Republican Matt Hall leads Michigan House in tumultuous period of divided government

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21 hours ago

When Michigan House GOP Leader Matt Hall took the stage in May 2024 at a campaign rally for President Donald Trump, Republicans in the state found themselves in the political wilderness, navigating a historic period of full Democratic control of state government for the first time in decades.
As his voice blared through the crowd at a Saginaw County airport, Hall urged those gathered to not just send Trump back to the White House. "This election in November, we need to elect Republicans to the Michigan House, so we can take the House back and put a check and balance on Gov. Whitmer," he said, adding that Republican victories would help support Trump's policy agenda in Michigan.
Less than a year later, Hall had ascended to House speaker with the support of Republicans who flipped enough blue seats red to deliver a GOP majority in the chamber, and, in his new post, he joined Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in the Oval Office to meet with Trump to advocate for Michigan's federal priorities.
The two have claimed some wins, including a new fighter jet mission for Selfridge Air National Guard Base, a push by Trump to protect the Great Lakes from invasive Asian carp and a disaster declaration from the president to support ice storm recovery efforts in northern Michigan.
But back in Lansing, Hall's tenure as speaker has coincided with a tumultuous new era of divided state government, with a GOP-controlled Michigan House and Democratic-controlled Michigan Senate.
Gridlock has come to define Lansing, with a Legislature that hasn't sent many bipartisan policies Whitmer's way. The logjam has Hall pointing his finger at Democratic lawmakers who, in turn, have routinely blasted Hall as uncooperative.
In his job as House speaker, Hall pulls strings or pushes buttons, depending on which side of the aisle someone sits. Since taking the speaker's gavel, Hall has helped broker major bipartisan compromises on Michigan's minimum wage and sick leave policies, held back bills that the Legislature before him approved but failed to forward to Whitmer for signature and has yet to emerge from state budget negotiations with a deal after blowing past the July 1 deadline for approving a plan.
Hall, 42, of Richland Township outside Kalamazoo, has publicly embraced political partnerships with some Democrats, including Whitmer, whose willingness to collaborate with Trump has received Hall's praise. Whitmer, in turn, has commended Hall for putting forward a road funding plan after years of legislative inaction. But Hall has also angered Democrats who castigate his Trump-like penchant for lobbing insults across the aisle.
"It's an unserious approach that's going to lead to dangerous consequences," said House Minority Leader Ranjeev Puri, D-Canton, in a May interview about Hall's leadership style.
Hall, who doesn't typically shy away from the news media when his legislative priorities are the topic, declined to be interviewed for this profile. A spokesperson for Hall initially agreed to an in-person interview with the Detroit Free Press for this profile but the offer was later rescinded. Asked why he wouldn't go through with an interview, Hall told the Free Press during an April 2025 event that he disagreed with a fact-check the newspaper published in 2021 that found he made a misleading claim, as a state representative, about Michigan's voter rolls.
Lansing insiders frequently describe Hall as a creature of politics.
"This is what he lives and breathes," said former state Rep. Andrew Beeler, R-Port Huron, in a November 2024 interview after Republicans flipped the state House and the GOP caucus tapped Hall as the next House speaker. Beeler — who chaired the House Republicans' campaign committee during the last election cycle — described Hall then as the hardest working person in Lansing and said he received frequent late-night calls from the GOP leader to strategize.
Democratic legislative leaders, however, have complained about Hall's communication with them, saying he had ignored their attempts to negotiate ahead of the July 1 budget deadline. Bipartisan discussions eventually took place as the clock ticked, but when it struck midnight, a deal was nowhere to be found and budget negotiations appear to have reached a standstill. Michigan's next fiscal year begins Oct. 1.
During a news conference Aug. 6, Hall again blasted Senate Democrats and their spending plan, saying it doesn't reflect current fiscal realities. He said he does routinely talk to Senate Majority Leader Winnie Brinks, D-Grand Rapids, and outlined plans to produce a House budget soon but didn't specify a deadline.
Brinks declined a request to comment on Hall for this profile but speaking generally about the legislative session in a May interview, she bemoaned the lack of bipartisan action in Lansing and cast blame on Hall. "So I would say it's easy to be the party of opposition if you have to be, but you know he's got a chamber, he's in the majority and he has an opportunity to actually be productive, so it's unfortunate that he's not taking us up on working together on anything," she said.
Hall, on his end, has repeatedly during news conferences blamed Democrats for inaction and touted his ability to bring House lawmakers together across party lines to pass policies to fund police and roads. Still, bipartisan cooperation hasn't always appeared to be Hall's goal.
In March, Hall made a last-minute addition to the House's daily agenda that put his Democratic predecessor on the hot seat. He put a bill up for vote, introduced by state Rep. Joe Tate, D-Detroit, who served as House speaker during the previous legislative session. Tate's bill proposed providing driver's licenses for immigrants in the United States illegally. Hall and every House Republican opposed the bill, yet Hall put it up for a vote anyway, likely knowing it would fail. If Hall's goal was to underscore Democratic divisions on immigration — a key issue in the 2024 election — he succeeded. Six Democrats broke from their party to join every Republican lawmaker to vote against the bill.
Before the vote, Tate in a speech on the House floor, called Hall's move "nothing but a political ploy."
Hall has continued to rile Democrats but his ability to unite Republicans has also faced a test. During a July 24 House session, Hall couldn't cobble together enough Republican members to advance legislation to restrict students' phone use at school and extend the timeline to prosecutors to pursue resentencing hearings to seek life sentences for convicted murderers who committed their crimes when they were 19 or 20 years old. Hall said Democrats reneged on commitments they made to support the bills. Among them was state Rep. Alabas Farhat, D-Dearborn, according to Hall who said the Democratic lawmaker promised to vote for the resentencing legislation. Farhat has denied that he made a deal to vote for the bill.
During the House session, Hall ousted Farhat as the Minority Vice Chair on the powerful House Appropriations Committee and during a news conference immediately after the votes, Hall said that he needs a partner to achieve a bipartisan budget deal and said Farhat wasn't up to the job.
Hall has rejected Puri's recommendation to reinstate Farhat as the Democratic appropriations chair, made in a letter that blasted the speaker's approach to budget negotiations. On Hall's side of the aisle, state Rep. Matt Maddock, R-Milford, who serves as majority vice chair on the House Appropriations Committee, has praised Hall's speakership. "I'm glad he is where he is, he's been nothing but impressive to me," he said during a July appearance on WKAR's "Off the Record." "He knows what he's doing, he's a fighter and I got his back."
Hall makes his way to Lansing
Hall grew up in Rochester Hills but he didn't stay in metro Detroit. He attended Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, worked as former Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette's west Michigan liaison from 2011 to 2015 and received his law degree from WMU Cooley Law School in 2017.
Hall fought some of his early political battles with members of his own party, according to Republicans who encountered him as an emerging political force. In 2016, when the Michigan GOP met to choose delegates for the Republican National Convention, it wasn't clear Trump would secure enough delegates to win on the first ballot, which could have seriously threatened his nomination, according to former Michigan GOP Executive Director Jeff Timmer.
Trump had won most of the Michigan delegates but U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and then-Ohio Gov. John Kasich each won delegates, too, so their Michigan supporters had some level of bargaining power at the gathering. Former Michigan GOP Chair Saul Anuzis served as the lieutenant for Cruz's presidential campaign, Hall represented the Trump campaign and Timmer helmed the faction for Kasich, and they all cut deals with one another related to which delegates would serve on key committees at the convention, according to Timmer.
Ultimately, Timmer said he and Hall sidelined Anuzis, reneging on the deals they made with him. Timmer, who has become a vocal critic of the Republican Party under Trump, said the episode left a lasting negative impression of Hall on him. Anuzis did not respond to a request for comment.
In 2018, Hall launched his first bid for the state House with a campaign to take on GOP incumbent state Rep. David Maturen, R-Vicksburg, who represented the 63rd District at the time. On the day of the deadline for candidates to file to run, Maturen said Hall asked to meet him outside the Michigan House chamber, where Hall told the GOP lawmaker that he had launched a campaign to challenge him.
The last-minute primary fight in 2018 wasn't pretty, according to Maturen, who said his opponent's campaign operatives portrayed him as evil. Maturen described himself as a moderate Republican running against a "Trumper" and said that he struggled to mitigate the president's influence in the race. "It was a national election based on him," Maturen said of Trump. He recounted questions on the campaign trail seeking his thoughts on the president to which Maturen said he responded by saying he sought a seat in the state House, not Congress. Maturen lost to Hall by 20 percentage points. Hall then won the general election.
Republicans tap Hall to lead
Hall honed his combative style in his first term when he led hearings as chair of the Joint Select Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic, challenging Whitmer's handling of the public health crisis.
In 2022, Whitmer won reelection and Democrats flipped control of both chambers of the Michigan Legislature, delivering a Democratic governing trifecta for the first time in 40 years. Hall worked tirelessly to seize opportunities to assert Republicans' power as the minority party.
When Democrats temporarily lost their majority to a tied House after a pair of special elections in 2023, Hall insisted that the two parties come together to broker an agreement to share power, essentially asking Tate to relinquish some of his authority as House speaker. Tate didn't budge and Hall proceeded to put on stunning displays of GOP unity. For instance, Beeler — the former GOP state representative — said Hall encouraged every House Republican to stick together to vote against the budget Democrats crafted in 2024, despite funding included for GOP districts.
"It was a master class in leadership," Beeler said in November.
After Republicans selected Hall to serve as the next House speaker, he led every GOP lawmaker in the state House in a walkout of the 2024 lame duck session, the period of lawmaking after the election when defeated and outgoing Democratic lawmakers still held power.
Hall helmed the GOP boycott with the stated goal of forcing a vote on legislation to stop pending changes to Michigan's minimum wage and paid sick leave laws, opposed by business groups. The move infuriated Democrats, who characterized the Republican protest led by Hall as a dereliction of duty by elected representatives.
"Republicans aren't here. So how can we have a conversation if they're not here and decided to, you know, go make snow angels in front of the Capitol, I guess?" Tate told reporters in December 2024 on the day Republicans stormed off the House floor.
The fallout from the last legislative session has continued to linger over the current one, with an ongoing lawsuit from the Michigan Senate against Hall for refusing to send bills passed in the previous legislative session to the governor's desk.
When he took the gavel as House speaker at the start of 2025, Hall expressed hope that Michigan would not transform into a mirror image of politics at the national level. "You know, we've been able to keep all that Washington, D.C. stuff out of here," he said.
Yet Hall quickly proceeded to use his speakership to bring Trump's policy fights to the Michigan House. Republicans have passed resolutions, which were nonbinding, supporting the president's efforts to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education, encourage county sheriffs and local law enforcement to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement and ban transgender girls from competing on girls' sports teams in Michigan. Hall has modeled his quest to slash state government spending after former Trump aide Elon Musk's cost-cutting "Department of Government Efficiency."
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While Hall has reshaped policymaking in Lansing, he has also brought a cutting communication style to the Capitol. He has said one Democratic lawmaker — state Rep. Mai Xiong, of Warren — has a low IQ for calling out Hall for being away from Lansing when he was in Macomb County with Trump for his announcement of a new fighter jet mission at Selfridge Air National Guard Base. Xiong condemned Hall's comment as evidence that he seems more intent on bullying than working together to solve Michigan's challenges.
Hall's regular and lengthy news conferences as House speaker, in which he blasts Democrats one minute and then outlines why they should support his policy demands in the next, have become a fixture in the Michigan Capitol. During them, he has advocated for new mandates for state employees to work in-person and a permanent cut to Michigan's income tax.
He has also used the forum to take a victory lap, once displaying a photo of him and Whitmer at the Oval Office with Trump in April.
In a July statement, Whitmer said she has been consistent in her willingness to work in a bipartisan manner to deliver results for Michigan. "That's no different this term. We have a productive relationship and I appreciate Speaker Hall's willingness to work together," she said.
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John Sellek, chief strategist and CEO of Lansing-based public relations and affairs firm Harbor Strategic, said Hall has set the terms of debate in the Capitol and shown he won't shy away from sharing his conversations with other legislative leaders, publicly to praise or pressure them. Sellek and Hall both worked for Schuette when he was attorney general.
Sellek tied Hall's approach back to his path to the state House. "He is not somebody who very carefully ran for school board and then ran for city council and then ran for House. He actually moved and challenged a sitting representative and beat him," Sellek said. "And he carries that same swagger and fearlessness into what he's doing now."
Contact Clara Hendrickson: [e-mail] or 313-296-5743.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Republican Matt Hall's path to Michigan House Speaker