Notebook Page 20 November 2016

November has come and gone leaving on the most unpredictable elections this country has seen in quite some time. The top of the ticket had some impact in Michigan. The only chamber that was up for re-election or election was the House of Representatives. Many around Lansing were saying that the controlling Republicans would lose some seats in the House but will still hold a majority; but as we got closer to the election date that all seemed to change.

Elections:

Federal House:

No real changes in the Michigan House of Representatives in terms of the amounts of Republicans and Democrats that represent Michigan in the Federal House. We did welcome two new lawmakers to the fold with the election of Representative-Elect Maj. General Jack Bergman (Ret.) from the 1st congressional district. He saw a tough election with Democrat Lon Johnson, a former state democratic party chair. The another newcomer to the delegation is Representative-Elect Paul Mitchell from the 10th congressional district. Mr. Mitchell will be taking the reins from Representative Candice Miller. Some of you make remember Mr. Mitchell due to his failed bid to win the Republican primary in Michigan's 4th congressional district in 2014.

State House:

Term limits bring the biannual revolving door of some lawmakers making their way out and new folks making their way back in. The current makeup of the House is 63 Republicans and 47 Democrats. Many in Lansing were thinking that the coat tails of the Republican Presidential nominee would not be able to carry candidates down ticket and that the nominee would actually lose Michigan and Republicans would lose seats in the House. The closer we got to election day we saw things starting to change. There was more activity around the top of the ticket in Michigan and things were starting to move towards the Republicans and they did. Republicans did not lose seats in Michigan nor did they gain any, we saw the same makeup that we are working with now, but there was one major difference, we saw the makeup become more conservative. The more conservative leaning could provide some challenges for us on our issues but not insurmountable.

State Update:

Sandra Westover with her posters.

There are still session days left on the calendar and at the start of December, we have three weeks left to push through our critical issue of Oral Chemotherapy Fairness. During November we asked our ACT leads and others to help us out by providing a visual representation of the people that are affected by oral chemotherapy in one way or another by giving out posters that people could sign to show their support for fairness. ACS CAN along with it coalition members had 20 posters created and spread all around the state.
We will have these on display in the Michigan Capitol on December 6th and 7th along with having a lobby day type activities on both of those days. If you are interested in registering for the event please click here to register. We need your help more than ever with Oral Chemotherapy Fairness, look for action alerts to come your way very soon!.