Democratic Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist II, who recently dropped out of the governor’s race to run for secretary of state, skipped about 94 percent of the Michigan Senate sessions over which he had the responsibility to serve as president, the Detroit News reports.
Craig Mauger, the Detroit News Lansing reporter, writes:
Gilchrist’s habitual absences in the Senate break with a longtime tradition in Michigan, where lieutenant governors usually have presided over the Senate session on a daily basis. They have raised questions about what tasks he’s chosen to take on instead, as he earns an annual taxpayer-funded salary of about $111,000.
Across three lieutenant governors over the last 20 years, Gilchrist has posted the two lowest annual attendance percentages compared with the number of days when senators were asked to be in Lansing. The Detroit Democrat led the Senate for 6% of the days senators were there in 2025 and 39% of the days in 2024, a Detroit News analysis shows.
A spokesman for Gilchrist declined to comment to The News.
Hellbound and Down 