Michigan’s new Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer hasn’t wasted time making her mark on the state’s government. In her first seven days in office, the governor issued 10 executive directives covering everything from new ethics rules for state employees to requiring pay equity for women working in her administration.
The governor is moving so fast that both the media and Attorney General Dana Nessel commented on the Jan. 8 equal pay directive before the governor’s office had even posted details of the directive to its website.
Gov. Whitmer’s new executive directives also include Directive 2019-01, issued Jan. 2, which requires that “department employees who become aware of an imminent threat to the public health, safety, or welfare must immediately report it to their department director or agency head,” and outlines specific steps that those department heads must take in response to those notifications.
This first directive, an obvious attempt to prevent a Flint-water-style crisis during the Whitmer administration, was heralded by Flint Mayor Karen Weaver. “Governor Whitmer … is empowering employees, often the experts in these situations, with the freedom to use their voice to ensure that public health is a top priority that is taken seriously,” Mayor Weaver said in a Jan. 2 statement to the press. “This is a great step in protecting Michigan residents.”
On Jan. 3, Whitmer laid down new ethics rules for her administration with her next directive, which among other things bans “non-classified state employees from accepting gifts or doing outside work that would conflict with their government duties; from engaging in ‘business transactions’ that would benefit anyone other than the state; and from using confidential state information for personal gain,” according to a Jan. 3 report from the nonprofit Bridge Magazine news service.
Other directives include instructions expanding on executive branch ethics rules; a requirement that the state’s Department of Technology, Management and Budget look for ways to do more business with “geographically disadvantaged” businesses; and the strengthening of prohibitions against anti-LGBT discrimination in state employment, contracting, and provision of services.
Notably, the LGBT protection directive drops an exemption for religious organizations that was present in a similar directive signed by former Republican Gov. Rick Snyder shortly before he left office. According to a Jan. 7 Detroit Free Press report, Gov. Whitmer signed that directive, 2019-09, in an event at the Affirmations LGBT community center in Ferndale.
Whitmer’s administration has been busy on other fronts in addition to issuing directives, which are a series of rules governing the conduct of employees in the state’s executive branch. On Jan. 2, according to Bridge Magazine, Whitmer’s Department of Education said it planned to ask the attorney general’s office for an opinion as to whether a new school evaluation law complies with Michigan’s state constitution. The law, which was among almost 400 passed during the closing days of the 2018 lame duck session, was supported by business groups that included Michigan Charter School Authorizers and the Detroit Chamber of Commerce and opposed by the State Board of Education, Michigan Parents for Schools, and a wide range of organizations representing the state’s education professionals.
On her administration’s second day in office, Whitmer also asked the new attorney general for an opinion on lame-duck legislation to authorize the controversial Enbridge Line 5 oil-pipeline tunnel under the Straits of Mackinac.
One of the governor’s moves—the directive requiring that women serving in state government receive pay equal to that of men working in the same jobs—has even received praise in at least one Republican quarter. According to a Detroit News report, Linda Lee Tarver, the president of the Republican Women’s Federation of Michigan, called directive 2019-11 a “good step.”
Representatives for Gov. Whitmer and Attorney General Nessel did not reply to requests for comment.