GM plant, death penalty, Title IX: How Trump’s agenda could impact Lansing

LANSING — The coming days and weeks will shed more light on how President-elect Donald Trump expects to pursue 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, stemming illegal immigration and reducing violent crime were among his platforms during the campaign.
Here are five ways a second Trump administration may impact the Lansing region.
Universities may see new regulations around Title IX, the federal law that prohibits discrimination based on sex in education programs that are federally funded. The expansions Biden enacted, including sexual orientation and gender identification, will likely be cut, meaning the protections for LGBTQ+ students will go away.
“The main thing Donald Trump has said he’d do Day 1 is ban transgender women from participating in women’s sports in schools,” said Liz Abdnour, a Lansing-based attorney specializing in Title IX.
But it might not stop there. Abdnour said she’ll also be keeping an eye on other protections going away, like the one banning discrimination of people based on their gender identity and sexual orientation.
However, Michigan has specific protections banning discrimination against LGBTQ+ people enshrined into state law. The Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination against people for their sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression.
Abdnour said federal law shouldn’t interfere with the state’s law because of the constitutional separation of powers.
Trump’s former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos tightened the definition of sexual misconduct to fit within the Clery Act guidelines. For a school to be able to investigate a complaint, the harassment had to be so “severe” and “pervasive” that it “effectively denies” a person equal access to a school program or activity. The Trump rules allowed for the advisor for a person who was accused of misconduct to cross-examine the accuser. They also excluded conduct that did not occur within the institution’s education program or activity. This meant universities weren’t obligated to investigate sexual misconduct that happened off campus.
The Trump administration investigated failures to comply with the Clery Act by Michigan State University in how the university handled sexual assault reports related to Larry Nassar and other campus-wide safety issues. The report found 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.
Matthew Schneider, who was the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan during Trump’s first term, said clear policy differences between Biden and Trump will be seen in which cases are prosecuted and how they’re pursued. But he said a lot of what federal law enforcement does might be unchanged.
“Ninety percent or more of the policy and actions really stay the same,” he said. “That’s because it doesn’t really matter who is president when someone robs a bank.”
The first, and likely most visible, changes will come when Trump’s administration determines who will lead the U.S. Attorney offices in Michigan and other states, and who leads the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C.
Major changes would then follow, Schneider said, pointing to immigration cases, opioid prosecutions and use of the death penalty.
“We are definitely going to see an increase in prosecutions of people who come to 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 that there might not be hundreds of those cases next year, but even dozens would be a noticeable increase. Similarly, federal death penalty cases aren’t common in Michigan, but Schneider expects the DOJ in a Trump administration to put the punishment 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 might have impacted whether Rashad Trice, the man who pleaded guilty to kidnapping and killing a Lansing toddler in 2023, faced the death penalty in his federal case. The DOJ considered the death penalty but decided against it. Trice pleaded guilty in state and federal courts and is serving two sentences of life in prison without parole.
He also said that opioid-related prosecutions are also likely to increase, particularly cases that involve an overdose death in which a drug dealer can be charged.
Will a $500 million retooling of the Lansing Grand River General Motors plant for electric vehicles happen?
Mayor Andy Schor said Friday he hopes so, adding it’s his wish the federal government will honor the commitment made earlier this year by the Biden administration as a way to keep 650 jobs and add 50 more.
Vice President-elect JD Vance made comments in October that called into question whether a Trump administration would honor the grant.
A week later, during a stop in Detroit, Vance attacked the federal support as “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’re in the negotiation period with the DOE to finalize plans,” said GM’s Colleen Oberc. “There are no additional details at this time.”
Schor said Vance had indicated that he could not guarantee the retooling but the mayor said that it is hopefully just a matter of continuing to make the case that the conversion will keep American jobs and continue to seed the EV industry.
“When President Trump looks at this, they’re going to see more money is going to red states than blue and the money is helping to keep jobs and to get people back on their feet so their community grows,” Schor said.
General Motors in July said it would invest $900 million and the Biden administration committed another $500 million to retool the plant, which announced last year it would cease 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 retool or reopen 11 auto plants — including more than $650 million for two factories in Michigan — for an EV push.
LGR still makes the Cadillac CT4 and CT5 (including V-Series). GM announced last year it would lay off more than 350 Lansing autoworkers beginning Jan. 1 because of the end of Camaro production, and city officials at the time urged the company to find new products to build in mid-Michigan.
Inflation, rising prices of nearly everything and supply chain issues has 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 rough,” she said. The price of the vanilla, sugar, butter and cream cheese her business needs to make cheesecakes and cookies has doubled in the last several years, Ray-Brown said.
If a new administration’s policies can lower those costs it would help, Ray-Brown said. “I’m optimistic, but at the same time, it’s been extremely hard, and not just as a business owner, just as an everyday consumer.”
Ray-Brown said she is worried that raising tariffs on imported goods, a concept Trump touted during his campaign, could raise costs.
“I don’t know how that would impact us directly,” she said.
Matt Gillett, who owns Saddleback BBQ and Slice by Saddleback, said restaurants can only raise prices so much to compensate for 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 believe a president’s administration can have much impact on inflation or the supply chain.
Robinson said the COVID-19 pandemic impacted both, and they are still recovering.
“It started to happen while Trump was in office before,” she said. “I still think the driving force for our economy is COVID recovery and everything that happened to the supply chain. We’re all paying for it.”
Trump has promised to carry out the largest deportation program in U.S. history.
Although the population of undocumented immigrants is difficult to track, multiple sources put the total number in the U.S. at somewhere between 10 million to 12 million people. An estimated 75,000 to 175,000 of those undocumented people are living in Michigan, according to a report from the Pew Research Center.
While that’s a relatively small portion of the national population of more than 335 million, any sweeping effort to remove that 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 that be through a resettlement program serving federally-approved participants numbering from 65 to several hundred at any given time, or through other services available to anyone in need. 
“Change happens every four years even with a similar administration,” Garcia said. “We do the best with what we’re allowed to work with and we go from there.”
The agency’s St. Vincent and Cristo Rey campuses provide help 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 coat, and we have one to give, they’re going to receive it.”
State Journal reporters Matt Mencarini, Rachel Greco, Mike Ellis, Sarah Atwood and editor Susan Vela contributed.