LANSING, Mich. (WILX) – You can expect plenty of company as you head to your holiday destination.

AAA predicts a record 71 million people across the country will travel this weekend A record high number of travelers are also expected to hit the roads here in Michigan.

That number, 2.6 million Michiganders expected to travel for Independence Day. This is up from 2.3 million in 2023. And speaking of highs, gas in the state is also up in the state,

According to AAA gas prices are up 16 cents higher from last week. You could pay on average $55 for a full 15-gallon tank of gas. Once you hit the road, Michigan’s Department of Transportation is pausing construction and removing lane restrictions on 60% of projects. Travelers say even so, they’re still expecting slight delays.

“It’s about an hour and fifteen minutes I’m anticipating a little bit of traffic but super excited,” said Bree Minor who’s traveling to Indiana.

“We always anticipate traffic when going up north especially since were usually commuting on Friday’s. But we’re definitely expecting some traffic and to take it slow with closures and things like that. I’m coming from Kalamazoo so i know how bad it is over there right now, so I’m kind of anticipating the same thing,” said Morgan Gillies who’s traveling to Gladwin County.

Before you hit the road, you’ll want to check your tires, battery, and fluids. Prepare a safety kit just in case.

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By Kyle Melinn

You might not have caught the irony of the Michigan Senate passing a proclaimed expansion of the state’s open record law the same night it passed the most secretive budget in modern history, but I did.

Last week, the Senate spiked the football on bills (which aren’t going anywhere in the state House) that would create a bureaucracy designed to reject or heavily redact whatever open records request you might have for the state Legislature or the governor.

Today, you can request financial documents from the House and Senate under their internal rules but little else. Under these bills, you will be able to request financial documents from the Legislature, but not much more outside of a legislator’s public calendar.

Don’t fret over the feeble expansion, though. House members won’t pass it anyway. They have re-elections to win.

I only mention it because it creates the aforementioned irony: The same Senate stayed up until 5 a.m. to pass an $82.5 billion state budget for Oct. 1 to Sept. 30, 2025, that literally nobody with a normal sleep pattern read.

That’s because 1,519 pages of spending didn’t become a public document until five minutes after midnight June 27. At 12:05 a.m, a just-for-show committee met to unveil a public spending measure crafted with literally as much openness as the old redistricting process. 

The committee’s clerk, when asked to explain what were in these 1,519 pages, said, “Due to the lateness of the hour, I’m going to keep this brief.” He proceeded to utter a couple of numbers to a room of about 10 people. A motion was made to pass the document. A vote was taken. The chair pounded the gavel.

Mid-Michigan legislators Angela Witwer and Sarah Anthony, who spent the last few months concocting the whole thing with the governor’s budget office, a few other lawmakers and a bunch of staff scattered before too many questions were asked.

Between 12:05 a.m. and 5 a.m., the full House and Senate passed the budget with light debate. One of the Legislature’s 72 Republicans voted for it. 

Viola! A “bipartisan” budget was passed! While you were sleeping, no less! 

There was no need to look at the spending analyses because unless you’re a nocturnal creature with the sleep habits of a possum, you couldn’t have read it anyway.

That’s your state government working for you in 2024.

Between January and June this year, House Speaker Joe Tate was a broken record on the chamber’s only priority for 2024:  the budget. Tate talked of little else. Last year, the House passed a budget, too, along with a truckload of other policy priorities. This year, it was only the budget.

There wasn’t anything special about this year’s budget. The Constitution requires it, just like the calendar requires Thanksgiving and the Fourth of July.

Michigan government didn’t have a bunch of extra money, nor was the state broke. The only difference is 2024 is this is an election year, and year and Democrats will struggle to keep a majority 56 House seats, especially with a barely functional 81-year-old as their presidential nominee.

So, to recap, the House unveiled and passed its professed No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3 priorities for the ENTIRE YEAR while most normal human beings were asleep. 

More commotion might have been made over this example of bad government had the budget been terribly interesting, but it wasn’t. 

Back in February, the governor said she wanted: 

— A 2.5% foundation allowance increase to public schools. 

— Universal 4-year-old preschool. 

— $1,000 rebates for all new automobiles purchased

—  a Family Caregiver Tax credit of $5,000.

She got none of the above. 

Instead, she got the schools and teachers paying less into their retirement, which the school community panned because the reductions weren’t made permanent.

She also got a few hundred thousand dollars left on the balance sheet she can spend this fall on presumed economic development projects.

Don’t ask which ones. We’ll all find out after the deal is cut and bills are passed. 

During daylight hours, if we’re lucky.

(Email Kyle Melinn of the Capitol news service MIRS at melinnky@gmail.com.)

 Michigan voters have already started casting ballots ahead of the August primary.

Perhaps the biggest contest on the ballot is the Democratic race in the 8th Congressional District.

Last November, incumbent Democratic congressman Dan Kildee surprised many when he announced he would not seek re-election in 2024.

The decision marked the end of decades of Kildee family control of the mid-Michigan congressional seat, and possibly along with it, a half century of Democratic control of the seat representing Flint.

The 8th District, which stretches from Democratic strongholds in Genesee County to solidly Republican Midland County, is seen as a toss-up.

“Hi everybody. Welcome, please feel free to gather round,” a speaker told a small crowd gathered last month on the Saginaw County courthouse lawn to mark the anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.

At the rally, State Sen. Kristen McDonald Rivet (D-Bay City) related the importance of the 8th district race to the abortion debate.

“In this toss-up U.S. House race, we have pro-choice Democrats running against anti-abortion extremists. Period. That is the choice that’s on the ballot,” McDonald Rivet told the pro-choice crowd.

McDonald Rivet is one of three candidates vying for the Democratic nomination in the 8th Congressional primary. The others are state Board of Education president Pamela Pugh and former Flint Mayor Matt Collier.

While each candidate placed reproductive rights as a top issue in November, McDonald Rivet sees the economy as the key issue in the Democratic Party primary.

“We have to talk about our fundamental rights. We have to talk about gun violence,” said McDonald Rivet, “But people really want folks who are going to roll up their sleeves and figure out how to make it easier to live in the middle class.”

McDonald Rivet says congress needs to do more to address the cost of housing, saving for retirement and paying for prescription drugs.

Pamela Pugh announced her plans for the 2024 election early in 2023. But at the time, Pugh’s plan was to run for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by retiring Senator Debbie Stabenow. But plans change. After Kildee’s retirement announcement, Pugh switched her campaign to the 8th district.

Sitting in a Saginaw coffee shop, Pugh discussed what she sees as the top priority in the 8th district Democratic primary.

“Economy, economy, economy.” Pugh said, “It doesn’t matter what neighborhood you’re in. It doesn’t matter what sector I’m talking to. It is about the economy.”

Pugh contends “economic dignity for all” and a family sustaining wage are essential to a good quality of life. She cites investing in education as key to addressing the economy.

Pugh and McDonald Rivet both currently serve in high profile elected offices.

For Matt Collier, it’s been nearly 40 years since he was elected Flint’s youngest mayor back in the 1980s. Since then, the West Point grad has worked in the private sector, as well as the Obama administration.

“My story starts here on the ice in Flint, where you learn how to pick yourself up when life knocks you down,” Collier said in his first TV campaign commercial, showing him playing hockey at a local ice rink.

Sitting in a Flint diner, Collier said keeping the seat, long-held by Dale and Dan Kildee, Democratic is important.

“There’s pressure — but not because of the Kildee family — more because on the Democratic side to retain the seat for this country, for the sanity of this country,” said Collier.

The former mayor said political divisions in Washington has resulted in the current session of Congress being one of the least productive in U.S. History.

Paul Rozycki is a retired political science professor at Mott Community College. The longtime observer of Flint regional politics says the August primary winner may face a significant challenge keeping the eighth district in the Democratic column in November.

“I have a hunch that in many ways you could take a look at the 8th District and see it as a mirror of some of the dissatisfaction that’s rumbling across a lot of the country in the last almost eight years,” said Rozycki.

Rozycki expects the 8th district will be the most competitive race in Michigan this fall.