Lansing’s lame duck session and Democrats’ upcoming legislative agenda

There are no shortage of election cycles in American politics and that means plenty of lame duck sessions. These happen every time there’s an election, with the outgoing legislature working to pass items before the new year.

Michigan just ended a lame duck session last week.  However, this one was particularly lame as not much happened.

“On most things, there’s not a lot of incentive at this point for the governor to bargain with a majority that’s been shown the door, and a lot of new legislators (are) coming in.” — Rick Pluta, reporter

Listen: Why not much happened in the latest lame duck session.

Guests

Jordyn Hermani is a political reporter for MLive. She says Republicans didn’t anticipate not getting anything done in the lame duck sessions because they didn’t foresee being in the minority in the upcoming legislative session.

“I don’t think Republicans thought they would be in this situation following the midterms,” says Hermani. “When they were faced with this concept that they were not going to be continuing to lead these conversations, there was sort of a fission that erupted.”

Rick Pluta is a senior state Capitol correspondent for the Michigan Public Radio Network. He says Governor Gretchen Whitmer did not have much motivation to negotiate deals with Republicans during the lame duck.

 “On most things, there’s not a lot of incentive at this point for the governor to bargain with a majority that’s been shown the door, and a lot of new legislators (are) coming in,” says Pluta.