Dear Friends and Neighbors,

Welcome to the first edition of my e-newsletter for 2023.

Below you’ll find a legislative update along with some additional resources I hope you find helpful.

Thank you for allowing me to represent you in the Michigan Senate. I am grateful each and every day to work for the people of the 17th Senate District.

In Liberty,

Jonathan Lindsey
State Senator
17th District

I thank you for entrusting me with the responsibility of being your senator, and my office is open and ready to meet your needs.

For people wishing to visit my office in person, we’re located in Room 3500 of the Connie B. Binsfeld Office Building, at 201 Townsend St. in Lansing, across the street and directly south of the Michigan Capitol.

The mailing address is Sen. Jonathan Lindsey, P.O. Box 30036, Lansing, MI 48909. You can also contact my office at 517-373-3543.

Additional information is available on my official website at SenatorJonathanLindsey.com.

As required by the Michigan Constitution, on Jan. 11, the Michigan Senate held its first day of the 2023 regular session. The state’s constitution requires that the Legislature shall meet “on the second Wednesday in January of each year at twelve o'clock noon.” The legislative session ends on Dec. 31, 2024.

My new colleagues and I were sworn in during a ceremony at the state Capitol to officially begin our work for the new term.

It was truly a special moment to have my wife Allison, our two children (and the one who will join us soon), and my parents join me as the legislative session began. I look forward to getting to work and advancing conservative values and solutions for the people of Southwest Michigan.

Just days into the new legislative term and as one of my first acts as a senator, I introduced an amendment that would reduce the state’s personal income tax from its current 4.25% to 0%. This would provide mass relief from the youngest workers to those who are paying taxes on their retirement. It is a pro-growth policy that would rebuild Michigan’s economic foundation, making us a far more competitive and attractive state.

This may be the first time, since our state added the personal income tax in 1967, that an effort has been introduced to simply eliminate it. Not reduce, not phase out, simply eliminate. This was voted down by my Democratic Senate colleagues.

A common question, especially from those hooked on big government, is “how could we afford such a change?” The truth is that the personal income tax has had a devastating impact on our state. Our strongest and best years were prior to the introduction of the personal income tax and by nearly every metric Michigan has seen massive decline since. What we “can’t afford” is continuing the insanity of high taxes in our great state.

Last month, the Department of Natural Resources and Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy planned to reclassify the Prairie River as a cold transitional river. Both agencies planned to move forward on Jan. 12 with a reclassification that could have massively burdened 17th District residents, especially farmers. Their decision would also set a precedent that could have long term impacts across the entire state.

I listened to the community’s concerns and began working with the agencies before session had even begun. I am proud to have helped — along with many constituents and groups like the local road commission and county board of commissioners — delay the reclassification and convince the agencies to take another look. I encourage anyone concerned about this issue to contact my office directly so I can continue to highlight the importance of this issue and encourage the DNR and EGLE to seriously weigh the impact of their decision on communities across the district.

Democrats hastily rushed through their first spending bill in late January. It was originally positioned as a 2022 book-closing supplemental, but the measure quickly became something else. Senate Bill 7 contained $146 million in spending up until mid-January. Through a secretive and broken process, it became seven and a half times higher at nearly $1.1 billion.

Sadly, this bill did pass and has been signed into law. I expressed strong disappointment that Republicans could have used procedure to fight this bloated pork bill but chose not to. I will continue to call for transparency in how your tax dollars are spent, fight against wasteful spending, and urge my Republican colleagues to stand up and fight.

I recently received my Senate committee assignments for the 102nd Legislature.

Committee hearings and the work done behind the scenes by committees are traditionally among the most important aspects of what we do here in the Legislature. Committee hearings give people a chance to come in and share their thoughts or concerns about legislation. These discussions provide a great deal of information and unique insight as to how legislation could affect individual residents or businesses and help committee members make more informed decisions.

If there’s an important bill coming up in any of my committees, you can either testify in person or have a card filled out noting your approval or opposition to a bill. To have a card filled out, contact the committee chair’s office, which I have added a contact link below next to the committee’s name.

My committee assignments are as follows:

I will do everything I can to protect our constitutional rights. I am a strong supporter of the Second Amendment. “Shall not be infringed” is clear and absolute. As your senator, I will not only fight against unconstitutional proposed legislation, but I will also fight to regain lost ground.

Democrats are trying to convince the people of Michigan that they support “retirement tax cuts,” but the reality is that their proposed legislation is narrowly focused to give limited relief only to their favored constituents (especially government employees).

Instead of these bloated and inequitable proposals, I introduced an effort to stop the state from taking people’s money in the first place by repealing the state’s income tax altogether. Unfortunately, Democrats voted against this effort and instead continue to grow state government.

What I oppose, and will continue to vote against, is any measure Democrats propose that is inherently unfair to our seniors, leaving most of them without any tax relief. Don’t be fooled by talking points you may hear in the fake news!

An effort to reduce educational standards and eliminate portions of Michigan’s third grade literacy law was introduced earlier in this term and has now been passed by the state Senate.

Senate Bill 12, as currently proposed, would be problematic for Michigan’s children, especially those in the poorest parts of our state. Now is not the time to modify the reading requirement for students, especially after the massive learning loss caused by the nearly two-year school lockdowns.

Please know I opposed this legislation as it was before the Senate.

The 17th state Senate District includes Branch, Cass, and St. Joseph counties, along with parts of Berrien, Calhoun, Jackson and Hillsdale counties.