The end of Sunshine Week seems like a fitting time to send the first edition of Michigan Campaign Finance Network’s weekly newsletter.

Michigan has spent years at the bottom of lists ranking state governments’ transparency and anti-corruption measures. The past week elicited a fair number of speeches and legislation, but little substantive movement on policy. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer directed state departments to begin accepting credit card payments for open records requests, and in terms of actual changes enacted at the state level, that’s about the whole of it. (As a candidate Whitmer promised to open her office to those same requests under the Freedom of Information Act. It hasn’t happened.)

But lawmakers have been spurred to act as the increasingly unsavory reality of former House Speaker Lee Chatfield’s tenure has come into public view, and there’s renewed hope there might finally be enough momentum to see substantial reform become law.

A nine-bill package unveiled by House Republicans last Wednesday represents a first attempt by legislators to end some of the ways money and benefits reportedly flowed to Chatfield and allies.

House Bills 5921 through 5929 seeks to ban lobbyist-paid travel, both disclosed and undisclosed, make FOIA more responsive and slightly expand campaign finance reporting requirements. The Republican-sponsored bills would also broaden lobbyist disclosure requirements to include legislative staff, who in an era of stringent term limits can outlast their bosses and wield significant influence over policy decisions.

“You look at the people in Michigan, they have to have some level of trust, some level of faith that their government isn't completely corrupt,” said Rep. Steve Johnson (R-Wayland), who was a sponsor on every bill.  “It doesn't mean what someone's doing is necessarily wrong, but it has the appearance of impropriety. This will hopefully make sure that we get above that level.”

Though it would block most gifts of travel and lodging to legislators and their families, campaign finance experts told MCFN it’s unclear whether the current legislation would prevent the way Chatfield is said to have engaged in prolific travel, using a indirectly-controlled nonprofit that also paid for other expenses (that nonprofit reported spending close to $300,000 on travel in 2020.)

Johnson has promised the bills sent to the House Oversight Committee, which he chairs, will get a hearing. Political will in the wake of a scandal can be fleeting, and while the House has demonstrated an appetite for change, the fate of similar bills in the Senate offers ample reason to temper expectations.

Case in point is bipartisan legislation that would open the legislature and Governor’s office to a form of open records law. It passed the House unanimously in March 2021 and after approval from the Senate Oversight Committee has been waiting for a vote on the floor of the upper chamber for nearly a year.

Sen. Jeremy Moss (D-Southfield) has championed this policy for most of his tenure in the legislature with Sen. Ed McBroom (R-Vulcan). He remains optimistic and is confident the bills have the votes to pass, calling Chatfield’s scandal the “biggest asset” to getting the bills over the finish line, but no guarantees have been made by the chamber’s leader, Sen. Mike Shirkey (R-Clark Lake). 

Shirkey, who once deemed himself a “transparency hawk,” is widely seen as the final and most significant hurdle for these reforms. Legislators told MCFN that widespread support in the Senate beyond the Majority Leader will be critical to the fate of any reform legislation.

Though a request from MCFN wasn’t returned, MLive’s Samuel Robinson got a circumspect statement from Shirkey. He deemed it and other proposals “well-intentioned” while reiterating concerns about “unintended consequences.” It’s been his refrain for more than two years.

Bills requiring some degree of financial disclosure for state officeholders has been similarly waylaid — Michigan and Idaho are the only states without any. Of the three versions of legislation that emerged this session, the first two had bipartisan support and would’ve made disclosures public. They never saw a committee hearing.

The third was markedly scaled back: disclosures would be private, overseen by other legislators and only scrutinized if a complaint is filed. Despite a poor reception from anti-corruption experts, it passed the House with some resistance — only to be promptly sent to a Senate committee where legislation regularly goes to die without a hearing.

Current House Speaker Jason Wentworth (R-Clare) opened this term addressing transparency and accountability, but a larger package of bills he promised would arrive “in the coming weeks” never materialized — at least not any that contained House leadership’s explicit blessing. The measures that Wentworth had then called a “down payment” on further reforms are, like others, immobilized in the Senate.

Still, this is the closest the would-be Legislative Open Records Act has come to passage, and Wentworth has clearly signaled interest in a departure from the longstanding status quo in Lansing. Johnson, who is term-limited, promises more bills are coming. 

“We’re gonna keep up the pressure on this,” Johnson told MCFN. “My guess is we’re gonna keep working on this throughout the remainder of my time here.”


In Other News

Learn how to hold local officials accountable with MCFNMCFN has partnered with the Michigan Press Association to host a training on Tuesday, March 22 at 10:30 a.m. focusing on local campaign finance. MCFN will offer attendees a guide on requesting, examining and reporting on local campaign finance information. Attendees can sign up here. Costs associated with the session support MCFN.

Perry Johnson surpasses $2 million in campaign ad spendingRepublican gubernatorial contender Perry Johnson has spent nearly $2.5 million on advertising, according to the firm AdImpact. That's about as much as he reported giving to his campaign shortly after launching his bid for Governor. He is so far the only Republican candidate with a presence on the airwaves. There are still more than four months to go before the August primary.

ICYMI: In Minards' Wake, a Trail of Financial Discrepancies MCFN found at least two dozen instances where donors reported giving to Chatfield-connected accounts, totaling more than $100,000 in contributions, and the donations were never reported. Those unaccounted-for funds expose a key weakness in Michigan's campaign finance system: None of these one-sided transactions, which were reported over five years’ time and involved 18 different committees, were ever flagged by the agency tasked with overseeing the filings.

Four years ago they led Michigan’s legislature. Now they’re registered to lobby it.Current Attorney General candidate Tom Leonard, a former speaker in the House, moved to lobby in the private sector in early 2020. Now his counterpart in the Senate at the time, Republican Arlan Meekhof, has done the same. Who or what he’ll be lobbying has yet been made public, but the registration itself is an indication that some money has already been spent.

Get information on candidates, PACs and lobbyists almost instantly.Sunshine week places a focus on government transparency, and that spirit of open government is in part what inspired MCFN to create Michigan Campaign Finance Alerts. The service automatically posts a wealth campaign finance-related information on Twitter and Facebook shortly after it’s made publicly available. It can be found online freely, but it’s not straightforward to access, much less follow closely. Connecting with one of those accounts means you can keep a close eye on candidate and PAC registrations, campaign finance filings and even lobbyist activity.