Gov. Whitmer vetoes 9 bills hours after Michigan Supreme Court ordered them sent to her desk

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer vetoed a set of nine bills just hours after the Michigan Supreme Court ruled they needed to be sent to her desk for signature.

It's been two years since the set of nine bills passed both the state House and Senate — they should have been transmitted to the governor in early 2025, but the newly elected Republican-led House refused.

"When I hired in, in 1997, there was 1,100 people on the waiting list to be state corrections officers. Now we've got almost 1,000 vacancies statewide," said Ray Sholtz, executive director of the Michigan Corrections Organization.

Sholtz had been advocating for years to improve corrections officers' pensions. CBS News Detroit talked to him before the governor's veto on Friday. He said originally he hoped the bills would help the department retain desperately needed officers. It was a win when bills in this package passed in late 2024, and he said it was a real kick in the teeth when they stalled.

"I know it's hard to believe, but I was almost in tears, you know, going, we finally did something positive for state employees that no one ever thinks about," Sholtz said.

Senate Majority Leader Winnie Brinks said she never got a clear understanding of why the bills weren't sent to the governor.

"We never really got a good reason other than they thought they could," she said. "It's very concerning that anyone would be of the mind that they can just ignore the Constitution. So that was really the core of the conflict between the two chambers on this issue."

House Speaker Matt Hall said in a statement Friday, in part: "My sympathies to the Democrats that they went through all of this work just for the bills to end up vetoed."

In an explanation of why she decided to veto the bills, Whitmer said the effective date on the bills was more than a year ago.

"Implementing these bills retroactively would impose an insurmountable administrative burden on the state and all Michiganders affected. It would give rise to endless litigation," she wrote. "I must regrettably veto these bills. This was political gamesmanship at its worst. Michiganders deserved better from the House."