The House of Representatives approved an amendment — with help from several Democrats — late Wednesday that would prevent the Department of Energy (DOE) from implementing strict new regulations on gas stoves that most stoves on the market today would not be able to meet.

The House voted 251 to 181 in favor of the amendment from Rep. Gary Palmer, R-Ala., to a larger energy policy bill, and 29 Democrats voted with the GOP.

Republicans have been looking to defend the use of gas stoves ever since the Consumer Product Safety Commission indicated it could ban stoves for health reasons. That idea was scrapped, but it was followed by a proposed DOE regulation that would impose tough new energy efficiency standards for gas stoves.

Palmer, head of the House Republican Policy Committee, criticized House Democrats for largely voting against his amendment in comments to Fox News Digital.

‘Despite all their words to the contrary, House Democrats are supportive of federal bureaucrats’ attempts to ban gas stoves. By voting against my amendment to prevent the Department of Energy from implementing its anti-natural gas agenda, they have shown themselves to be complicit,’ Palmer told Fox News Digital.

‘Clearly, the plan to ban gas stoves was already in the works even before federal bureaucrats said the quiet part out loud earlier this year,’ he said. ‘Republicans are meeting this attempt to dismantle American energy head on and will continue to empower Americans to choose what appliances belong in their kitchens, not have it dictated to them by a bureaucrat with a political agenda.’

In a proposed rule posted online last month and a followup analysis of that rule, the department estimated that about half of the gas stoves on the market today would not meet the new standard.

Palmer’s amendment, if implemented contingent on Republicans’ energy bill’s passage, will stop DOE Secretary Jennifer Granholm from implementing the new regulations and would prevent similar rules from being introduced.

About 38% of American households, or roughly 40 million, use natural gas to cook in their homes.

Two similar bills to halt the rule’s implementation were introduced by House Republicans earlier this month.

FIRST ON FOX: A Republican congressman, 80 pastors and their spouses delivered a soulful rendition of ‘Amazing Grace’ in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda while on a tour.

Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., led a Christian history tour of the Capitol Tuesday night that was made up of 80 pastors and their spouses from 16 states, as well as several current and former lawmakers.

While in the Capitol Rotunda, the group belted out their praise for the Almighty above in a moving rendition of the classic Christian hymn that reverberated throughout the dome.

‘I always enjoy taking friends and visitors through these hallowed halls, and it was a privilege to take this group of faith leaders on a special tour of the Capitol last night,’ Johnson told Fox News Digital.

‘They were greatly encouraged to see and be reminded of the religious and moral foundations of our country,’ the Louisiana Republican continued. ‘In these times of great division, all Americans would do well to be reminded of those truths and that important heritage.’

‘Church services used to be held routinely in the Capitol, and it is always moving to hear prayers and hymns echoing in the Rotunda today,’ he added.

The tour touched on the Christian history of the Capitol, the founders, and America itself.

Johnson led the tour that was joined by fellow lawmaker Senator Tim Scott, R-S.C., — who was not with the tour at the time of the hymn — as well as former Rep. Bob McEwen, R-Ohio, and Christian author David Barton.

The Louisiana Republican led a similar tour last week for a different group of faith leaders that prayed and sang in the Capitol.

The faith leader’s hymn came the day after the nation came to a standstill when a mass shooter killed three nine-year-olds and three faculty members at a Christian private school in Nashville.

The former pastor at Covenant Presbyterian in Nashville, Tennessee, declined to advocate for stricter gun laws after a reporter questioned if prayers were enough in the wake of the mass shooting.

CBS asked Pastor Jim Bachmann if he agreed with calls for more ‘action’ instead of ‘thoughts and prayers.’

 ‘I’ve heard so many people say lately, faith-filled people, ‘I don’t want your thoughts and prayers, I don’t want to hear about thoughts and prayers, I want action.’ As a man of faith, you will conduct Mike Hill’s funeral next week. You will preside over it. What do you say to those people who say that?’ reporter David Begnaud asked.

Bachmann, who was friends with slain custodian Mike Hill, started to say he hadn’t crafted his eulogy yet when the reporter pressed on gun control again.

‘But about ‘we don’t need your thoughts and prayers, we need action,’ what do you say to that?’ he asked. Begnaud clarified he was specifically referring to passing more gun laws.

‘That’s a little bit above my pay grade,’ the pastor responded.

Bachmann instead said a cultural and spiritual change was needed in our society.

‘I think what I say is we need to love each other, and we need to learn to disagree agreeably, and learn how to forgive,’ he answered. He went on to call for peaceful disagreements instead of violence.

‘You know, people from different ideologies, different theologies, different backgrounds, it’s okay to disagree. But it’s not okay to shoot each other, and particularly shoot children and innocent victims,’ Bachmann said.

The man of God then quoted Jesus to the reporter and viewing audience.

‘And so the message of the Gospel is we ‘love our neighbor as ourselves.’ And try to bear each other’s burdens and work through them, whatever problems — we all have problems. And you know, we all need help at times in our lives,’ Bachmann said, adding that helping people with their problems was part of his role as a pastor.

Fox News Digital’s Kristine Parks contributed reporting.

The Minneapolis City Council is set to hold a special meeting Thursday to discuss a potential settlement in a lawsuit filed by the Minnesota Department of Human Rights over the city’s policing practices following the murder of George Floyd.

City and state officials had been negotiating the agreement, in fits and starts, since the state agency issued a scathing report last year that said the police department had engaged in a pattern of race discrimination for at least a decade. The city and state then agreed to negotiate a court-enforceable agreement known as a consent decree, moving to address the long list of problems identified in the report.

Few details about the closed meeting have been released. Mayor Jacob Frey, in a letter to the council, said he was calling the gathering for the purpose of ‘receiving a briefing’ on the state’s lawsuit. Spokespeople for the mayor did not immediately return calls Wednesday.

A spokesman for Human Rights Commissioner Rebecca Lucero declined to provide details Wednesday and Gov. Tim Walz declined to say much when asked at a news conference held on a different topic.

‘This is the Minnesota Department of Human Rights,’ Walz said. ‘I’m not going to speak on this. These are classified agreements that they’re working on together, and again, the goal there is just to make sure that our communities are safer and they’re working together, and I know a lot of work’s been into that.’

The city is also awaiting the results of a similarly sweeping federal investigation into whether the police department has engaged in a ‘pattern or practice’ of unconstitutional or unlawful policing. The Justice Department launched its probe a day after former officer Derek Chauvin was convicted of murder and manslaughter in the May 25, 2020, killing of Floyd.

The Black man repeatedly said he couldn’t breathe, then went limp as Chauvin knelt on his neck for 9 1/2 minutes. The killing was recorded by a bystander and sparked months of mass protests across the country and around the world as part of a broader reckoning over racial injustice.

Chauvin is serving 22 1/2 years on his state murder conviction. He later pleaded guilty to a separate federal charge of violating Floyd’s civil rights and was sentenced to 21 years. The sentences are running concurrently.

The federal investigation is expected to lead to a separate court-enforceable consent decree. The city and state would then modify their agreement to resolve any conflicting provisions.

The state report, issued in April 2022 after a two-year investigation, detailed evidence showing disparities in how officers use force, stop, search, arrest and cite people of color, particularly Black people, compared with white people in similar circumstances.

The report blamed, in part, the culture of the police force, saying officers ‘receive deficient training, which emphasizes a paramilitary approach to policing that results in officers unnecessarily escalating encounters or using inappropriate levels of force.’ City officials disputed a portion that accused police of using ‘covert, or fake, social media accounts to surveil and engage Black individuals, Black organizations, and elected officials unrelated to criminal activity, without a public safety objective.’

The Department of Human Rights sued the city and the police department in June 2020, barely a week after Floyd was murdered, and obtained a preliminary injunction, pending completion of its investigation, that compelled the city to address the allegations of systemic and institutional racism within the police department. Among the immediate changes were a ban on the use chokeholds and neck restraints and a requirement that officers try to stop other officers they see using improper force.

The Justice Department charged two more people on Wednesday for carrying out a targeted attack on a pro-life pregnancy center in Winter Haven, Florida.

The DOJ announced that a federal grand jury returned an indictment against Gabriella Oropesa and Annarella Rivera for engaging in a conspiracy to prevent employees of reproductive health services facilities from providing those services, along with co-conspirators Caleb Freestone, 27, and Amber Smith-Stewart, 23, whom DOJ charged in January.

The crew allegedly targeted a pro-life pregnancy center and vandalized those facilities with spray-painted threats, including, ‘If abortions aren’t safe than [sic] neither are you,’ ‘YOUR TIME IS UP!!,’ ‘WE’RE COMING for U,’ and ‘We are everywhere,’ on the building.

Those messages are consistent with those that the far-left group, Jane’s Revenge, took credit for leaving spray-painted on pro-life centers after vandalizing dozens of them following the leaked Supreme Court decision in the Dobbs v. Whole Women’s Health case that eventually led to the overturning of Roe v. Wade last summer.

DOJ said similar facilities in Hollywood and Hialeah, Florida, were also allegedly targeted.

DOJ is accusing Rivera, along with Freestone and Smith-Stewart, of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, or FACE Act, by using threats of force to intimidate and interfere with the employees pro-life center in Winter Haven that were providing or seeking to provide reproductive health services, and by intentionally damaging and destroying the facility’s property because the facility provides reproductive health services.

The FACE Act makes it a federal crime to use or threaten to use force to ‘injure, intimidate, or interfere’ with a person seeking reproductive health services, or intentionally damage a facility that offers reproductive health services.

If convicted, Rivera, Freestone and Smith-Stewart each face up to a maximum of 12 years in prison, three years of supervised release and fines of up to $350,000. Oropesa faces up to a maximum of 10 years in prison, three years of supervised release and a fine of up to $250,000.

Florida’s Republican Attorney General also filed a similar state action against Freestone and Smith-Steward on Wednesday, citing FACE Act violations for which the state should impose up to $140,000 fines each.

‘Antifa and Jane’s Revenge are criminal organizations and must answer for their crimes in Florida,’ Attorney General Ashley Moody told Fox News Digital. ‘I am taking action to hold their members accountable for attempting to intimidate and threaten law-abiding citizens in our state.’

EXCLUSIVE: Two Republican congressmen are demanding that the Department of Justice investigate Monday’s shooting that left six dead at a private Christian school in Nashville as a hate crime.

The Nashville Police Department said that Audrey Hale entered The Covenant School by shooting through a locked glass door around 10:13 a.m. on Monday morning and was armed with two rifles and a handgun.

Three students, all 9-years-old, were killed during the shooting: Hallie Scruggs, Evelyn Dieckhaus, and William Kinney. Three employees at the school were also killed: headmaster Katherine Koonce, 60, substitute teacher Cynthia Peak, 61, and custodian Mike Hill, 61.

Hale, a 28-year-old transgender who was a former student at The Covenant School, was killed after she began firing at responding officers.

Law enforcement officers found writings and hand-drawn diagrams of the school which indicate that the shooting was ‘calculated and planned.’

In a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland, Rep. Lance Gooden, R-Texas, and Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Tenn. said that the Department of Justice needs to open a hate crime investigation into the shooting at The Covenant School.

‘This week, America watched while a mentally ill shooter brutally massacred Christian schoolchildren in Nashville, Tennessee. This murderer, identified by law enforcement as Audrey Hale, shot and killed six people—three students, Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs, and William Kinney, and three employees Cynthia Peak, Katherine Koonce, and Michael Hill—while they studied and worked at The Covenant School. Police reports confirmed what many Americans already suspected. This attack was a targeted assault on American Christians,’ the congressmen wrote.

The pair of congressmen also called it ‘appalling’ that one hasn’t been opened yet.

‘Federal law is clear, acts of violence against individuals based on religious affiliation are hate crimes,’ Gooden and Ogles wrote in the letter. ‘The [shooter] was a former student at Covenant school and specifically chose to terrorize this school because of their Christian faith. It is appalling that you have not yet committed to opening a hate crime investigation despite the shooter’s motive being as clear as day,’ they wrote.

‘We urge you, as head of the Department of Justice, to immediately offer the full resources of federal law enforcement to the victims and community of this attack and open a hate crime investigation. Additionally, we urge you to forcefully condemn anti-Christian bias to send an unambiguous message to all Americans that discrimination against any community is unamerican and will not be tolerated. Further, we would ask that you update us regularly as to what steps the Department has taken to address our concerns. Thank you for your attention to this important matter,’ they added.

Gooden said that the shooting should be labeled a ‘crime of hate.’

‘The direct targeting of Christian schoolchildren must be labeled for what it is: a crime of hate designed to mutilate and massacre believers in Christ and chill religious practice in America. The full weight of the federal government must be unleashed, and determinations made about how this crime took place, and who influenced this deranged transgender individual to cut down America’s Christian children at their desks,’ Gooden said.

Ogles described the shooting as a ‘senseless slaughter.’

‘The shooter at The Covenant School in Nashville committed a heinous hate crime that should not be tolerated. She specifically targeted the Christian place of education she once attended and stole the lives of six innocent people,’ Ogles said. ‘Attorney General Garland and the Department of Justice need to act swiftly to investigate this disturbingly senseless slaughter. This was not a ‘cry for help,’ it was an act fueled by hate.’

In a Tuesday statement, The Covenant School said that their ‘community is heartbroken.’

‘We are grieving tremendous loss and are in shock coming out of the terror that shattered our school and church. We are focused on loving our students, our families, our faculty and staff and beginning the process of healing,’ said the Covenant School.

The Department of Justice didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.

A state lawmaker has made a procedural move that could force a vote in the Ohio House on a proposal to make it more difficult to amend the Ohio Constitution, a change that could impact an effort under way by abortion rights advocates.

Republican state Rep. Susan Manchester pulled a discharge petition Wednesday that, if successful, would allow the resolution raising the threshold for passing future constitutional amendments to bypass the normal committee process — and GOP House Speaker Jason Stephens. To do so would require the signatures of 50 of 99 members of the fractured Ohio House.

‘We have gone through all the regular steps necessary in committee to pass this, and we are being blocked at every turn,’ Manchester said. ‘Time is of the essence. We need to ensure that we have a vote on this issue.’

The proposal in question would ask voters to change the state constitution to require a 60% supermajority of Ohio voters to approve future amendments, rather than the current simple majority of 50% plus one.

Manchester and the issue’s other backers say that the higher threshold would keep monied, out-of-state special interests from manipulating Ohio’s founding document. Internal communications have also shown they are hoping to use the higher bar to thwart efforts to pass constitutional protections for abortion rights and to reform the state’s failed political map-making system.

About 200 labor, faith, voting rights and civil rights organizations have banded together pledging to fight the 60% threshold measure, as have Democrats who supported Stephens in his surprise victory for speaker.

House Democratic Leader Allison Russo criticized the maneuver.

‘Ohioans deserve to know the truth that there are some out-of-touch, extremist politicians who are beholden to special interest groups behind this petition,’ she said in a statement. ‘They will do whatever it takes, including rewriting the rules, so they can get what they want instead of what the people of Ohio want.’

The discharge petition comes after two earlier attempts by Republicans to push the amendment to the 2023 ballot have been stymied. It first arose during last year’s lame duck session, but fizzled for lack of time. Then, amid GOP infighting, Stephens put the brakes on fast-tracking it earlier this year, causing it to miss a deadline for the May ballot.

Meanwhile, Republican Senate President Matt Huffman has expressed his support for the issue, and he suggested a strategy of reviving August special elections — eliminated in legislation passed just last year — to do so. Stephens is opposed to turning back such a recently passed law, and he has said county officials dislike special elections, which are expensive.

‘Unfortunately, he has shown no interest in moving this issue foward, and that’s why I think it’s important that we, as majority Republicans, show him how important we think this is with this petition,’ Manchester said.

She said she had 24 signatures at the end of the day Wednesday, and was confident she would reach her goal.

FIRST ON FOX: Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., broke from his Senate GOP colleagues on Tuesday over their opposition to TikTok, arguing that banning the popular social media app ‘goes against the First Amendment.’

‘I think it’s a really bad idea. And people need to ask themselves, ‘Why does the Chinese government ban TikTok, and do we want to emulate the Chinese government?’ So, I think it’s a mistake,’ Paul told Fox News Digital after weekly Senate lunches. ‘If you ban a social media platform, you know, I don’t know if you get any clearer that that goes against the First Amendment.’

There are currently two bipartisan Senate bills aimed at banning TikTok, a video app that exploded in popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic but has raised alarms over its connection to the Chinese Communist Party.

While congressional Democrats are divided on whether TikTok should be handled as a national security threat, Republicans have nearly all gotten on board with curbing it – save for at least one notable exception.

Asked why he’s opposed to a bill introduced by Sens. Mark Warner, D-Va., and John Thune, R-S.D., that would give the president a pathway to banning TikTok, Paul replied, ‘I’m for the First Amendment to the Constitution, which says that companies that operate in the United States, we shouldn’t limit their speech or people who try to broadcast speech on those platforms.’

He shared similar sentiments about an earlier bill introduced by Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., that would outright ban the app from operating in the U.S.: ‘Any bills that name a particular organization have a constitutional problem … not allowed to write a specific law against a person or a company. The First Amendment also requires the government to stay out of regulating speech or preventing speech.’

TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew testified before a House of Representatives panel last week. He repeatedly denied that the app’s parent company, ByteDance, part of which is owned by China’s authoritarian government, allows Beijing to spy on American users’ data.

Paul pointed out that precedent shows that banning the social media app may not work out.

‘The courts have already struck that down when the Trump administration tried to ban TikTok,’ Paul said. ‘It was struck down.’

President Joe Biden responded to Monday’s fatal school shootings in Nashville, Tennessee, during a stop in North Carolina on Tuesday, spreading misinformation about the Second Amendment in the wake of tragedy.

The president made a scheduled stop in Durham, North Carolina, to speak about his economic agenda and the advancement of semiconductors.

But before he got to the meat of his speech Tuesday, the president addressed the tragedy that occurred at a private Christian school in Nashville, the Covenant School, on Monday.

Six victims were shot and killed when 28-year-old Audrey Elizabeth Hale, a transgender woman and former student of the school, entered the building with two ‘assault-type rifles’ and a handgun before opening fire.

After killing three 9-year-old students and three adults, Metropolitan Nashville Police officers killed Hale at the scene.

Biden told the crowd in Durham on Tuesday that Monday’s incident was the families’ ‘worst nightmare.’

Biden said he lost a child to an accident and another to cancer, noting that there was nothing like losing a child, especially when taken in a senseless and heartbreaking act.

‘They should be with us … as a nation, we owe these families more than our prayers. We owe them action,’ the president said. ‘You know, we have to do more to stop this gun violence that is ripping communities apart, ripping apart the soul of this nation. Protect our children so they learn how to read and write instead of duck and covering in a classroom.’

The president, who describes himself as a ‘Second Amendment guy,’ said the weapons used on Monday were ‘weapons of war’ and that the right to bear arms is not absolute.

‘You’re not allowed to go out and own an automatic weapon. You’re not allowed to own a machine gun. You’re not allowed to own a flamethrower,’ Biden said. ‘You’re not allowed to own so many other things. Why in God’s name do we allow these weapons of war on our streets and in our public schools?’

In the U.S., it is not illegal to own a flamethrower nor is it illegal to own a machine gun.

To own a machine gun, or fully automatic weapon, a person must not be considered a ‘prohibited person,’ must be at least 21 years old, a legal resident of the U.S., eligible to purchase a firearm, pass an 8-10-month background check and pay a one-time $200 transfer tax to obtain a stamp.

Biden has previously said that the Second Amendment also banned the ownership of cannons when it was passed in 1791, but that, too, has been debunked.

He continued making claims about firearms, especially when it comes to the death of children.

‘This is hard to believe,’ he said. ‘I never thought when I started my public life that guns would be the No. 1 killer of children in America. Guns. No. 1. It’s sick and overwhelming; a majority of gun owners agree we have to do something.’

Based on the latest available data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, firearms are not the leading cause of death for children between the ages of 1 and 17 – motor vehicles are.

Firearm deaths listed under the CDC’s data category ‘Unintentional Injury,’ shows that out of 4,552 deaths of children between the ages of 1 and 17, motor vehicles accounted for 2,159 of those deaths. Drownings accounted for 753, poisoning accounted for 502, suffocation accounted for 212, fires accounted for 204, transport accounted for 152 and firearms accounted for 120.

Under the ‘Homicide’ category, firearms accounted for 1,366 deaths, and when added up with firearm deaths considered unintentional, the total number of deaths by firearm for children between 1 and 17 years of age is 1,518 – 641 less than motor vehicle deaths of the same age bracket.

The most up to date and available data is from 2020 and can be found on the CDC’s website.

Election Day shortages of the paper needed to run voting machinery caused significant problems in a northeastern Pennsylvania county in November, but the extent of the problem or what caused it are still unclear, witnesses told a congressional committee Tuesday.

The three-hour hearing of the U.S. House Administration Committee into events in Luzerne County on Nov. 8 brought outrage from members of both parties about the problems that contributed to a delay in reporting results from the country’s largest swing state.

The fact-finding, billed by the Republican majority as a look into ‘government voter suppression’ in Luzerne, included anecdotal reports of problems voting in a county where a judge agreed to order polls to remain open for two extra hours, until 10 p.m., to accommodate those who may have been unable to cast ballots earlier in the day.

‘This is catastrophic, in my view,’ said U.S. Rep. Joseph Morelle of New York, the committee’s ranking Democrat. ‘This is a complete breakdown.’

Elections officials ‘rushed to stores’ in an effort to get paper for ‘voter-created emergency ballots,’ said committee Chairman Rep. Bryan Steil, a Wisconsin Republican, calling it ‘unbelievable in American elections today.’

‘To date, no official action has been taken in Luzerne County,’ Steil said. ‘No report from the district attorney. No report from the secretary of state. No report from the Luzerne County Board of Elections. There must be accountability.’

The hearing did not include the Luzerne County officials who oversee and run elections, as they apparently received legal advice not to participate while Luzerne District Attorney Sam Sanguedolce investigates what happened.

The Pennsylvania Department of State also declined to testify, telling Steil in a March 22 letter that the statewide elections agency did not want to interfere in or compromise the results of Sanguedolce’s investigation.

‘Though the Department offers guidance and assistance to counties on election administration issues, the Department of State, with very few exceptions, unrelated to the issues here, has limited authority under Pennsylvania’s Election Code to dictate how counties run their elections,’ wrote Jonathan Marks, Pennsylvania’s deputy secretary for elections and commissions.

Sanguedolce, who watched the hearing, declined to comment afterward on his investigation or when he might disclose its findings. Sanguedolce said he ‘wouldn’t narrow it to a criminal investigation,’ noting his office has jurisdiction to look into anything involving voter irregularity.

‘If everyone in that hearing operates from the assumption that the facts set forward are true, then everyone should be concerned,’ Sanguedolce said. ‘But I’m not sure you should assume the facts are true.’

The hearing included claims that paper shortages were widespread, questions about the procedures used to cast emergency or provisional ballots, and reports some voters were unable to cast ballots at all. There was also testimony about employee turnover problems within Luzerne’s elections office.

‘We don’t have the answers that we need,’ said Jim Bognet, a Republican who lost by less than three percentage points in a challenge to Democratic U.S. Rep. Matt Cartwright in November. ‘That’s why we’re so happy you guys are looking into it.’

Luzerne, formerly a reliable Democratic majority county, has become much more Republican in recent years, although Democrat Josh Shapiro won the county by barely one percentage point in the November governor’s race. In recent presidential contests, Donald Trump easily beat Hilary Clinton in 2016 and Joe Biden in 2020 in Luzerne.

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said Tuesday that an income tax rate reduction expected to be triggered for the 2023 tax year by the state’s high revenues will be temporary and will revert back to the normal rate the following year.

Nessel’s opinion, which the state is expected to follow, comes after the state House Fiscal Agency predicted in January that Michigan’s revenues have been running high enough to automatically trigger a drop in the income tax rate to 4.05% from 4.25%, under a 2015 law. The reduction will save Michigan taxpayers an estimated $700 million.

The law, enacted by the Republican-controlled Statehouse at the time, provides a mechanism to reduce the income tax rate when the percentage increase in the general fund exceeds the inflation rate during a fiscal year.

‘Because that situation is only temporary, it makes sense that, rather than provide a permanent tax reduction based on the economic circumstances of a single fiscal year, the Legislature intended the relief to taxpayers to be only temporary as well,’ wrote Nessel, a Democrat, in an opinion addressed to state Treasurer Rachel Eubanks.

In a joint statement with other Republican leaders released after Nessel’s opinion, former Gov. Rick Snyder, who led Michigan from 2011 to 2019, said the law ‘was intended to be a permanent reduction activated when the state government had a large surplus.’

‘State government is sitting on $9 billion of your money, and Democrats are fighting tooth and nail to keep every penny of it from you,’ Republican Senate Leader Aric Nesbitt said on social media.

Last month, Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer unveiled a record $79 billion budget for the 2024 fiscal year after her budget director, Chris Harkins, predicted in January that Michigan’s surplus could exceed $9 billion by the end of year. Whitmer also announced plans to send $180 ‘inflation relief checks’ to all tax filers, which would have cost the state around $800 million and lowered revenues enough to avoid the trigger.

With a slim majority in both chambers, Democrats weren’t able to secure the votes necessary for the $180 checks to be sent this year, and Senate Majority Leader Winnie Brinks, a Democrat, had said the income tax reduction was ‘likely’ to be triggered.

Democrats were able to pass legislation phasing out taxes on public and private pensions and significantly expanding the state’s Earned Income Tax Credit from the current 6% to a 30% match of the federal rate.