Dear Friends,

To better serve the people of the 30th Senate District, I will now offer this “Week in Review” that I will be sending out every Monday. I hope you will find it informative about what is happening in Lansing.

I encourage you to contact me with any state issue. You may call 517-373-6920 or email [email protected].  Also, please check out my Facebook page. Let me know if I can assist you in any way or if you have an idea to help move our state forward.

Working for you,
Roger Victory
State Senator

The Senate Elections Committee last week continued to heard testimony on a comprehensive election reform package designed to ensure our elections are fair, honest and accurate.

There is a lot of misleading or inaccurate statements going around about these reforms. Thankfully, the committee is taking its time to fully discuss all the proposals and, if necessary, make improvements. It’s about finding common ground on protecting people’s right to vote and addressing vulnerable or ineffective parts of our elections.

Senate Bills 273, 278, 286, 308 and 334 deal with security of absentee ballot drop boxes, a deadline to turn ballots into the drop boxes, a chain of custody for ballots collected from ballot drop boxes, ensuring proper training regarding the AV ballot signature verification process and extending last year’s pre-processing law so that clerks can begin preprocessing AV ballots the Monday before an election.

SB 311 would allow for the electronic return of absentee ballots by military voters using secure U.S. Department of Defense Common Access Cards. SBs 8 and 9 are not part of the package but are before the committee for consideration. They address electronic absentee voting for military members and their families.

People can click here to watch last week’s Senate committee meeting.

After two days of questions and debate on department budget proposals for fiscal year 2022 – including wading through roughly 100 amendments – the Senate Appropriations Committee approved a budget plan for next year. It now heads to the full Senate, where it could be passed as soon as this week.

Among the 17 budget bills reported by the committee were the general government budget (SB 82) and Department of Agriculture and Rural Development budget (SB 77) – whose subcommittees I chair.

The general government budget includes spending plans for the Legislature, the governor’s office, local revenue sharing, debt service, and the departments of attorney general, civil rights, state, treasury, and technology, management and budget.

The MDARD budget would support Michigan farmers and agriculture producers, protect our natural resources, help our county fairs, continue important research, and fill in the protein processing gaps in our food chain that were exposed during the pandemic.

The 15 other measures include the School Aid budget (SB 83), judiciary budget (SB 81), higher education budget (SB 93) and community colleges budget (SB 94) as well as spending plans for the departments of Health and Human Services (SB 79), Corrections (SB 80), Education (SB 84), Labor and Economic Opportunity (SB 85), Licensing and Regulatory Affairs (SB 86), Insurance and Financial Services (SB 87), Military and Veterans Affairs (SB 88), State Police (SB 89), Natural Resources (SB 90), Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (SB 91) and Transportation (SB 92).

You can click on the bill numbers to read analyses from the nonpartisan Senate Fiscal Agency.

Residents can also watch both hearings online. The shorter first hearing is available by clicking here, and the much longer second meeting is available by clicking here.

May is National Stroke Awareness Month. Here is a graphic with warning signs of someone having a possible stroke. Call 911 immediately if you see someone is having a stroke.

Below is a list of resources available to you if you need any type of assistance. Additionally, you can contact my office at any time for more information.