Senator Lindsey’s statement is as follows:
This bill is in regards to registration plates for disabled veterans and I was the only “no” vote on this. I just want to make it clear that I am deeply supportive of our veteran community. I myself am a veteran; I myself actually would qualify under this bill to get a new benefit, I guess, from the state level. I read the legislation, I reached out to a bunch of people who were working on it and was trying to figure out what problem is being solved and how is this working and it seems like this was just a really flawed approach. Why are we passing legislation? The current model is that if you’re 100 percent disabled, you get a certain financial benefit and you’re forced then into putting a disabled veteran plate on your vehicle, which a lot of disabled veterans don’t actually want to do. They might want to say thank you to the state for giving me the opportunity to have a slightly lower fee on something like this, but they might not want to go out and broadcast to the public that they’re disabled veterans.
Now we expand that up to people who are 50 percent disabled and up. They don’t actually get the full financial benefit but if they want to opt into this program, they can get a plate that says “disabled veteran” on it. If people in this chamber—this came from the House—are really serious about saying, Let’s tackle problems for disabled veterans, why don’t we actually sit down and say what’s actually going to help with that. As I said, I myself am a disabled veteran. I know there are several people in the House who are too. I don’t think from reaching out to them and having these conversations anybody sat down and said, How can we actually help the people of Michigan?
I voted “no” because this is something that strikes me as something somebody ran a bill so we can go out and have some publicity saying we’re helping disabled veterans without actually doing so.
Senator Singh moved that the Senate proceed to consideration of the following bill:
Senate Bill No. 803
The motion prevailed.
The following bill was read a third time:
Senate Bill No. 803, entitled
A bill to amend 1994 PA 451, entitled “Natural resources and environmental protection act,” by amending section 43525c (MCL 324.43525c), as amended by 2021 PA 6.
The question being on the passage of the bill,
The bill was passed, a majority of the members serving voting therefor, as follows: