In The Chair: President
The Senate agreed to the title of the bill.
Senator Irwin asked and was granted unanimous consent to make a statement and moved that the statement be printed in the Journal.
The motion prevailed.
Senator Irwin’s statement is as follows:
I rise to offer some words on this bill. I intend to vote in favor of the bill, but I’m a little confused by some of the dilatory language in this legislation. It strikes me that given the recent announcement by the Secretary of State regarding greeters who are going to be in all offices and are going to be there to assist clients who walk in, the effect of this legislation is going to be zero with respect to that element. In terms of requiring the Secretary of State to not charge late fees for people who are submitting their paperwork late because of everything we’ve gone through over the course of the last year, I think that’s great and I’m going to support the bill for that reason, but all of this business about the 25 hours of in-person, I believe, is completely dilatory and will have no effect, certainly the way it’s written.
I would also point out that requiring these hours does fly in the face of the budget that the Senate just passed. The Senate recently passed a budget for the Secretary of State that reduces their branch operation funding by 6 percent, and in an environment where labor costs are going up, healthcare costs are going up, all costs are going up, while we reduce the Secretary of State’s ability to serve the citizens by 6 percent and now we’re trying to, you know, provide words that urge them to provide better service. If we’re going to throw words at the Secretary of State urging better service, we should also probably provide the resources that make that possible.
The following bill was read a third time:
Senate Bill No. 508, entitled
A bill to amend 2008 PA 23, entitled “Enhanced driver license and enhanced official state personal identification card act,” by amending sections 4 and 6 (MCL 28.304 and 28.306), section 4 as amended by 2020 PA 305 and section 6 as amended by 2020 PA 374.
The question being on the passage of the bill,
The bill was passed, a majority of the members serving voting therefor, as follows: