LANSING (May 4, 2020) — A package of bills intended to review legislators’ financial disclosures does little to increase accountability, multiple experts on combating corruption in government told the Michigan Campaign Finance Network.
Michigan has no requirements for financial disclosures for anyone in the legislature or executive branch, and is one of just two states without any requirements for the legislature. Without them, it becomes much more difficult to track government officials and determine if important decisions have self-serving ramifications.
While the proposed reforms would be “better than nothing,” said Elizabeth David-Barrett, a professor who leads the Centre for the Study of Corruption, the legislation struck her as “extraordinarily weak.”
The bills would create committees of legislators to police their own colleagues in the House and Senate, appointed by the caucus leaders in each chamber. Each year legislators would give the committees a thorough description of their finances, but the disclosures themselves would be kept private and exempt from public records requests.
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