– House Speaker Matt Hall commenting on a legislative economic development deal on the Nov. 24 MIRS Monday podcast.

In order for legislative leaders to strike a deal on economic development, House Speaker Matt Hall (R-Richland Township) says the permanent elimination of the Strategic Outreach and Attraction Reserve or “SOAR” corporate grant program and the MEGA tax credits to large businesses must happen “before we’re going to move on anything.”

“We’re meeting, and we’re getting closer to a deal, but we’ll have to eliminate the MEGA credits and eliminate SOAR permanently – repeal it – before we’re going to move on anything,” Hall said on last Monday’s episode of the MIRS Monday podcast.

Right now, Hall’s office, Senate Majority Floor Leader Sam Singh (D-East Lansing) and Reps. Mark Tisdel (R-Rochester) and Mike Hoadley (R-Au Gres) are working on creating a “Real Jobs Tax Credit” program. The program would be worth $50 million annually, giving awarded businesses a yearly payroll credit worth up to 50 percent of their income tax withholding until 2036.

Michigan Democrats are gearing up for their first, competitive multi-candidate U.S. Senate primary in more than 30 years next summer, assuming U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Birmingham), Sen. Mallory McMorrow (D-Royal Oak) and candidate Abdul El-Sayed all get their valid 15,000 signatures and stay in the race.

And while these types of primaries aren’t the modern norm for Democrats, they aren’t a historical rarity either.

Michigan voters have participated in 39 U.S. Senate primaries since the state started holding partisan primary elections for the office in 1910. Previously, Michigan elected its U.S. senators through the state Legislature, as did all states.

With DTE Energy asking the Michigan Public Service Commission (MPSC) to quickly approve electric service to two high-electricity-using data centers, Attorney General Dana Nessel said Tuesday that the situation is “highly unusual” and that DTE is “making unverified promises (that) nobody else will shoulder these costs.”

At the end of October, a new data center project in Saline Township was announced, and DTE was selected as the energy provider. However, DTE requested a fast-tracked approval process from the MPSC. While the state regulatory body said last week that they would take two hours of public comment about the special contracts, Nessel said in a press conference Tuesday morning that her concern is that she thinks the MPSC is under “extraordinary and unprecedented political and industry power to ram through these special contracts for DTE without any public discovery.”

“Two of the biggest political gift givers to individuals in the legislature, to the governor, to my office, are DTE and Consumers Energy. And unfortunately, with what we’ve seen in the past … when you have a statewide elected (official), a member of the legislature who is too outspoken in opposition to what these companies want to see occur, they end up just getting buried in political donations to an opponent of theirs,” Nessel said.

Nessel said the most frustrating part of the lack of public scrutiny happening on these special contracts is that the data center could turn out to be a great benefit to Michiganders, and she doesn’t understand why there can’t be a contested case hearing to be better digested.

“None of us are here to denigrate the existence of data centers or having them in Michigan. We just want it to be done right,” Nessel said.