Senator McBroom, under his constitutional right of protest (Art. 4, Sec. 18), protested against the passage of House Bill Nos. 4980, 4981, 4982, 4983, 4984, 4985, and 5120 and moved that the statement he made during the discussion of House Bill No. 4980 be printed as his reasons for voting “no.”
The motion prevailed.
Senator McBroom’s statement is as follows:
Thank you for the opportunity to address these bills. As members saw, I tried to make some significant changes to them that I thought were very essential. Across the Upper Peninsula, I have thousands of people who can’t get back into the jobs they’ve had, can’t get a job that’s available, I have employers who are looking for people to work, and yet because of a DUI in the past, they are not able to do this. And yet, we are, in this package, granting expungements for DUIs for marijuana after just four years, but we’re unwilling to do something to help people with DUIs related to alcohol. I find that to be exceptionally unjust and unfair.
Of course, yeah, we could run another bill later. We could work on this later, but I think most of us who have been here have recognized some issues do not sustain well on their own and need to be part of a larger effort. Right now, this opportunity is escaping us. It’s slipping through our fingers to help thousands of people who at some point in their life did something dumb—a lot of times they were kids—and now their whole life is impacted by that. The whole message for why we’re trying to do this expungement package could not be clearer than on somebody who got a DUI 20 years ago when they were 20 years old. To not make provision for that in this package is a terrible injustice and it’s not good for the people who I represent.
That’s why I’m voting “no” on this package. I encourage everyone to vote “no” and send this back until this is fixed. I understand the pressures from various groups who are passionate about alcohol-related offenses and want to just continually throw the book at anybody who ever happened to smell like alcohol in some situation, but that is so narrow in sight compared to all the other things that we’re now offering expungement to, but not this. We’re saying you’re a leper if you’ve got a DUI from alcohol, but everything else we can forgive. I just can’t see why we can’t stand up today against that zealotry and make a fair push for this issue.
I encourage people to vote “no.” Stand up for the workers around this state who are suffering and who can’t get back to work because of some mistake they made decades ago. If you didn’t like the compromise I offered, let’s work out a different one. We can’t get anything done if we let this opportunity slip through today.
The following bill was read a third time:
Senate Bill No. 681, entitled
A bill to amend 1939 PA 288, entitled “Probate code of 1939,” by amending section 18e of chapter XIIA (MCL 712A.18e), as amended by 2018 PA 142, and by adding section 18t to chapter XIIA.
The question being on the passage of the bill,
The bill was passed, a majority of the members serving voting therefor, as follows: