Two months ago, Michigan appeared to be in grave danger of moving its notices from newspapers to government websites.

As one of his final acts as a state legislator, now-former Michigan House Speaker Lee Chatfield, R-Levering (pictured at right), led the move to eliminate newspaper notice in the state. Chatfield, who would be term-limited out of office on Dec. 31, had pursued that goal since he was elected to the House six years earlier. He made it one of his priorities for the brief lame-duck session that followed the Nov. 3 election.

Chatfield threw his weight behind a legislative package sponsored by his GOP colleague, Rep. Steven Johnson, R-Wayland (pictured below). Anytime a House speaker or majority leader backs legislation and announces one of his highest priorities is getting it passed, it would be foolish of opponents not to be alarmed. But the ultimate outcome is contingent in part on the political effectiveness of the party leader, which in this case appears to have been in short supply.

Chatfield and Johnson managed to get their package through a friendly committee, but they obviously failed to count votes before bringing it to the House floor the following morning. Chatfield pulled the legislation before the final vote was tallied when he sensed it wasn’t going his way, said Michigan Press Association Public Affairs Manager Lisa McGraw.

The legislature was closed the following week after a COVID outbreak in the capital, putting an end to Chatfield’s quest to kill newspaper notice in the Wolverine State. Although no public notice legislation has been introduced so far in the current session, McGraw expects 2021 to eventually become the thirteenth straight year a member of Michigan’s Republican Party makes an attempt to move notice to government websites.