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State Sen. Jeremy Moss briefs Auburn Hills council on revenue-sharing, voting access and FOIA push
Summary
State Sen. Jeremy Moss told the Auburn Hills City Council the legislature advanced measures to boost the earned income tax credit and eliminate the pension tax, and he outlined bills to stabilize revenue sharing, expand voting access and to expand open-records access to state offices.
State Sen. Jeremy Moss delivered a legislative update to the Auburn Hills City Council on April 21, saying the current session has produced measures he called important to families, local governments and voting access.
Moss, who chairs the Senate elections committee, told council members that the Senate passed bills he described as boosting the earned income tax credit, scrapping a pension tax and adopting gun-safety regulations. He said the Senate also passed a budget provision that includes free meals for all public-school students.
"We boosted the earned income tax credit," Moss said. "We scrapped the pension tax, so we were able to turn about a billion dollars and return it back to residents here in our community and throughout the state." He added that the legislature expanded absentee-ballot access and implemented nine days of early voting after a 2022 voter-passed initiative.
Moss described a bipartisan push with another senator to create a revenue-sharing trust fund intended to give local governments a predictable share of state revenue and to smooth budgeting. He said the package included Senate Bills 182 and 183; those bills did not pass the full legislature last session, he said, but discussions are ongoing as the Legislature moves through the appropriation process.
The senator also outlined a series of voting-rights bills he helped craft, including measures to prevent local rules from restricting voters, to enshrine mobility and language-access protections in state law, and to add Arabic for language-access services where appropriate. He said the package would also create a nonpartisan voting-access institute to centralize election data for research.
Moss urged the council to watch state budget developments and noted an open-records push he identified as Senate Bill 1, an effort to allow broader FOIA-style access to some state offices. "Michigan is one of just two states that excludes the governor and the state legislature from FOIA requests," Moss said, and he said he has repeatedly pressed to change that.
Council members thanked Moss and asked questions; Moss left his website (senatormoss.com) for constituents seeking follow-up. The presentation concluded with council members saying they appreciated the update and would follow budget and revenue-sharing developments that could affect Auburn Hills.
