State Representative Pauline Wendzel says the legislative session that just ended was a whirlwind of partisan bills from Democrats that left Republican ideas in the dust.
Wendzel’s back in the district until January now that the session has wrapped up. She tells us the Democrats didn’t waste any time pushing their priorities when they took control in Lansing.
In particular, she has an issue with energy legislation requiring Michigan to get 100% of its electricity from renewable sources like wind, solar, and nuclear by 2040.
“I call it the Green New Dream or the Brownout Bundle, or however you want to word it,” Wendzel said. “It’s an energy package, a complete rewrite of Michigan’s energy laws that will now make us the most extreme not only state in the nation…but we will now be up there with the most extreme countries in the world.”
Wendzel says the end of the session was especially busy.
“It’s unsettling. In the last two weeks of session, just the last two weeks, we pulled some numbers and we voted on 195 bills in just those two weeks, and of those bills only 14% of them were Republican bills. Of that 14%, most of those bills were highway naming bills, things from somebody’s district where someone’s passed away and they’re doing a memorial.”
Wendzel is hoping things change, at least for a while, in January, when Democrats will lost control of the state House. That’s because two representatives have moved on. The House will be split until special elections can be held in the affected districts, which is likely to be in May.
Wendzel’s hoping with an even split at least for a few months, something can be done to dial back the energy bills. She’s also hoping to work on broadband legislation.
