Senators Hertel, Bullock, Wojno, Alexander, Ananich, Santana and Hollier, under their constitutional right of protest (Art. 4, Sec. 18), protested against the passage of Senate Bill Nos. 600, 601, 602, and 603.
Senator Hertel moved that the statement he made during the discussion of Senate Bill No. 600 be printed as his reasons for voting “no.”
The motion prevailed.
Senator Hertel’s statement, in which Senators Bullock, Wojno, Alexander, Ananich, Santana and Hollier concurred, is as follows:
While this place gets sillier and sillier and while we continue the policy of this body to do nothing to stem the pandemic, that our only strategy is to shut our eyes because we don’t want to see the train coming, it is easy to dismiss these bills as just political rhetoric and nonsense and just ignore it and let it go and forget about giving speeches again and just pretend like this is what this body has become and we’re all OK with that.
But, we have reached a point well beyond that where this body is actually putting Michigan’s citizens in danger. I have now watched for week after week the Health Policy and Human Services Committee and the Education and Career Readiness Committee turn into a place where conspiracy theories, lies, and nonsense reign. That this body—the official record of the Michigan Senate—is being used to espouse things that are absolutely false and dangerous and lead to questions about the basic medical recommendations that will help stem this pandemic. All of us want this pandemic to end. All of us are tired of masks and having to worry about the virus on a regular basis. We’re all tired of it. It’s just that some of us in this body are actually willing to do things that will end the pandemic. Others would rather continue to make political speeches, promote conspiracy theories, and put a place in to allow for dangerous rhetoric to be spread among our state. Again, it would be easy to dismiss this as just political games if it wasn’t so damn dangerous to the future of this state.
I ask that you vote “no” on these bills, not because of the ridiculous policy that’s contained in them that is not needed in any real way, shape, or form, but instead as a rejection of the conspiracy-laden nonsense that this building has become.
The following bill was read a third time:
House Bill No. 5404, entitled
A bill to establish a student opportunity scholarship program for eligible students; to provide for the certification of scholarship-granting organizations; to provide for student opportunity scholarship accounts; to prescribe conditions for use of the funds in the scholarship accounts; to provide for the administration of the student opportunity scholarship program; to prescribe certain powers and duties of certain state officers, agencies, and departments; and to allow certain tax credits and deductions.
The question being on the passage of the bill,
The bill was passed, a majority of the members serving voting therefor, as follows: