The Michigan Supreme Court will not be issuing an advisory opinion on the “adopt and amend” strategy used by the Michigan legislature when overhauling two citizen-led initiatives last year.

In a 4-3 decision, the court opted not to weigh in on the constitutionality of the legislature’s move to pass two citizen-led initiatives and significantly change them in the same session instead of letting them proceed to the ballot.

“We are not persuaded that granting the requests would be an appropriate exercise of the Court’s discretion,” the court’s order read.

The Michigan Supreme Court was asked by House and Senate Republicans to review actions the legislature took last session on two ballot initiatives that would have originally brought tipped employees into the regular minimum wage rules and raised minimum wage to $12 by 2022, and let workers earn one hour of paid sick time for every 30 hours worked.

Instead of letting those proposals go to the ballot in November 2018, the legislature adopted them with the intent to change them later on, and in December, then-Gov. Rick Snyder signed into law major changes to the original language.

The issue could still make its way to the court via a direct legal challenge.

Chief Justice Bridget McCormack and Justices Megan Cavanagh, Elizabeth Clement and Richard Bernstein were in favor of declining to issue an opinion, while Justices Stephen Markman, Brian Zahra and David Viviano dissented.

In July, Solicitor General Fadwa Hammoud told the court the strategy was “a slap in the face” to Michigan residents, arguing the legislature would have a “permanent escape route” to get around the people’s initiative power if the move was upheld.

John Bursch, who represented the legislative majority in court, said there’s nothing in the constitution that says the legislature can’t adopt an initiative and amend it later on, and said people with concerns have three remedies: referendum the legislature’s decision, amend the constitution to put additional limits on the legislative process or vote out the lawmakers.

The minimum wage requirement adopted by the legislature leaves tipped workers separate and raises the general minimum wage to $12.05 by 2030, a far longer time horizon than was originally proposed. Tipped workers will be at 38 percent of the regular minimum wage, and make a minimum of $4.58 per hour by 2030.

The new paid sick leave requirement applies only to businesses with 50 or more employees. Workers will earn one hour of sick time for every 35 hours worked, instead of 30 hours under the original proposal, and could accrue 40 hours of paid sick leave.

Under the original proposal, workers could have earned 72 hours per year of paid sick time if they worked at larger businesses or 40 hours per year if they worked at small businesses with under 10 employees.