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    • How Donald Trump’s agenda could affect Lansing
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    How Donald Trump’s agenda could affect Lansing

    Online Niel Posted on

    Lansing State Journal Staff
    | Lansing State Journal

    LANSING — The coming days and weeks will shed more light on how President-elect Donald Trump expects to pursue his agenda during his second term in the White House.

    Trump, who won the presidency in 2016 but lost a bid for a second term in 2020 to President Joe Biden, soundly defeated Vice President Kamala Harris in Tuesday’s election.

    Improving the economy, stopping illegal immigration and reducing violent crime were among his platforms during the campaign.

    Here are five ways a second Trump administration could impact the Lansing region.

    Title IX and Transgender Athletes

    Universities may see new regulations around Title IX, the federal law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in federally funded education programs. Biden’s expansions, including sexual orientation and gender identification, will likely be scaled back, meaning protections for LGBTQ+ students will disappear.

    “The main thing Donald Trump said he would do Day 1 is ban transgender women from participating in women’s sports in schools,” said Liz Abdnour, a Lansing attorney who specializes in Title IX.

    But it may not stop there. Abdnour said he would also be keeping an eye on the demise of other protections, such as one that prohibits discrimination against people based on their gender identity and sexual orientation.

    However, Michigan has specific protections prohibiting discrimination against LGBTQ+ people enshrined in state law. The Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination against individuals based on their sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression.

    Abdnour said federal law should not interfere with state law because of the constitutional separation of powers.

    Former Trump Education Secretary Betsy DeVos tightened the definition of sexual misconduct to fit within the guidelines of the Clery Act. For a school to investigate a complaint, the harassment had to be so “severe” and “pervasive” that it “effectively denies” a person equal access to a school program or activity. The Trump rules allowed counsel for a person who has been accused of misconduct to cross-examine the accuser. They also excluded behaviors that did not occur within the educational program or activity of the institution. This meant that universities were not required to investigate sexual misconduct that occurred off campus.

    The Trump administration has been investigating Michigan State University’s failure to comply with the Clery Act regarding how the university handled reports of sexual assault related to Larry Nassar and other campus safety issues. The report found that the university’s failures “may have posed a continuing threat” to the campus community.

    The university was eventually fined $4.5 million by DeVos’ department.

    Crime and the death penalty

    Matthew Schneider, who was the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan during Trump’s first term, said the clear policy differences between Biden and Trump will be seen in which cases are prosecuted and how they are prosecuted. But he said much of what federal law enforcement does could remain unchanged.

    “Ninety percent or more of the politics and actions really stay the same,” he said. “That’s because it doesn’t really matter who’s president when somebody’s robbing a bank.”

    The first, and perhaps most visible, changes will come when the Trump administration determines who will lead the U.S. attorney’s offices in Michigan and other states and who will lead the Justice Department in Washington, DC.

    Big changes will come next, Schneider said, pointing to immigration cases, opioid prosecutions and the use of the death penalty.

    “We will certainly see an increase in prosecutions of people who come into the country illegally and commit crimes,” he said. “That was prosecuted in the (first) Trump administration. In fact, I personally dealt with those cases”.

    Schneider said there might not be hundreds of such cases next year, but even dozens would be a notable increase. Similarly, federal death penalty cases are not common in Michigan, but Schneider expects the DOJ in a Trump administration to put the penalty back on the table.

    In July 2021, Attorney General Merrick Garland, a Biden appointee, ordered a moratorium on federal executions to allow for a review of death penalty policy by the Department of Justice.

    That could have influenced whether Rashad Trice, the man who pleaded guilty to the 2023 kidnapping and murder of a Lansing child, faced the death penalty in his federal case. The The DOJ considered the death penalty but decided against it. Trice pleaded guilty in state and federal courts and is serving two life sentences without parole.

    He also said opioid prosecutions are also likely to increase, particularly cases involving an overdose death where a drug dealer may be charged.

    Will Trump send $500 million to GM’s Lansing plant?

    Will there be a $500 million retooling of General Motors’ Lansing Grand River plant for electric vehicles?

    Mayor Andy Schor said Friday he hopes so, adding that it is his desire for the federal government to honor a pledge made earlier this year by the Biden administration as a way to keep 650 jobs and add 50 more.

    Vice President-elect JD Vance made comments in October that called into question whether a Trump administration would honor the grant.

    A week later, during a stop in Detroit, Vance attacked federal support as “meal scraps” in light of what he predicted would be severe job losses in the auto industry amid an EV transition.

    GM said it is continuing discussions with federal officials.

    “We are in the negotiation period with the DOE to finalize the plans,” said GM’s Colleen Oberc. “There are no further details at this time.”

    Schor said Vance indicated he couldn’t guarantee the retrofit, but the mayor said it’s hopefully just a matter of continuing to make the case that the conversion will preserve American jobs and continue to seed the EV industry.

    “When President Trump looks at this, they’re going to see that more money is going to red states than blue states, and that money is helping to keep jobs and get people back on their feet so their community can grow,” he said. Schor.

    General Motors said in July it would invest $900 million and the Biden administration committed an additional $500 million to redevelop the plantwhich announced last year that it would cease production of the Camaro at the end of the 2024 model year.

    It was part of a Biden administration announcement of more than $1 billion in grants to help retrofit or reopen 11 auto plants — including more than $650 million for two plants in Michigan — for an EV push.

    LGR still makes the Cadillac CT4 and CT5 (including the V-Series). GM announced last year that it would lay off more than 350 Lansing auto workers starting Jan. 1 because of the end of Camaro production, and city officials at the time urged the company to find new products to build in mid-Michigan.

    For small businesses, ‘It’s been tough’

    Inflation, rising prices of almost everything, and supply chain issues have made small business ownership a struggle everywhere.

    The Lansing area is no exception, said DeAnna Ray-Brown, who owns Everything is Cheesecake, a bakery in South Lansing.

    “It was tough,” she said. The price of the vanilla, sugar, butter and cream cheese her business needs to make cheesecakes and cookies has doubled in the past few years, Ray-Brown said.

    If the new administration’s policies can reduce those costs, it would help, Ray-Brown said. “I’m optimistic, but at the same time, it’s been extremely difficult, and not just as a business owner, just as an everyday consumer.”

    Ray-Brown said she was concerned that raising tariffs on imported goods, a concept Trump promoted during his campaign, could drive up costs.

    “I don’t know how that would impact us directly,” she said.

    Matt Gillett, who owns Saddleback BBQ and Slice by Saddleback, said restaurants can only raise prices so much to offset rising costs.

    Favorable economic initiatives would make him “hopeful,” he said. “I think more money in the consumer’s pocket is always a good thing.”

    But Jamie Robinson, who owns several businesses in Mason, including Darrell’s Market & Hardware and Bestseller’s Books & Coffee, said he doesn’t think a president’s administration can have much of an impact on inflation or the supply chain.

    Robinson said the COVID-19 pandemic has affected both of them and they are still recovering.

    “It started happening while Trump was in office before,” she said. “I still think the driving force for our economy is the recovery from COVID and everything that happened with the supply chain. We all pay for it.”

    Immigration and a change that ‘happens every four years’

    Trump promised to deliver the largest deportation program in US history.

    Although the undocumented immigrant population is difficult to track, several sources estimate the total number in the US to be somewhere between 10 and 12 million people. An estimated 75,000 to 175,000 of those undocumented people live in Michigan, according to the data a report from Pew Research Center.

    Although this is a relatively small portion of the national population of more than 335 million, any large-scale effort to remove so many people from the state will have an impact on several fronts.

    Joe Garcia, CEO of Catholic Charities of Ingham, Eaton and Clinton Counties, said his agency will continue to help immigrants in need, whether through a resettlement program that serves federally approved participants from 65 a few hundred at a time, or through other services available to anyone who needs them.

    “Change happens every four years, even with a similar administration,” Garcia said. “We do the best we can with what we’re allowed to work with and go from there.”

    The campuses of St. The agency’s Vincent and Cristo Rey provides food assistance, medical access, personal needs and other services.

    “We’re in Michigan,” Garcia said. “It’s going to get cold here very soon. If someone needs a winter coat, and we have one to give away, they will get it.”

    State Journal reporters Matt Mencarini, Rachel Greco, Mike Ellis, Sarah Atwood and editor Susan Vela contributed.

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