LANSING — Lee Chatfield is a 33-year-old father of five, made $95,985 per year as speaker of Michigan’s House and, until recently, had a reputation as a humble son of a northern Michigan pastor.
In the last few weeks, though, following allegations from his sister-in-law of sexual abuse, new revelations have emerged from former colleagues that he had extravagant taste and traveled so frequently he sometimes canceled House votes to catch planes, according to more than a dozen interviews by Bridge Michigan and the Michigan Campaign Finance Network.
Records show one nonprofit tied to Chatfield, the Peninsula Fund, spent nearly a half-million dollars on travel and food in 2020 alone, but IRS rules don’t require it to disclose donors or explain how the money was spent.
Some question how Chatfield could have afforded such a lifestyle, but Michigan’s scant disclosure requirements for elected officials make it impossible to know many details about Chatfield’s travels, expenses or donors. Michigan ranked 47th of 50 states in the Coalition for Integrity’s 2020 S.W.A.M.P. Index, a measurement of state-level anti-corruption measures.
Sen. Ed McBroom, the chair of the Senate Oversight Committee, reviewed an overview of Chatfield-related finances provided by Bridge and MCFN and called them “very disturbing and very heartbreaking.”
“I don't believe that this level of corruption is the norm,” said McBroom, a six-year state House member who was elected in 2019 to the Senate. “The red flags we look back and see now, I don't see to this extent anywhere else in my tenure. But citizens deserve the assurance that that’s not going on.”
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