Kathleen Gray

Detroit Free Press Lansing Bureau

LANSING -- Before the Michigan Legislature adjourned Thursday for a 12-week summer break, lawmakers passed a flurry of bills, sidelined several major issues and prepared for the campaign season ahead.

After a long day — and night — Wednesday, in which the House and Senate gave final passage to the fiscal year 2017 budget, which begins on Oct. 1, and a $617-million package of bills to help fix the Detroit Public Schools, the bills given final passage on Thursday weren’t quite as momentous.

There were bills were geared toward ensuring the state’s shrinking horse racing industry stays alive and allowing law enforcement to issue active shooter alerts that could be used in situations like the one in Kalamazoo earlier this year when a shooter went on a spree, randomly killing five people as he drove his Uber car.

Other bills progressed that would provide compensation for wrongly convicted prisoners and revamp the state’s probation and parole system. And still more bills stalled, still short of the votes needed to move in the Legislature.

Here’s a roundup of the action, and inaction, taken on the Legislature’s last day of session before their summer break.

Rhodes: DPS legislation good start, but more money needed for buildings

On the way to Gov. Rick Snyder for his signature

Bills designed to help the state’s horse racing industry — consisting of Northville Downs and Hazel Park Raceway — by using a new formula to dole out winnings to horses and cover expenses and tracks; as well as cracking down on out-of-state betting operations, making it a crime for anyone without a license for live horse racing in Michigan to accept wagers over the Internet from Michigan residents.

A victim of domestic violence who is seeking a personal protection order against his or her partner could get permission to break a cell phone contract without penalty in order to avoid contact with the abuser.

Police would be authorized to send alerts to cell phones when they’re aware of an active shooter situation under legislation motivated by the Feb. 20 Kalamazoo-area shootings police say were committed by Jason Dalton.

Setting up a pilot program in five counties that would allow police to do roadside saliva testing of people suspected of driving while on drugs. After one year, the program could be expanded to all 83 counties.

Halfway done

Davontae Sanford of Detroit could benefit from a bill that unanimously passed the state Senate that would allow a wrongly convicted person who served time in prison to sue the state for $50,000 for every year they were incarcerated, as well as attorney fees. Sanford walked free Wednesday after serving 9 years in state prison on murder charges. Another man confessed to the crime. “It doesn’t happen to a lot of people, but once in a while, there is a mistake that’s made,” said bill sponsor Sen. Steve Bieda, D-Warren. According the National Registry of Exonerations (NRE) maintained by the University of Michigan Law School, 60 exonerations have occurred in Michigan, and of those 60, 26 individuals would be eligible for the compensation, according to the U-M Law School's Innocence Project. The bill now moves to the House of Representatives for consideration in the fall.

A 21-bill package of bills that would reform parole and probation laws in an attempt to reduce recidivism rates and lower the numbers of people in jail and prison for probation violations. The package, part of a nationwide trend to reform criminal justice laws, now moves to the House for action.

On the back burner

Medical marijuana bills that would more tightly regulate dispensaries and allow for the production and sale of nonsmokable forms of the drug, stalled because a three-quarters majority is needed to pass the bill on nonsmokable forms of pot and those votes weren’t readily available in the Senate. The House already has passed the bills. The Senate is expected to tackle the subject again in the fall.

Both the House and Senate have been trying for more than a year to update Michigan’s electricity regulations and haven’t been able to reach a compromise. The latest attempt in the Senate, which put some limits on customers who want to use alternative energy suppliers and ended mandates to increase renewable energy and efficiency programs in the state, failed to get the votes needed to get out of the Senate. With the traditional large utility companies set to close coal-fired electricity generating plants, the issue is sure to resurface in the fall.

The House and Senate are expected back in Lansing for one day each in July and August, although no action is expected to happen in either of those session days. They’ll return for full session days on Sept. 7. All 110 seats in the House of Representatives are up for election this year, with the primary being held on Aug. 2 and the general election on Nov. 8. The Senate isn’t up for election again until 2018.

Contact Kathleen Gray: 313-223-4430 or kgray99@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @michpoligal