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Bills to ban partner benefits for unmarried public employees on the governor's desk


Update Dec. 15, 2011

This statement was released from community leaders today:

"This morning Gov. Snyder asked the Michigan State House to call back House Bills 4770 and 4771 and provide a specific clarification that the colleges and universities are exempt. That means if they do this, he will sign these bills into law the end of today, even if they take away health insurance from LGBT partners and their children of public employees who work for the State of Michigan, city governments, county governments, and public school districts.

While we certainly don't want university employees and their families to be harmed by this discriminatory bill- it's not okay to take away health insurance from the Theresa Bassett's partner Carol and their 6 year old son, Fin. Theresa is a school teacher in Ann Arbor. It's not okay to take away health insurance coverage from Kalamazoo City employee JoLinda Jach's partner, Barbara who suffers from arthritis and early stages of glaucoma. It's not okay to take away health insurance coverage from state employee Deb Harrah's partner, Michelle who has diabetes and a thyroid condition. This is bad policy and will only further hurt Michigan's economy.

CALL GOVERNOR SNYDER'S OFFICE NOW AT 517-335-7858 ([email protected]) AND TELL HIM TO VETO THESE BILLS BECAUSE THEY ARE DISCRIMINATORY AND THEY ARE WRONG. We only have a few hours today to possibly make a difference."

LANSING – A measure to prohibit local and state government from offering health care benefits to unmarried partners of public employees has passed both chambers of the Michigan legislature and is waiting for a signature from Gov. Rick Snyder.
Snyder's office has said he will sign the bill, if they exempt public universities and colleges which are provided autonomy under the state's constitution. Whether or not the bill actually exempt higher education in the state is a question still up in the air. Senate analysts determined the bills would exempt the universities, but House analysts determined the exact opposite.
Regardless of the final legal review and determination by Snyder's office, the pressure is building on the first term Republican to veto the measure.
"Thank you for making your phone calls and sending emails to the governor's office," wrote Jay Kaplan of the ACLU of Michigan LGBT project. "They report being flooded with messages in opposition to HB 4770. However, we are not out of the woods yet by a long shot. We (the ACLU) have read the amended language and at best it is ambiguous about whether or not college and university employees would still be covered. However, that's irrelevant. With or without colleges and universities there are LGBT public employees working for the State of Michigan – the school districts of Ann Arbor, Birmingham and Farmington Hills; the cities of Ann Arbor and Kalamazoo; the counties of Washtenaw, Ingham and Eaton – whose partners will lose their health insurance coverage."
Sen. Majority Leader Gretchen Whitmer (D-East Lansing) slammed the competing legislative reads on the bill in a press statement sent out Thursday after the bill passed the Republican-controlled House.
"It seems like legislative Republicans need to get their stories straight. I don't know if Sen. Jansen misled the public yesterday, whether he was misled himself, or whether one of their caucuses simply doesn't understand the bill they are passing, but any one of those explanations should raise a red flag," says Whitmer. "After springing these bills on us yesterday and ramming them through, it's clear Senate Republicans didn't do their due diligence and fully understand these bills. This kind of 'gotcha' and haphazard legislating is deplorable, especially when these bills have real and immediate consequences for Michigan citizens. I think this legislation is discriminatory and don't support it in any iteration, but it is unsettling to say the least that my Senate Republican colleagues are blindly passing bills without a good grasp on their effects."
The Michigan Civil Service Commission approved health benefits for unmarried state workers in January, leading to an outcry from Republicans. The Senate, which has a Republican super majority, passed legislation to rescind the action of the Commission, but the House failed to garner enough votes to follow suit. Had the House done so, it would have been the first time in Michigan history the legislature had overturned an MCSC decision.
As a result of the legislature's failure to garner the necessary two-thirds majority to overturn the decision, conservative lawmaker Rep. Dave Agema (R-Grandville) introduced the legislation to prohibit benefits for unmarried couples.
Republicans, including the Governor's office, have used varying cost estimates as to the cost of the benefits to state if the MCSC decision were allowed to stand. Those estimates, ranging to the millions of dollars, turned out to be wildly inflated. Of the 33,000 or so eligible employees, only 138 accepted the new benefit, the Detroit Free Press reports.
"Rep. Agema's attack on the Civil Service Commission's extension of benefits is a typical example of creative accounting," says Emily Dievendorf, policy director at Equality Michigan. "The Republican estimated cost has changed multiple times now and all estimates are inflated by millions and millions of dollars compared to the Civil Service Commissions estimate based on the actual number of employees that would opt-in to the benefits for their families. The cost the state will incur from having to defend the attack on our constitution these bills represent would create far more of an expense to Michigan taxpayers than keeping public employees' families healthy."
As a result of the legislation passage, Equality Michigan has lead the way in flooding lawmakers' and the governor's office with message demanding Snyder veto the measure. In addition, students at the University of Michigan launched an online petition to demand Snyder veto the measure. Nearly 500 people had signed the petition by Friday afternoon.
"Governor Snyder prides himself on being a pragmatist moderate. We can assume that, like all of us, he has friends he would do real harm to by approving legislative anti-equality initiatives," Dievendorf says. "The fair-minded in Michigan are just waiting to see if he will be the grown up in the room or cave to partisan politics. We will likely see him clarify his position on fundamental fairness with Agema's benefits bills."
Kaplan of the ACLU says the group has couples lined up and prepared to file suit should the bill be signed into law.
And Karla Swift, president of the Michigan AFL-CIO, tells Between the Lines the legislation is "another attack on workers that won't create a single job."

Go here to sign the petition: http://signon.org/sign/vote-against-public-employee?source=s.fwd&r_by=1488825

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