Biden signs bill terminating COVID emergency

Congress votes to end emergency a month ahead of scheduled lapse, and White House agrees

April 11, 2023

President Joe Biden signed H.J. Res 7 Monday, a bill to terminate the national COVID emergency that was declared by President Donald Trump March 13, 2020.

Congress presented the bill to Biden earlier this month, even though Biden had said he would let the COVID emergency lapse May 11, when the current authorization expires.

Rather than take Biden’s word for it, Congress voted to terminate the emergency immediately, and Biden signed the bill. The COVID-19 emergency is over.

Read the one-page bill here

Though the U.S. House passed the termination bill 220-197, Michigan’s congressional delegation opposed the bill down party lines. The seven Democrats voted no. They are:

Debbie Dingell, D-Ann Arbor
Dan Kildee, D-Flint
Hillary Scholten, D-Grand Rapids
Elissa Slotkin, D-Lansing
Haley Stevens, D-Birmingham
Shri Thanedar, D-Detroit
Rashida Tlaib, D-Dearborn

The six Republicans voted yes, in favor of termination. They are:

Jack Bergman, R-Watersmeet
Bill Huizenga, R-Holland
John James, R-Farmington Hills
Lisa McClain, R-Bruce Township
John Moolenaar, R-Caledonia
Tim Walberg, R-Tipton

The only member of Congress from Michigan to cross party lines was Sen. Gary Peters, one of 68 senators to vote to terminate the emergency. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, also a Democrat voted no. Peters has changed his position on ending the emergency. He and Stabenow both voted no on a November termination bill that passed the Senate 62-36.

H.J. Res 7 is only the third bill signed into law by Biden in 2023. Public Act 1 disapproves changes in the Washington, D.C., local criminal code that loosened penalties for violent offenses. Public Act 2 declassified intelligence reports on the origins of COVID-19.

The White House made a brief announcement Monday. With Biden’s signature, the emergency ended immediately.

Michigan Capitol Confidential is the news source produced by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. Michigan Capitol Confidential reports with a free-market news perspective.

Michigan teacher relieved to learn she won’t be pushed back into union

Know your Janus rights: Government employees are exempt from forced unionization

By Jamie A. Hope | April 11, 2023

Like many public sector employees, Traci Hopper was unaware that she won’t be forced back into a union after the end of Michigan’s right-to-work law. Hopper has taught in Michigan parochial and public schools for 32 years, and she left the Michigan Education Association soon after Michigan ended forced unionization in 2012.

Hopper currently teaches AP psychology, criminal law and government at Airport High School in Carleton. She also is a sponsor for the YMCA Michigan Youth in Government program, taking students to Lansing, where they engage in a mock senate session.

But even with that concentration in civics, Hopper did not know until Friday that she will retain her right to free association after the repeal of the right-to-work law. While hundreds of thousands of private sector workers will be forced to join and pay unions following the repeal that was pushed through by Gov. Whitmer and legislative Democrats in March, public sector employees are protected under the Supreme Court’s Janus decision.

More than two decades ago, union leadership engaged in a smear campaign to manipulate members, Hopper told Michigan Capitol Confidential. Uncooperative members were subject to rumors spread by union leadership. When Hopper was a witness in a lawsuit involving allegations that union bosses slandered her colleagues, the situation became so tense, she said, that the principal of her school had to assign a police liaison officer in front of the media center where she worked.

Hopper’s husband died, and she remarried. When she moved and started teaching at Airport High School, she was still required by law to pay union dues. Michigan’s right-to-work law had not yet been enacted, while the Supreme Court’s ruling in Janus v. AFSCME was years in the future. Being forced to pay dues, Hopper was determined to stay informed about the union’s doings, and she attended every meeting.

Union leadership’s protection of underperforming or nonperforming teachers, Hopper told CapCon, made it harder on everyone else.

Right-to-work was signed into law in Michigan 2012. She left her union in summer 2013, while the union was negotiating a new contract with her employer.

Hopper was relieved Friday when CapCon informed her of the public sector exemption — though she believes misinformation from the media and organized labor have left many other teachers and public employees ignorant of their rights. The nation’s high court ruled in 2018 that public sector employees are not required to pay union dues as a condition of employment.