The motion prevailed.
Senator Irwin’s statement, in which Senators Moss, Santana, Bayer, Polehanki, McCann, Bullock, Wojno, Chang, Hollier and Alexander concurred, is as follows:
I’ll keep it brief. Look, as I said in my previous statement, I think that when we have disasters, when we have emergencies, when people are dying in our state, we need to make sure our public health protections are in place and that doctors and medical professionals and public health professionals are in the driver’s seat, not politicians. We saw how politicians here in the Capitol tried to use this pandemic for political effect, and that put people’s lives at risk. I don’t think we should do that in the future and that’s why I’m saying let’s keep public health professionals in the driver’s seat and keep politicians off the wheel.
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:
As many of you probably know, this bill is a bill to take away power from our public health officials to enact public health protections that are longer than 28 days without coming back to the Legislature for approval. What my amendment would do is say that if, in the preceding 28 days, a thousand or more Michigan residents have died from that emergency, that the emergency can then continue without specific action from the Legislature. If we have an emergency, a disaster, maybe even another pandemic, that is taking a thousand lives every month, this amendment would say that our public health protections would still be in place and our public health professionals would still be the ones in the driver’s seat, not the politicians.
The following bill was read a third time:
House Bill No. 6185, entitled
A bill to repeal 1933 PA 66, entitled “An act to regulate insurance corporations, fraternal benefit and other societies and associations doing an insurance business in Michigan during and under certain emergencies, to extend the powers of the commissioner of insurance over such companies and business in such emergencies; to prevent preferences among policyholders and creditors of such companies in the payment of debts and claims and withdrawals of cash; to preserve the solvency and integrity of such companies during such emergencies for the benefit of all policyholders and other obligees of such companies and societies; and to limit certain legal process and proceedings for the period prescribed herein,” (MCL 550.1 to 550.8).
The question being on the passage of the bill,
The bill was passed, a majority of the members serving voting therefor, as follows: