half of testimony in four packed committee rooms in downtown Lansing Wednesday morning and, later in the day, below a packed gallery in the House that broke out in applause upon the bills’ passage.

The package of bills gives “union members their power back” to make working conditions safer and more dignified, said Rep. Jim Haadsma, D-Battle Creek.”

 

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