LANSING ? Michigan Senate Majority Leader Randy Richardville sent the critical tax overhaul legislation to the Reforms, Restructuring and Reinventing Committee where a considerable challenge awaits to get the votes needed to move the legislation to the Senate floor.

Richardville (R-Monroe) could always have the bills discharged from the committee to the full Senate if he can’t convince four of the five committee Republicans to support them, but that would only serve to underscore the amount of opposition among the Senate Republican caucus to the legislation because of its inclusion of a tax on pensions for those born in 1946 and afterward.

One member of the committee who made clear he is a strong supporter of the legislation is the committee chair, Sen. Mark Jansen (R-Gaines Township). Three of the remaining four Republicans – Sen. Patrick Colbeck of Canton Township, Sen. Tom Casperson of Escanaba, Sen. Mike Kowall of White Lake Township and Sen. Dave Robertson of Grand Blanc – will need to join Jansen to move the legislation to the floor.

“I think that we will have the votes by the time it comes up in committee to get it out of committee. We won’t run it until we have the votes,” Richardville said. “So if you see a delay in the schedule, that should be a yellow flag.”

Richardville said he chose the Reforms committee because he considered the legislation more of an overall reform to the state than a pure tax policy bill that would ordinarily go to the Finance Committee. Jansen said he was planning at least one meeting on the legislation this week.

Putting together the votes will be tough. Casperson said he is leaning against the legislation.

“As it is, I probably would not support it,” he said. “I’m concerned about the pension side of it.”

Residents attending town halls in his district have made it clear they dislike the pension tax portion of the legislation, which also contains the 6 percent corporate income tax to replace the Michigan Business Tax and the wiping out of most income and business tax credits. Constituents in his district seem most familiar with the pension tax component, Casperson said.

Sometimes legislators will vote for legislation at the committee level to allow the process to advance and then vote against it on the House or Senate floor. Casperson said no one had approached him about that scenario, but he didn’t think it would fly because in the end, it would be played as him having voted for the legislation.

Kowall said he remains undecided.

“I’m open to discussion,” he said. “It ran through the House. I’m sure a lot of members of the House felt equally uncomfortable. It’s not a comfortable time here in Michigan. Anybody can lead when there’s bags of money all over the place.”

Kowall suggested a sunset in the legislation might soothe some concerns.

Asked how difficult it would be to get the bill out of committee, Kowall said, “We get along really well, the whole group of us. I think there’s a lot of common sense that comes into play at the end of the day after the passion play. We sit down and we’ll be able to hash things out.”

Colbeck and Robertson did not return messages.

Richardville was asked if he was willing to discharge the bill from the committee if necessary, and it was apparent that he is.

“First choice would be to have it voted out of committee, obviously, and that’s what we think is going to happen,” he said.

Richardville met Tuesday with Governor Rick Snyder and House Speaker Jase Bolger (R-Marshall) on the legislation. He said he expected relatively minor changes to the bills (HB 4361 , HB 4362 , HB 4479 , HB 4480 , HB 4481 , HB 4482 , HB 4483 and HB 4484 ).

“There is not going to be a change in overall philosophy or major changes to the policies that came over here,” he said.

And Richardville said he did not expected to have to twist arms to get the bill through the Senate, something he said isn’t his style anyway.

“I don’t think it’s arm-twisting,” he said. “It’s just seeing the big picture. There are parts of this that are not pretty, but if you look at the state’s economy, it’s a lot uglier than any votes we’re going to have to take. If you want to fix an ugly economy, you’ve got to make some difficult decisions.”

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