Capitol & Community Update

Dear Neighbor,

Welcome to my e-newsletter! I’m honored and humbled to serve as our community’s voice at the Capitol in Lansing. As we continue into the term, rest assured that the challenges families in our community and state are facing are at the top of my legislative priorities. Please do not hesitate to reach out to my office by phone at (517) 373-0837 or email at AmosONeal@house.mi.gov if we can help.

Sincerely,

Amos O’Neal

State Representative, 94th House District

In this issue:

Legislation
- HB 4273: Condemnation Notifications
- HB 5017: Juvenile Resentencing Jurisdictional Expansion
- HB 5164-65: Call Center Mobilization

HB 4273: Condemnation Notifications

I am pleased to report that the Senate Committee on Housing and Human Services has passed my bill, House Bill 4273.

This bill will amend the housing law of Michigan by deleting language that allows enforcing agencies to use discretion in notifying owners of violations. This bill adds a requirement for enforcing agencies to notify tenants of any violations rather than having discretion to do so.

Under current law, an apartment complex can be given a violation that, if not corrected by the owner, can result in condemnation. Oftentimes, this condemnation notice is given to tenants with only hours for families to vacate. Requiring more transparency between enforcing agencies and tenants will help keep all tenants safe and better prepare them for emergency circumstances.

HB 4273: Juvenile Resentencing Jurisdictional Expansion

This week, I received a hearing for House Bill 4273, which will allow for the Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC) to offer its usual re-entry services and support opportunities to a select group of individuals whose resentences would lead to immediate release. These resentences are due to a Michigan Supreme Court decision.

The court rulings to ban juvenile life without parole resulted in a few hundred additional prisoners who are currently serving life without parole sentences who may be eligible for release because they were under the age of 19 when they committed their crime. Many of those cases will proceed through the normal parole and re-entry processes in the future, and those individuals will have access to MDOC services in the community to assist with that transition.

Unfortunately, a portion of these cases will immediately discharge from the MDOC because their new sentence will be less than their time served, leaving them to fall outside of MDOC’s jurisdiction; thus, these individuals will not be able to access the re-entry services. These are individuals who need this support the most and the bill I introduced provides that support.

The Legislature solved a similar problem several years ago with the exoneration case when they removed these individuals from the MDOC’s jurisdiction and they couldn’t get vital re-entry services. We addressed that legislatively with Public Act 344 of 2016, and it is needed again with this bill. This will not take any additional funding and is essential to help support some of our most vulnerable with re-entry into our communities.

HB 5164-65: Call Center Mobilization

This week, I introduced two bills that will affect call centers in Michigan. The first bill will halt eligibility for special grants and loans to companies that close down their call center in Michigan and send those call center jobs out of the state. The second bill is a registry that keeps track of those companies that do send those jobs out of Michigan.

There are currently three states that have passed similar legislation. Those are states far separated on the political spectrum that find common ground on similar bills and legislation. We hope that Michigan will become the fourth state to adopt these acts to protect call center worker jobs in the state.