Sen. Sarah Anthony (D-Lansing) speaks during a NAACP-Divine Nine Advocacy Day in Lansing on May 22, 2024. (Photo: Anna Liz Nichols)
Following the Republican sweep up and down the ticket in the 2024 election, Sen. Sarah Anthony (D-Lansing) chair of the Senate Appropriations committee, says she’s clearing the deck to provide economic relief to voters.
While sitting down with Michigan Advance last week, Anthony shared her priorities headed into the Legislature’s lame duck session, and her thoughts on the state’s budget and appropriations heading into 2025 under a Trump presidency.
“I think that the things that I’m passionate about align with what we heard from voters, which is they’re looking for relief. It’s the economy, it’s the economy, it’s the economy. And the thing that all of us are trying to grapple with is learning the lessons from our constituents,” Anthony said.
First among the priorities Anthony listed were her bill to cap interest rates on payday loans, which passed through the Senate in March, drawing support from Democrats alongside four Republicans who crossed the aisle and voted in favor of the policy.
Senate Bill 632, which currently sits in the House Insurance and Financial Services Committee, caps interest for payday loans at 36%, as opposed to the graduated interest rate which Anthony previously testified could equate to 370%.
It also specifies that any transaction which violates the bill, should it become law, is null, void and uncollectable as far as any principal, fee or charge.
“That is one of my top priorities, because it traps people in a cycle of debt. And that is one area, again, if we’re thinking about relief for working people, it has to include things to get people out of debt, like payday loans,” Anthony said.
Alongside reforming payday loans, Anthony also pointed to legislation within her own committee aimed at bringing the extended age range for the Michigan Reconnect scholarship program into state law.
While the program was initially designed to benefit Michiganders ages 25 and older, the program was temporarily expected to include adults ages 21 to 24. However, this is a programmatic change, not a change in the law, Anthony noted.
“We’re seeing thousands of people now across the state taking advantage of that program. And by lowering the age, we get more people certifications and Associates [degrees], which means they’re prepared for any jobs that are coming to the state. It’s been a game changer for so many people, but I want to make sure that gets codified before there’s a significant swing in political power,” Anthony said.
The bill, Senate Bill 406, was referred back to the Senate floor during the previous meeting of the Senate Appropriations Committee.
As COVID-19 relief funding dries up, locking in this change to the program would be helpful, Anthony said, especially as lawmakers look at future budgets with a lot less funding.
“I know that the governor is, you know, prioritizing economic development and corporate incentives, and my counter to that is, if we are doing incentives for large corporations, we have to be finding real relief for working people,” Anthony said.
Without the one-time funding from COVID-19 relief, lawmakers will have to deal with budgets that are more trimmed back, meaning there will need to be tough decisions, Anthony said.
“I don’t want those decisions to be made on the backs of working families. And so I think that when I’ve had conversations with leadership, they’ve agreed that we need to be giving relief to people. It’s time for common sense economic opportunity pieces for our constituents,” Anthony said.
She also noted she would be remiss if she did not mention work on housing costs as among her personal priorities and those of Democratic leadership.
In addition to maintaining $50 million in funding for the Michigan State Housing Development Authority to address the state’s housing needs, Anthony also pointed to her package of bills — Senate Bills 900–903 — aimed at empowering tenants by allowing them to form a tenant’s union and giving them the right to perform minor repairs on their property and deduct the cost from their rent.
“There’s a ton of red-tagged and pink-tagged properties, which, again, you get kicked out of your home because the landlord can’t get to or doesn’t want to get to, a mold issue, a roofing issue, and you instantly have folks who are now unhoused. That feels like very low hanging fruit,” Anthony said.
With the incoming Trump-administration creating uncertainty at the federal level, Anthony said Democrats need to close the books.
“When you have the incoming President talking about eliminating the Department of Education, that has real implications on the Michigan Department of Education and how many dollars we have to do the work we’re doing,” Anthony said. “In this trifecta, we were able to decide that we were going to feed kids breakfast and lunch every single day, and now we have a president that’s saying we’re going to eliminate the Department of Education.”
In the coming weeks lawmakers need to determine which of Trump’s campaign promises were only intended as red meat for his base, and what they need to put into state law before there is federal change, Anthony said.
With Republicans set to hold a 58-52 majority in the Michigan House of Representatives as well, Anthony called her previous experience working in the minority in the Legislature a blessing, emphasizing her experience in consensus building.
While speaking with reporters following House Republicans’ leadership election on Nov. 7, Michigan House Speaker-elect Matt Hall (R-Richland Twp.) pointed to finding a permanent funding mechanism for the state’s roads and reexamining spending on localized “pork” projects as part of his plan for the upcoming Legislative term.
“I’m looking forward to working with the Republicans to find efficiencies, to try to streamline government, but we will maintain some of the really impactful programs that people are starting to expect like meals for kids in schools, right? So there’s always efficiencies we can find, and I look forward to working with them. I have a lot of respect for my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, so it won’t be a challenge for me,” Anthony said.