Shiawassee Times

Sen. Tom Barrett (R-Charlotte) spoke before the Michigan Senate in late July, urging his colleagues to vote on overriding Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's veto of a Senate bill that would have protected state employees from being fired or punished for being whistleblowers.

"Our taxpayer-funded employees of this state should not be punished or fired for simply talking to elected representatives or senators," Barrett said on the Senate floor, according to a YouTube video. "Everyone in this chamber agrees with that. In fact, you have all already voted for it."

Barrett said Whitmer's removing the protection the previous year was a mistake.

Sen. Tom Barrett | #MiSenateGOP

"We experienced a governor failure last year when she stripped this longstanding and important protection from the 2020 budget," Barrett said in the video. "This language has been included in state budgets without objection for more than a decade. So after the governor inexplicably removed this protection from the 2020 budget, I was inspired to introduce this standalone bill that would codify this protection once and for all."

Barrett said Senate Bill 686 was created to protect the state employees.

"I worked closely with my Democratic colleague and friend from the 23rd District to delay the vote on this bill to adopt the amendments that he brought forward to address any of the concerns that this was in any way political," Barrett said. "We stood in that room, just behind me, to work together in a bipartisan way to land on language that we could all support as being fair and reasonable."

Barrett questioned whether Democrats in the Senate hadn't said all along that they wanted more bipartisan cooperation

"We did that," Barrett said in the video. "This bill then passed this chamber unanimously, and then unanimously in the House of Representatives as well. But then we had another governor failure when she vetoed Senate Bill 686."

Barrett said he couldn't believe that his Democratic colleagues were persuaded by Whitmer's "ridiculous argument" in which she said the protection was not constitutional.

"State employees are now left to fear retaliation if they simply raise concerns or objections to lawmakers," Barrett said in his address. "And now, like manna from heaven, our governor is claiming that this is somehow unconstitutional to protect state employees and that it violates the separation of powers."

Barrett said what was most surprising was that Whitmer had voted for the protection more than a dozen times.

"Pay no attention to the fact that the governor herself believes she can act unilaterally with no regard for the separation of powers for the last 135 days," Barrett said. "Pay no attention to the fact that the governor herself voted for this very protection while serving as a member of this chamber."

Barrett said he shouldn't have to convince his colleagues how important the protection is and that it was extremely important to get the protection into law. He urged his colleagues to vote to override the governor's "failure."