LANSING — Michigan’s Republican-led Legislature violated the state constitution when it adopted and then quickly weakened minimum wage and paid sick leave initiatives in 2018, a Court of Claims judge ruled Tuesday in a major decision.
The opinion, by Judge Douglas Shapiro, reinstates the original initiatives as drafted by liberal advocacy groups, directing Michigan to increase its minimum wage law to $12 an hour — up from $9.87 — and require thousands of previously exempt small businesses to provide paid sick leave to workers.
“Once the Legislature adopted the Earned Sick Time Act and the Improved Workforce Opportunity Act, it could not amend the laws within the same (two-year) legislative session,” Shapiro wrote in his 25-page opinion.
“To hold otherwise would effectively thwart the power of the People to initiate laws and then vote on those same laws — a power expressly reserved to the people in the Michigan Constitution,” added the judge, who was appointed to the bench in 2009 by then-Gov. Jennifer Granholm, a Democrat.
A spokesperson for the Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity did not immediately respond to Bridge Michigan questions regarding implementation of the 2018 initiatives, which had been advanced via state petition...
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