Michigan State Legislature

From Ballotpedia

The Michigan Legislature is the state legislature of Michigan. It is organized as a bicameral institution consisting of the Michigan State Senate, the upper house, and the House of Representatives, the lower house. Article IV of the Michigan Constitution, adopted in 1963, defines the role of the legislature and how it is to be constituted. The Michigan Legislature meets in the Michigan State Capitol in Lansing, Michigan.

Senate

The State Senate is the upper house of the legislature. Its members are elected on a partisan basis for four-year terms concurrent with the election of the Governor of Michigan. The Senate consists of 38 elected from single-member election districts ranging from 212,400 to 263,500 residents according to the most recent creation of districts (2002). Senators' terms begin at noon on January 1 following their election. The Senate chamber in the State Capitol is located in the south wing of the building. As of 2007, Republicans hold a majority of seats in the Senate with 21; Democrats hold 17 seats. Under the Michigan Constitution, the Lieutenant Governor of Michigan serves as President of the Senate but may only cast a vote in the instance of a tie. The Senate selects its other officers and adopts its own rules of procedure at the start of a new legislative session.

House of Representatives

The State House of Representatives is the lower house of the legislature. Its members are elected on a partisan basis for two-year terms at the same time at which Representatives in U.S. Congress are chosen. The House of Representatives consists of 110 members who are elected from single-member election districts ranging from 77,000 to 91,000 according to the most recent creation of districts (2002). Representatives' terms begin at noon on January 1 following their election. The House of Representatives chamber in the State Capitol is located in the north wing of the building. As of 2007, Democrats hold a majority of seats in the House of Representatives with 58, and Republicans hold the remaining 52 seats. The House of Representatives selects its own Speaker of the House and other officers and adopts its rules of procedure at the start of a new legislative session.

Terms and sessions

Every two years the entire House of Representatives stands for election, whereas the Senate does so at four-year intervals concurrently with elections for Governor. For reckoning periods of time during which the legislature operates, each two-year period coinciding with the election of new members of the House of Representatives is numbered consecutively as a "Legislature" dating to the first legislature following Michigan's admission as a state. The current two-year term of the legislature, serving from 2007 until 2009, is the 94th Legislature.

Each year during which the legislature meets constitutes a "session" of the legislature. According to the state's constitution, Article IV Section 13, a new session of the legislature begins when the members of each house convene on the second Wednesday of January every year at noon. A regular session of the legislature typically lasts throughout the entire year with several periods of recess and adjourns sine die in December.

There is no minimum or maximum number of days for which a session of the legislature must meet each year. Although there is no universal definition as to what constitutes a full-time legislature, the Michigan Legislature is one of only eleven full-time state legislatures in the nation.^[1]Michigan's legislators receive a base salary of $79,650 per year which makes them the second-highest paid legislators in the nation, after California. Legislators also receive a $1,000 per month per diem in addition to their base salary. ^[2] Unlike those states which are considered to have a part-time legislature and whose members are paid only for actual days in session, Michigan's legislators are paid an annual salary regardless of the number of meeting days and are considered to be full-time.

Any legislation pending in either house at the end of a session that is not the end of a legislative term of office continues and carries over to the next legislative session.

Term limits

The electors of the State of Michigan adopted an amendment to the Michigan Constitution in 1992, Section 54 of Article IV, which became effective in 1993. This amendment limits the length of time any individual may serve as a member of the Legislature. Pursuant to this amendment, one may not be elected to the state senate more than two times or to the state house of representatives more than three times. The result of this is that there is now considerable turnover in membership in both houses of the legislature. Formerly, many seats were held by the same office holder for sometimes decades. Although measures to repeal the term limits amendment have been introduced in both houses since it took effect, none of them have yet reached a vote on the floor of either house or received serious deliberation in the legislature.

Unicameral petition drive

An unsuccessful effort to collect petition signatures was launched in January 2006 by Unicameral Michigan, a ballot question committee registered with the State of Michigan, to provide for an amendment to the state's constitution to change from a bicameral to a unicameral legislature. It failed to qualify for the November 2006 ballot. If the amendment had succeeded, Michigan would have become only the second U.S. state, after Nebraska, to have a single-chambered state legislature.

External links

• Michigan Legislature
• Michigan House of Representatives
• Michigan Senate
• Michigan House Democrats
• Wikipedia: Michigan Legislature

References

1. ↑ Full- and Part-Time Legislatures, National Conference of State Legislatures, Updated January 2007, Accessed 2007-05-26
2. ↑ National Conference of State Legislatures

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