Mich. House Says No to Partner Benefits

The Michigan House of Representatives voted Thursday to prohibit public employers in the state -- such as cities, counties, school districts, public universities, and the state itself -- from offering domestic-partner benefits.

The measure was approved by a narrow margin of 55 to 53, with Republicans largely in favor and Democrats against, and forwarded to the Republican-majority Senate, the Detroit Free Press reports.

"It is not the responsibility of taxpayers to support the roommates and unmarried partners of public employees," said Republican state representative Dave Agema, chief sponsor of the legislation. "Providing benefits in this way is not the role of the state, especially when tax dollars are in short supply and there are critical programs being affected by the decrease in revenue." The measure could save the state about $8 million, according to analysts, but no estimate was available for other public entities.

Rep. Jeff Irwin, a Democrat, countered that the bill violates the state constitution's guarantees of local control and university autonomy and called it "clearly unfair and discriminatory," according to the Free Press.

"The legislation was prompted, in part, by a decision from the state Civil Service Commission in January to make domestic partner benefits available to thousands of state employees under an agreement negotiated by the administration of former Gov. Jennifer Granholm," the newspaper reports. The current governor, Rick Snyder, had tried to keep the ruling from going into effect, citing financial concerns, and the legislature sought to overturn it but did not come up with the two-thirds vote necessary to do so.

Snyder, a Republican, had no immediate comment on the legislation that passed Thursday. Even though he has been largely opposed to domestic-partner benefits, earlier this year he vetoed a portion of a university spending bill that would have penalized schools for offering such benefits, citing the constitutional guarantee of university autonomy.

Public entities in Michigan generally offer benefits to both the same-sex and opposite-sex partners of employees, as the Michigan Supreme Court ruled in 2008 that offering them only to same-sex partners violates the state constitution's definition of marriage as a male-female union.