Michigan incoming House Speaker Matt Hall: GOP will ‘get stuff done’

• The Legislature returned Thursday for the first time since Republicans flipped control of the House
• Next year, Rep. Matt Hall will be speaker and promised to have a more productive year
• Democrats have a few weeks left of control; a lot could happen

LANSING — House Republicans have tapped Kalamazoo County legislator  Matt Hall as incoming speaker, as conservatives prepare to assume control at the start of 2025.

Democrats, meanwhile, selected state Rep. Ranjeev Puri to serve as minority leader when the chamber switches hands next year.

The changes, approved Thursday, came two days after Republicans flipped control of the House, ending Democrats’ two-year hold on both legislative chambers and starting what’s expected to be a busy “lame duck” period in Lansing.

After a prolific 2023, Democrats have passed little meaningful legislation this year in part because all 110 members were up for reelection. They had a two-seat majority, but Republicans won 58 seats.

“One of the reasons the Democrats lost their majority was that they were too afraid of losing it … they didn’t take tough votes,” Hall told reporters Thursday, shortly after being elected speaker. 

The House has only met for votes once since the end of June, and Hall joked he was “looking forward to working” next year and “push hard to get stuff done, even though it’s tough sometimes.”

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A Richland Township Republican, Hall has served in the Legislature since 2018 and has held a number of leadership positions already including House  Minority Leader and head of the House Oversight Committee, which oversaw the now infamous Rudy Giuliani voter fraud hearings in 2020 that “Saturday Night Live” lampooned.

Heading into 2025, Hall said Republicans are focused on fixing roads without raising taxes, as well as reducing spending for legislator pet projects. 

Democrats entered the year with control of the state House, Senate and governorship for the first time since 1983.

In 2023, the party moved on long-time priorities such as repealing Michigan’s Right to Work laws, passing various firearm reforms and adding protections for LGBTQ community into the state civil right’s act. 

Work slowed significantly in 2024, with House Democrats meeting just 68 times for votes as of Nov. 7.

That leaves Democrats with a long list of issue topics they could tackle between now and the end of the year. 

Among them: addressing Michigan’s pending sick leave changes and minimum wage increase, reforming public records laws to include the Legislature and governor, and cracking down on polluter pay efforts.

What might happen?

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Amber McCann, spokesperson for House Speaker Joe Tate, D-Detroit, told reporters.

Tate will continue to serve as House speaker for the remainder of the term until Puri takes over at the start of 2025.

A Canton Democrat, Puri was elected in 2020 and chairs the chamber’s Appropriations Transportation Subcommittee. 

“For the next two years, we are going to again galvanize the caucus,” said Puri, who did not detail what Democrats might in lame duck, instead  saying “Speaker Tate will be taking the lead.”

“It’s really important to me that we collectively come together to figure out how Democrats can come with the right messaging to make sure that we get the gavel to come back to our hands.”