LANSING, Mich. (Michigan News Source) – Senate Democrats may be threatening to change the chamber’s long-standing rule on how immediate effect is tallied, but whether they have 20 votes to pass a resolution to make this adjustment is in question.

Back in 2012, one of the House Democrats who sued the House majority over the long-standing policy of “gaveling through” a two-thirds immediate effect vote through a voice vote was now-Sen. Jeff Irwin (D-Ann Arbor).

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Irwin was so passionate about the issue, he logged 17 complaints in the journals, protesting 17 bills that were given immediate effect without roll call votes.

At the time, he said, “I swore an oath to uphold the Constitution, so I’m going to continue reminding my colleagues on both sides of the aisle that it’s important that we follow the rules of the game.”

Irwin went so far as to vote against the appointment of House Clerk Gary Randall in 2013 in protest of what he saw as Randall ignoring a constitutional obligation for one-fifth of the members to be allowed to take roll call votes.

Article 4, Section 18 reads, “The record of the vote and name of the members of either house voting on any question shall be entered in the journal at the request of one-fifth of the members present.”

Asked Thursday if he feels the same way today about immediate effect as he did 10 years ago, Irwin declined to comment.

Technology Issues Kill Senate Video Feed

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In the middle of Senate Minority Leader Aric Nesbitt (R-Lawton)’s speech against the conference report on HB 4001, the video for Senate TV locked up. The spinning wheel didn’t stop and users were unable to refresh the feed for the remainder of the session.

Nesbitt later raised questions about the timing of the technology malfunction, considering the Senate Majority Leader introduced a resolution to change the long-standing rules of the Senate regarding immediate effect shortly thereafter. He said the Democrats have used their majority to skirt tradition for weeks.

“And then when you follow the rules and actually follow through on the rules, they go ahead and turn off the cameras so that people out of the chamber can’t see what’s going on,” he said.

However, Secretary of the Senate Dan Oberlin said the technology team has been working on fixing the session feed, which can get overwhelmed when a large number of viewers join at one time. That’s what happened Thursday.

He assured MIRS nothing nefarious was behind the feed going down and that the full session video was backed up. MIRS watched the archived video Thursday evening.