The Era Of Change: Will Michigan SOS Do What California Did?

Michigan's child support enforcement program has earned a near-perfect federal audit score two years in a row. Zero findings. Zero recommendations. A 99.9 percent accuracy rate in payment processing.

There is just one problem. The test never asked the most important question.

No state auditor, no federal reviewer, and no internal compliance check has ever examined whether Michigan courts are conducting the ability-to-pay hearings required by law before suspending a parent's driver's license. The audits check whether money moves correctly. They do not check whether the enforcement actions behind that money followed due process.

In January 2025, California checked. What it found changed everything.

149,000 Licenses Released in a Single Day

Governor Gavin Newsom signed SB 1055 into law, prohibiting license suspensions for parents earning below 70 percent of their county's median income. When the law took effect, California released 149,000 suspended licenses in one action.

The state had examined its own enforcement pipeline and reached a conclusion that researchers have been publishing for years. Suspending licenses from parents who cannot afford to pay does not increase child support collections. It destroys them.

A parent who loses their license loses their ability to get to work. A parent who loses their job falls further behind on payments. A parent who falls further behind accumulates fees, fines, and increased insurance costs that turn a few hundred dollars of debt into thousands. The system designed to enforce payment becomes the reason payment stops.

California looked at that cycle and decided to break it. Michigan has not looked at all.

The Research Is Not Ambiguous

The Cleveland Federal Reserve published findings in February 2024 showing that Ohio carried 1.66 million active debt-related license suspensions. If even half of those drivers complied and stopped driving, the state stood to lose 830,000 workers from its labor force. Fourteen percent of Ohio job postings now require a valid driver's license. That number was eight percent in 2015.

A New Jersey Department of Transportation study found that 42 percent of people who had their licenses suspended lost their jobs. Of those who lost jobs, 45 percent could not find another one. Of those who found new employment, 88 percent reported a decrease in income.

A peer-reviewed study published in the Journal of Economics, Race, and Policy in August 2024 found that suspension rates in low-income communities of color were 2.5 to 9 times higher than in wealthy white communities. The study documented how original debts of a few hundred dollars ballooned into thousands after fees, fines, and increased insurance costs.

The Congressional Research Service reported that because wage withholding is the single most effective child support collection method, any enforcement action that interferes with employment is "almost certainly hurting rather than encouraging enforcement."

Michigan's own child support collection rates have declined in multiple counties over the past five years.

What Michigan Law Requires and What Actually Happens

In October 2021, Michigan amended MCL 552.628 to require two conditions before a license can be suspended for child support arrears. First, the court must determine through an ability-to-pay assessment that the parent is willfully refusing to pay despite having the financial means. Second, the FOC must determine that no other enforcement sanction would ensure compliance.

The amendment was supposed to end the era of automatic suspensions with no judicial review.

But MCL 257.321c still directs the Secretary of State to "immediately suspend" a license when notified by the FOC. The statute uses mandatory language. It contains no requirement for the Secretary of State to verify that the underlying order included an ability-to-pay hearing.

If a county FOC submits a suspension notice from a proceeding where no hearing was conducted, the Secretary of State processes it the same as a lawful order. There is no filter. There is no verification step. There is no second check.

Michigan has 83 counties, each operating its own Friend of the Court office. The State Court Administrative Office's FOC Bureau oversees these offices from Lansing, but an investigation by The Kalamazoo Transparency Act found that the Kalamazoo County FOC denied 100 percent of grievances filed over a five-year period under the current FOC Bureau Director. If a county office is already failing to uphold its own grievance process, the question is whether that same office can be trusted to conduct proper hearings before requesting suspensions.

The Supreme Court Already Answered This Question

In Turner v. Rogers (2011), the United States Supreme Court held that due process requires specific safeguards before a parent can be penalized for nonpayment of child support. The Court required notice that ability to pay is a critical issue, a form to collect financial information, an opportunity for the parent to respond, and an express finding that the parent has the ability to pay.

In 2016, the federal Office of Child Support Enforcement issued a Final Rule directing all states to consider ability to pay before pursuing enforcement actions including license suspensions, contempt proceedings, and incarceration. The rule was issued because the federal government found that punitive enforcement against parents who cannot pay does not increase collections.

Michigan amended its statute in 2021 to reflect these requirements. Five years later, no one has checked whether the requirements are being followed.

The Secretary of State Responded. The FOC Did Not.

Michigan Capitol Press requested comment from the Secretary of State's office on whether the agency verifies that ability-to-pay hearings are conducted before processing FOC suspension orders. The office responded within 48 hours. Two representatives engaged with the inquiry and acknowledged the issue.

That response stands in sharp contrast to the Kalamazoo County Friend of the Court, where 18 officials including judges, referees, and clerks received press inquiries about the FOC's 100 percent grievance denial rate. Not one responded.

The Secretary of State's willingness to engage is a signal that the office takes its responsibilities seriously. The question is whether that engagement leads to action.

The Governor Has a Choice

California's reform was not a legislative accident. It was a governor-level decision. Newsom examined the data, signed the bill, and released 149,000 licenses. That is the kind of action that requires executive leadership.

Michigan's governor has the same authority. The governor appoints the director of MDHHS, which oversees the Office of Child Support. A governor-ordered review of FOC suspension practices would answer the question that no federal audit has asked. How many of the suspensions Michigan is processing right now were issued without the hearings the law requires?

The bipartisan Driving for Opportunity Act, introduced in Congress as S.2313, would authorize 10 million dollars per year for states that repeal debt-based license suspension laws. The bill was supported by the ACLU, Americans for Prosperity, and the Fraternal Order of Police. Nearly 40 percent of license suspensions nationwide stem from unpaid fines and missed payments, not unsafe driving.

Michigan can continue processing FOC suspension orders on faith, trusting that 83 county offices are all conducting the hearings the law demands despite no mechanism to verify it. Or Michigan can do what California did. Count the suspensions. Check the orders. And find out whether a perfect score on the wrong test has been good enough.

Have You Been Affected?

If your driver's license was suspended without an ability-to-pay hearing, we want to hear from you. Contact us at press@michigancapitol.com with the subject line "I NEVER GOT AN ABILITY TO PAY HEARING" and tell us your story.