PRIORITIES
Darrin's district may have grown throughout his time in the state house and senate, but his values have never wavered. Prioritizing common-sense legislation that has a direct impact on the lives of his constituents and all of Michigan remains his number one goal.
Infrastructure
Since taking office, Darrin has prioritized everyday issues that will benefit his district and Michigan as a whole. Central to that focus is improving Michigan’s infrastructure. This effort started while in the House when he quickly realized that without making serious investments now, we are severely limiting our ability to grow our economy later.
So Darrin got to work, delivering funding for urgently needed underpass projects Downriver – including securing $12 million in state money toward an underpass at the chronically blocked Allen Road rail crossing in Woodhaven. The hard work hasn’t stopped. In the Senate, Darrin successfully passed legislation to create a Statewide Grade Separation Program, ensuring safer roads and railways for our communities. This crucial initiative mandates MDOT to establish a grant program for separating motor vehicle and railroad traffic. This means building overpasses or underpasses at intersections, preventing accidents, and easing traffic flow – a resounding victory for public safety and transportation efficiency.
Darrin believes that for Downriver to become the economic hub we know it can be, we need to take a more holistic approach to these improvements and make it a priority. That means removing the remaining lead pipes in ALL of our communities and revitalizing our waterfront by cleaning up toxic sites. By responsibly developing the Downriver waterfront, we can attract small businesses, facilitate investment, and create walkable, urban corridors that encourage commerce and attract new residents – when we need it most.
Fighting for Working Families
As the son and grandson of union auto workers, Darrin has always prioritized fighting for workers’ rights. He believes in the power of unions to provide a decent standard of living for workers and their families and world-class talent for Michigan’s businesses. That is why, when elected to the Senate, he immediately got to work on helping Michigan become the first state in the country to repeal “right-to-work” legislation in 60 years, which restricted workers from bargaining for improved working conditions, higher wages and safer workplaces.
“We know that the true power in our state lies with our workers, and this historic legislation will allow Michigan workers to more freely negotiate for the pay, benefits and protections they deserve.” – Sen. Darrin Camilleri, the main sponsor of the bill repealing “right-to-work” legislation
Darrin knows the challenges working families have faced these past few years. He’s worked to raise the minimum wage, quintuple the Working Families Tax Credit, and repeal the pension tax. We’ve made meaningful progress as we recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic, but we must continue taking bold steps to safeguard Michiganders’ standard of living.
Costs are still high, wages haven’t caught up yet, and too many Michiganders are forced to live paycheck-to-paycheck. That’s why Darrin is hard at work in Lansing fighting for investment in our Downriver and Western Wayne communities, holding corporations accountable to their workers, and preserving Michigan’s traditional path to the middle class by investing in the jobs of tomorrow.
Education
As a former teacher, Darrin has seen the challenges teachers, students, and families are facing firsthand. That experience seeing the broken system up close was one of the foundational motivations that led him to run for office and continues to drive him today. It is also why when he was elected to the State House, he made sure to deliver record funding for Downriver schools and helped decrease the funding gap between school districts. This has resulted in raises for teachers, more social workers in schools, and improvements to school facilities – crucial building blocks to fixing this broken system.
Now, as Chair of the PreK-12 Appropriations Subcommittee in the State Senate, Darrin has continued to make education a top priority, helping deliver a historic education budget this past session that included free lunch and breakfast in our public schools, created a new funding model for at-risk students that invests in students with the highest need, and removed barriers to teaching through tuition-free training, student loan repayment, and resources for those working to become a teacher.
Going forward, Darrin will continue to fight to improve our public schools, explore new programs to incentivize young people to pursue teaching careers, and ensure those teachers have the resources they need for success.
protecting the right to choose
Since he first entered elected office, Darrin has been an outspoken advocate for protecting women’s right to choose and for the medical professionals who provide reproductive care.
In 2022, when Roe v. Wade was overturned in the Supreme Court, Darrin worked closely with the Governor and organizations across the state to ensure Michigan would not revert to the archaic laws of the past. Following that victory, Darrin and the state legislature passed a series of bills under the Reproductive Health Act that solidified and expanded protections for women. These new laws include repealing a law forcing women to purchase a separate insurance rider for abortion care, repealing a 1931 law criminalizing nurses and doctors for prescribing medication abortions, and repealing all of Michigan’s TRAP laws, a series of politically motivated bills to help close abortion providers.
Going forward, Darrin is committed to making sure Michigan continues to provide safe and affordable reproductive care to those who need it.
Clean air, water, & Land
Protecting our air, water, and land must remain a top priority as Michigan deals with the effects of climate change. In the fall of 2023, Darrin was proud to support historic clean energy legislation that demonstrated Michigan’s commitment to fighting climate change. The Clean Energy & Jobs Act will require 50% of Michigan’s energy to come from renewable sources by 2035 – the kind of ambitious action we must take to combat climate change.
With the Detroit River, Lake Erie, Huron River, Belleville Lake and many other natural resources and parks right in our backyard, our quality of life depends on us being good stewards of our environment. Darrin has fought back against funding cuts to programs that protect the Great Lakes and spoken out against the push to let corporate polluters write environmental rules in Michigan – because he knows we should be strengthening environmental protections and holding polluters accountable, not the opposite.
By investing in clean energy and environmental protection, we can create strong union jobs in emerging industries, lower utility costs, and protect Michigan’s precious air, water, and land.
Public Safety
Every Michigander deserves to feel safe in their home, community, and workplace. Darrin has always supported our first responders and law enforcement officers, working in the legislature to protect pension and healthcare benefits for police officers and firefighters and helping secure $300 million to invest in training within local police departments.
Darrin supports a comprehensive approach to public safety, including increasing revenue sharing so communities can hire the police officers they need, incentivizing local police departments to hire more mental health professionals, and expanding community policing programs.