It’s not easy being a progressive these days. Republicans control the House of Representatives and are threatening to tank the economy by refusing to raise the debt limit. The Supreme Court, after having overturned Roe v. Wade and set an impossibly high standard for new gun control legislation, looks primed to undo President Joe Biden’s student loan relief. And at the state level, it seems not a day goes by that a red-state legislature doesn’t pass new laws targeting LGBTQ people or imposing new mandates on schoolteachers.
But not all is lost, liberal America — Michigan has your back.
The Wolverine State is not normally where progressives look for hope. But since Democrats formally took control of both houses of the Legislature in January — after a clean sweep of all statewide races, from governor to attorney general, in last fall’s midterm elections — Michigan has quickly become a contender to be America’s wokest state.
In Utah, Mississippi and Tennessee, Republican-dominated legislatures are passing laws banning gender therapies for trans kids under age 18. But in Michigan, the Legislature is moving in the opposite direction. It recently voted to amend the state’s civil rights law to ban workplace, housing and other forms of discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. The legislation was decades in the making, but it became possible only because of the Democratic sweep last fall.
In those midterm elections, Michigan voters overwhelmingly backed Proposition 3, which enshrines a right to abortion in the state constitution — and this month, legislators voted to repeal a 1931 state law criminalizing the use of abortion drugs.
It’s not just on social issues where liberals are scoring huge wins. On Tuesday, the state Senate gave unions a huge victory by voting to reverse a GOP-passed 2012 right-to-work law that allowed workers to opt out of paying union dues. (The House voted to repeal the law last week.) In the process, Michigan became the first state to scrap a right-to-work law since the 1960s. In addition, on a straight party-line vote, Democrats in the state House voted to repeal another Republican-passed law and re-establish the state’s prevailing wage law, with the Senate expected to follow suit. The bill would require contractors on state projects to provide their workers with union-level compensation and benefits.
And this month, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (a possible 2028 presidential candidate) signed a law expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit and restoring tax exemptions for pensioners. The Michigan League for Public Policy estimates that the more generous EITC benefit will provide $750 in savings for eligible families.
Finally, in the wake of last month’s mass shooting at Michigan State University, which left three students dead and five wounded, Democrats are poised to enact a raft of gun safety provisions, including expanded background checks, safe storage laws and red flag laws. Much of the legislation was written and proposed in 2021 after a mass shooting at a high school in a Detroit suburb. But those bills were blocked by Republicans, who controlled the Legislature. Now, with Democrats in charge, they have a good chance of becoming law.
The progressive revolution isn’t just restricted to Michigan. In Minnesota, Democrats flipped the Senate in November to complete a governing trifecta. Since January, Democrats have passed laws guaranteeing the right to abortion, providing drivers licenses to undocumented immigrants, requiring state utilities to go carbon-free by 2040 and banning race-based hair discrimination.
More progressive bills may soon be on the way to Gov. Tim Walz’s desk. Voting rights legislation, which would make registration automatic, restore voting rights for felons, allow pre-registration to vote and increase campaign finance transparency, appears likely to pass after having stalled in committee when Republicans were in control. The House has also passed legislation to mandate that employers provide their workers with sick leave — and Walz and Democratic leaders in the Senate have signaled they’ll support it.
Overall, the Minnesota Legislature passed more bills in January than in the previous six Januaries combined. It’s yet another reminder that elections have consequences.
What is perhaps most striking about the legislative successes is the unabashed progressivism of Democrats. As one Democratic Michigan insider told me, Democrats are “far more aligned and far more progressive, and there are no conserva-Dems in the state Legislature.”
As Republicans increasingly take more extreme positions, especially on social issues, they leave fewer third rails for Democrats. Legislation that once might have seemed “too liberal” now looks practically centrist in comparison to the positions adopted by Republicans. As the GOP increasingly moves to the far right, it has ceded the middle ground to Democrats. Indeed, only hours after Michigan legislators voted to do away with right-to-work laws — a key labor initiative — Democrats introduced legislation to create a full, refundable tax credit for money paid toward union dues. This, too, appears likely to pass.
A similar phenomenon unfolded during the first two years of Biden’s presidential term, with Democrats holding a narrow majority but still proposing and enacting progressive legislation — and pushing the policy envelope in ways that would have seemed unimaginable a decade ago. To be sure, the deck is still stacked against Democrats. Republicans control 58 of the country’s legislative chambers to a mere 40 for Democrats. There are 22 GOP trifectas to just 17 for Democrats. And in red states, Republicans will continue to pass laws that cater to their far-right base. But if Michigan and Minnesota are any indication, Democrats are already fighting back — and winning.
