Michigan House speaker refuses to reinstate Democratic legislator to Appropriations Committee role
The leader of the Michigan House Democratic caucus asked Republican leadership to reinstate state Rep. Alabas Farhat of Dearborn as the minority vice chair on the chamber’s appropriations committee after a political falling out saw him ousted, but in a letter sent Monday, House Speaker Matt Hall said that was out of the question.
Farhat was the minority vice chair on the powerful House Appropriations Committee until late last month when House Republicans failed to muster enough votes to pass the chamber’s version of a school cell phone ban and major changes to life-without-parole sentencing guidelines for 19- and 20-year-olds.
Hall, a Republican from Richland Township, was adamant in public statements following the vote that he had deals with House Democrats to push the bills across the finish line in a bipartisan fashion, only to have those deals broken when every House Democrat voted against the measures.
The fallout from the cell phone ban bill, sponsored by state Rep. Mark Tisdel (R-Rochester), has given way to another battle of wills between the Republican-controlled House and the Democratic-led Senate. It also resulted in Hall kicking Farhat off his leadership seat on the appropriations committee, further deepening the chasm between minority Democrats and the leaders of the House GOP.
https://michiganadvance.com/2025/08/04/michigan-house-speaker-refuses-to-reinstate-democratic-legislator-to-appropriations-committee/