There are more than 30 instances in Michigan law where the Legislature grants the governor or a state agency the authority to act unilaterally in an emergency. These grants vary significantly in their scope, purpose and use. Some emergency powers are used regularly — multiple times a year, on average — while others have likely never been used.[*] Some give the executive branch broad discretion to regulate large portions of society, while others apply only to minor concerns.
For this analysis, emergency powers are organized into four categories. The first category consists of three well-known and often-used statutes that confer broad authority on a department, agency or the governor. These are referred to here as “The Big Three.” The second category consists of laws that provide broad authority, with only weak constraints. These are distinguished from a third group, statutes that provide limited authority and strong constraints. And the fourth set includes statutes that are either antiquated or duplicative. These have likely never been used, or they grant powers that the executive already possesses through a different statute.
[*] There is no requirement and mechanism for the state to formally report or record the use of these powers, so it is difficult to determine when or if some of these powers have been used in the past. Most of the historical information presented here is based on a review of past editions of Michigan newspapers that are digitized and available online through Newspapers.com.