Muskegon Sun

Sen. Tom Barrett (R-Charlotte), chair of the Senate Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, appeared on the "Frank Beckmann Show" July 9 to discuss a bill he has proposed, which passed through the Michigan Senate and House.

"In the House, his bill that would ban the state and state agencies from punishing whistleblowers -- that's what he wanted to get through so that whistleblowers could tell us what's going on behind the scenes," Beckmann said on his radio show. "In the House, the vote was 108 to nothing in favor of this whistleblower legislation. In the Senate, the vote was 37 to nothing... Guess what? Gov. (Gretchen) Whitmer said, 'Eh, I don't think so.' She vetoed them."

Beckmann was shocked that the whistleblower bills were passed without any no votes. 

Sen. Tom Barrett | #MiSenateGOP

"It was unanimous in the Senate and the House. And the governor says, no, I'm sorry, but I didn't write these, so therefore they're not going to go through and I'm going to veto them," Beckmann said. "I mean, did she give any explanation to any of you?"

Barrett said Whitmer believed the legislation would be working against her, but he said he has worked closely with both Republicans and Democrats to ensure everyone was comfortable with the bills. 

"[The bill] was very similar language to what we put into every single state budget under Gov. (Rick) Snyder," Barrett told Beckmann. "That was never challenged at the time. It was easily passed through the Legislature. It wasn't until 2019 that Gov. Whitmer decided to strike it out of the state budget that I then sponsored this bill to codify it into law permanently, instead of having a place in the budget every year... I was hopeful that the governor would see that this was good policy...  And unfortunately she vetoed it."

Barrett believes part of Whitmer's vetoing the bills was caused by fear that there might be a whistleblower who would speak out against her. Any executive government member would most likely be concerned with any whistleblower speaking out against them, but this shouldn't be something to be feared or punished for. 

"But really fundamentally, we should not be penalizing or criminalizing or in any way discouraging people from coming forward to share credible information with legislators as we're crafting policy and making important decisions for the state of Michigan," Barrett said on the radio show. "I mean, there's no reason why somebody should look at being fired or disciplined at work for sharing their candid views of what's going on in their agency or department with anybody making decisions in our state."

This would be the second time Whitmer has vetoed such laws, which diminishes hope for getting the legislation approved and signed by the governor in the future. Barrett said what needs to be done to make these bills law is to override the governor's veto with a two-thirds vote in the General Assembly. 

"The votes are there; it passed unanimously. I don't see any plausible reason why any of my colleagues would vote no to override the veto after voting yes to support the bill," Barrett told Beckmann on the show. "It just wouldn't make any sense. So I think if we put this up for an override, it should get the same votes that it did the first time. And I'm hopeful that we can make it into law that way."