- With Michigan’s 2025 legislative year over, House Republicans and Senate Democrats are already talking 2026 policy priorities
- For the Senate, that’s public records reform; in the House, eyes are on revamping school funding and bringing down health care costs
- Whether any of that can be fulfilled remains to be seen as House Speaker Matt Hall says he’s shooting for another year of few laws
LANSING — Hoping to put the partisan drama of 2025 behind them, Michigan political leaders are already looking to the future, offering differing ideas on what they’re itching to tackle come 2026.
For Senate Majority Leader Winnie Brinks, a Grand Rapids Democrat, that priority list includes opening up the Legislature and governor’s office to public records requests, a push House Speaker Matt Hall has so far blocked.
For Hall — a Richland Township Republican who’s eligible for at least four more years in the Legislature — his sights are set on revamping education funding and lowering Michigan property taxes.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, meanwhile, says addressing the state’s literacy crisis will be her top priority during her final year in office.
But in a midterm election year where the state House, Senate and governor’s office will be up for grabs, politics could exacerbate partisan divides and complicate lawmaking, including Hall’s property tax push.
“We’re working on developing a next Proposal A,” Hall said in a recent television interview, referencing the 1994 ballot measure that shifted the responsibility of school funding from local property taxes to the state in order to reduce disparities between wealthy and poor districts.
“I’m looking at potentially two competing proposals” that would give voters a chance to decide how or if they’d like to power property taxes, said Hall, who did not respond to multiple requests for a year-end interview.
The stark difference in priorities for Hall and Brinks headed into 2026 is the latest divide in what has been an unusual year in the Legislature. As of Dec. 8, Whitmer had signed just 35 bills sent to her by the Legislature, the fewest number in modern Michigan history.
That tumultuous relationship between Hall and Brinks came to a head in October, when lawmakers failed to pass a balanced budget by the constitutionally mandated deadline for the first time in 16 years.
It was a low point to the year for Brinks, who told Bridge Michigan during an early December interview the budget process “needs to improve” in 2026 “in order for us to be able to achieve the best product for the state.”
“We would love to see another good, consistent budget get passed on time by the end of June,” Brinks said, “so school districts know what they can expect for their students, and so cities, townships and municipalities understand what they can expect — not to mention anybody else who’s dependent on the state budget.”
A look back on 2025
How good a year 2025 was for the Michigan Legislature depends on who you ask.
Hall, who is entering into his second year as House Speaker, told reporters he was thrilled at the low number of bills passed in 2025 and hoped for a similar pace in 2026.
“I”m really proud of the fact that we’re on a pace set to record for fewest public acts in the history of Michigan,” he said, referencing a recent column claiming the fewest bills ever passed by a Michigan Legislature then signed into law was 89 in 1856.
As of Dec. 8, the House has introduced 1,336 bills, including 23 that also passed the Senate and have been signed into law by Whitmer.
In the Senate, lawmakers have introduced 729 bills, with just 12 making it to the governor’s desk.
Earlier this year, when speaking with Bridge about being on track for the fewest bills passed by a Legislature, Hall noted he was uninterested in taking up “whatever bills the lobbyists propose and running those” but instead was focused on “setting up for later in the term.”
Regarding his working relationship with Brinks, Hall had little to say other than to portray her as indecisive when it came to the state budget process.
Over the course of the year, Hall claimed the poor relationship between the chambers came about after the Senate sued the House because he did not send Whitmer nine bills that had been approved in 2024.
He later also claimed the lack of policy movement stemmed from the Senate not adopting budget-related transparency reforms for lawmakers’ pet spending projects. Senators eventually agreed to a change in late October as part of an $81 billion state budget deal.
But Hall frustrated Democrats again in December when House Republicans used a rare committee maneuver to unilaterally cancel about $645 million in spending that had been approved the prior year, including funding for new moms, Flint water crisis recovery and more.
While Brinks called this year’s budget “decent quality,” she panned the road to getting there as “brutally inefficient and not transparent” and said the year overall was “legislatively… much more chaotic than it needed to be.”
“I’ve been disappointed that it hasn’t been more productive,” said Brinks, adding that the budget process specifically was “much more painful, difficult and time consuming — at all the wrong times, unnecessarily — than it needed to be.”
While she did see some policy wins for Senate Democrats this year — among them, maintaining free breakfast and lunch for Michigan school children and securing another $270 million in funding for RxKids, a cash aid program for moms and babies — Brinks appeared frustrated that more legislation hadn’t crossed the proverbial finish line.
But for 2026, Brinks was bullish, saying she was “always optimistic that there’s room for improvement.”
“I wish we had a better partner over there,” she said, of Hall, “but we will do everything possible to move good policy and do what we can to cover the issues – big and small – that matter to the people that we represent.”
FOIA, property taxes and more in ‘26?
With all the same players in the House and Senate next year — and all of their seats again up for election — 2026 could be another slow year in the Michigan Legislature.
But Whitmer is hoping lawmakers join her in a push to improve literacy rates.
Michigan ranked 44th in the nation for fourth grade reading on a national test in 2024, the National Assessment of Educational Progress.Third grade reading scores reached a new low on state tests too.
“Literacy is not a partisan issue,” Whitmer said in a mid-December speech. “It’s not just a public sector problem. It’s an all hands on deck crisis.”
Outside of passing a timely budget, Brinks says her focus is on reforming Michigan’s Freedom of Information Act laws before her time in office concludes.
Referred to as FOIA, these laws at the federal and state level are considered vital tools to prevent corruption by allowing the public to see internal government documents and communications, including how lobbyists are interacting with state policy makers and how tax dollars are spent.
Michigan and Massachusetts are the only states that do not currently subject their governor or lawmakers to FOIA requests. Senate Democrats introduced legislation to do so, though the move was blocked by Hall despite his past support for the policy reform.
Brinks didn’t go into detail about how she could advance FOIA reform without Hall’s support. Absent legislative action, advocates have floated the possibility of a ballot proposal, though they estimate that could cost millions of dollars.
“I think it’s embarrassing for the state of Michigan that we are last, or nearly dead last, in transparency and ethics ratings. It’s completely unnecessary,” she said.
As for Hall, his sights are set on two large ticket items: Cutting property taxes and creating a commission to regulate hospital prices.
Regarding the former: Hall was scant on details for how he’d like to lower property taxes, other than noting the idea of “potentially two competing proposals” that would head to the ballot for voters to decide on.
Absent a petition drive, putting any property questions on the ballot would require cooperation from Democrats, who could potentially oppose any resulting cuts to schools or local governments that rely on property taxes for some of their revenue.
“One of (the proposals) may deal with sales tax… I’m evaluating a lot of different options,” Hall said, noting the change might “be a shift on how revenue is raised.”
As for the hospital accountability board idea he is floating, Hall said he wants a mechanism “to regulate their price increases,” though he again provided little further detail outside of musing “whether we need fee schedules” in Michigan hospitals.
“It’s out of control…. We have to do something to bring down the cost,” Hall said.
Senate Democrats in 2023 approved legislation to create a Prescription Drug Accountability Board. The proposal did not pass what had been a Democrat-led state House.