Governor Gretchen Whitmer and the GOP lawmakers are at loggerheads over her surprise executive order to eliminate three state commissions, particularly State Senator and Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey.
“I’m not happy about it because I’ve been on my way to try to identify things that we could work on together. I promised her in our first meeting that I would do my very best to never surprise her even if we will disagree. This was her first opportunity to reciprocate and she didn’t do so” he said.
Shirkey went on to say that the executive order in itself is the governor’s prerogative to utilize. “An executive order for the reorganization in and of itself is not an issue and is certainly within her prerogative,” Shirkey said. “To also include that she’s going to eliminate some laws, basically abolish the implementation of some laws that were passed last year that I believe are important to protecting our environment. That’s just a unilateral decision that I think was inappropriate.”
Shirkey said that the governor still has some explaining to do. “There’s also a couple of very important words in her executive order for reorganization. Those words are ‘environmental justice’. Nothing was offered as to define what environmental justice is, but it could be potentially a very chilling definition. In the process of having committees we will have somebody from her department, or the Governor herself explain what environmental justice means.”
