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

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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 push 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 affect the Lansing region.

Title IX and transgender people

Universities may see new regulations surrounding Title IX, the federal law that prohibits discrimination based on gender in federally funded educational programs. The expansions that Biden passed, including sexual orientation and gender identification, will likely be scaled back, meaning that protections for LGBTQ+ students will disappear.

“The most important thing that Donald Trump has said he would do on Day 1 is ban transgender people from participating in women’s sports in schools,” said Liz Abdnour, a Lansing-based attorney who specializes in Title IX.

But it may not stop there. Abdnour said she will also keep an eye on the waning of other protections, such as the one that prohibits discrimination against people based on their gender identity and sexual orientation.

However, Michigan has specific protections that prohibit discrimination against LGBTQ+ people that are enshrined in state law. The Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination against people 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.

Trump’s former education secretary Betsy DeVos tightened the definition of sexual abuse to fit within the Clery Act’s guidelines. In order for a school to investigate a complaint, the harassment must 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 accused of misconduct to cross-examine the accuser. They also excluded behaviors that did not occur within the institution’s educational program or activities. This meant that universities were not required to investigate sexual abuse that happened off campus.

The Trump administration was investigating failures to comply with the Clery Act by Michigan State University in 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 an ongoing threat” to the campus community.

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

Crime and capital punishment

Matthew Schneider, who was the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan during Trump’s first term, said clear political 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 may be unchanged.

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

The first, and likely most visible, changes will come as the Trump administration decides who will lead the U.S. attorney’s office in Michigan and other states, and who will lead the Justice Department in Washington, DC

Big changes would then follow, Schneider said, pointing to immigration cases, opiate prosecutions and the use of the death penalty.

“We will definitely 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 handled those cases.”

Schneider said there may not be hundreds of these cases next year, but even dozens would be a noticeable 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 Justice Department review of death penalty policy.

That may have affected whether Rashad Trice, the man who pleaded guilty to kidnapping and killing a Lansing child in 2023, 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-related prosecutions are also likely to increase, particularly cases involving an overdose death where a drug dealer could be charged.

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

Will a $500 million redevelopment of Lansing’s Grand River General Motors electric vehicle plant happen?

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

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

A week later, during a stop in Detroit, Vance attacked the federal support that “table 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 had indicated he couldn’t guarantee the rebuild, but the mayor said hopefully it’s just a matter of continuing to argue that the transformation will keep American jobs and continue to seed the electric car industry.

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

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

It was part of an announcement by the Biden administration of more than $1 billion in grants to help rebuild or open 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 then 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 South Lansing bakery.

“It’s been hard,” she said. The price of vanilla, sugar, butter and cream cheese her company needs to make cheesecakes and cookies has doubled in recent years, Ray-Brown said.

If a new administration’s policies can lower those costs, that 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 is concerned that raising tariffs on imported goods, a concept Trump floated during his campaign, could increase costs.

“I don’t know how it would affect us directly,” she said.

Matt Gillett, who owns Saddleback BBQ and Slice by Saddleback, said restaurants can only raise prices so much to offset escalating 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 she doesn’t think a presidential administration could have much of an impact on inflation or the supply chain.

Robinson said the Covid-19 pandemic affected both and they are still recovering.

“It started happening while Trump was in office earlier,” she said. “I still think the driver of our economy is the covid recovery and everything that happened with the supply chain. We’re all paying for it.”

Immigration, and a change that “happens every four years”

Trump has promised to implement the largest deportation program in US history.

Although the population of undocumented immigrants is difficult to track, several sources put the total number in the United States at somewhere between 10 million to 12 million people. An estimated 75,000 to 175,000 of those undocumented live in Michigan, according to a report from Pew Research Center.

Although 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 a number of 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 to several hundred at any given time. or through other services available to all in need.

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

The agency’s campus in St. Vincent and Cristo Rey provide assistance with food, medical access, personal needs and other services.

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

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

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