Not Voting—0
In The Chair: Nesbitt
The Senate agreed to the title of the joint resolution.
Senator Barrett asked and was granted unanimous consent to make a statement and moved that the statement be printed in the Journal.
The motion prevailed.
Senator Barrett’s statement is as follows:
I appreciate the opportunity to speak briefly about Senate Joint Resolution G. This is a resolution to amend our State Constitution to protect communication between employees of our state and members here in this legislative body. This is an important reform to really protect that confidential disclosure of information between those that carry out the business of our state and those that assist in governing our state, which are the members here in this body and across the rotunda in the other chamber. I will just point out that it’s important to note we had run this as a policy bill last year and I know there was some concern by members that folks could present knowingly false testimony to a legislator and still be protected by this ability to disclose that confidential information. The amendment before us today specifically says that an employee is not protected if they make a knowingly false statement in his or her communication. So we’ve added that protection. We’ve also carved out the top level political appointees of the Governor as well as the partisan staff here in the Legislature, so if they disclose confidential, strategic information, that would not be protected. This is really intended to protect our civil service employees who have the nuts and bolts understanding of how the operations of the departments are going and what we can do to improve that. Lastly, I just want to thank the Senator from the 11th District and the Senator from the 2nd District for assisting with this effort and co-sponsoring this resolution with me and helping to get this over the finish line .
The following bill was read a third time:
House Bill No. 4728, entitled
A bill to amend 1978 PA 368, entitled “Public health code,” by amending sections 2253 and 2453 (MCL 333.2253 and 333.2453), section 2253 as amended by 2006 PA 157.
The question being on the passage of the bill,
The bill was passed, a majority of the members serving voting therefor, as follows: