Michigan lawmakers make time to free Harbaugh instead of working to fix flawed reform bills

Before you fault state lawmakers for failing to "act prudently" and improve flawed legislation drafted to help us know where politicians get their dough, consider that some of them were busy with more important matters.

Like trying to bail out Jim Harbaugh.

With mere hours left in this year's legislative session, 11 representatives and senators passed on the opportunity to add real teeth to the disclosure bill for candidates and officials who ignore the rules, or worse, lie. And they didn't even bother to introduce legislation requiring state lawmakers to comply with the Freedom of Information Act that compels almost every other elected official in Michigan to release public records.

Instead, they wasted their precious final hours sending a letter to the Big Ten commissioner warning him to "act prudently" and NOT do anything to the highest-paid public employee in Michigan, who, as the head coach of the University of Michigan Wolverines football team, has already ignored the rules and lied.

They even put out a news release bragging about their letter.

But I'm not writing today as a Spartan whose bowl game hopes were dashed when Harbaugh's boys clobbered my Green Men 49-0 last month. I knew that was coming after our own now-former head coach disgraced himself a month earlier. You could say that, like Harbaugh, I saw the signs.

I'm writing as a Michigan resident whose hopes were dashed that there would be serious consequences for state lawmakers, the governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general and secretary of state, as well as candidates who ignore financial disclosure rules or lie about their income and assets. That hope died when the state House and Senate adjourned for the year without improving legislation that two-thirds of Michigan voters required them to pass.

On Wednesday, a day before the Legislature effectively called it quits for the year, nine representatives and two senators urged the Big Ten to "refrain from taking any premature measures against one of our state universities, including their athletic program, football team or coaching staff."

"These individuals are our constituents," the letter continues, "and we feel the need to ensure that they are treated fairly."

I just wish these lawmakers had felt as compelled to use the Legislature's waning moments to ensure that their other 10 million constituents were "treated fairly" with good-government legislation they deserve.

The only glimmer of hope for more transparency in Lansing and expanding your right to know came just before the final gavel fell. Thanks, in part, to a Spartan — though I'm not writing today to stoke the flames of a rivalry that has driven our great state.

This is about truth and consequences.

Or lack thereof.

Loopholes live

Without boring you to death with minutiae or civics, even though the latter was my favorite subject in high school, Michigan voters in 2022 overwhelmingly ordered state lawmakers to pass a law requiring them to disclose their income and assets. We were only one of two states that did not require state lawmakers to reveal this information, which is crucial to helping you and I spot potential conflicts of interest — and even detect corruption.

Lawmakers waited until the last minute to act, and when they finally voted to enshrine The People's Will into law, they left loopholes allowing spouses to keep their finances secret and letting influencers who are not registered as lobbyists lavish gifts and trips on lawmakers without telling the rest of us.

The biggest flaw in the legislation headed to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's desk is there are virtually no consequences for candidates or state lawmakers who fail to file disclosure forms or who lie on them. The $1,000 fine for failure to file and $2,000 fine for filing false information is a pittance compared with the $50,000 fine and felony charges facing members of Congress who play games with financial disclosure. The new legislation doesn't even make lying on the forms perjury, which seems like a relatively simple matter since the very forms candidates file to run for office warn that signing a false affidavit is against the law. Michigan lawmakers did add that you can't serve in our Legislature if you fail to file disclosure forms, but candidates can still withhold that information until after an election to deprive you of information you need to make an informed choice. A politician with something to hide can just file their disclosure form after the election, pay the $1,000 fine and still take their seat in the state Capitol.

State Sen. Jeremy Moss, a Southfield Democrat who has been a leader in bringing more transparency to Lansing since he was elected to the House in 2015, told me: "The goal was not to put down a hammer on folks, the goal was to compel compliance."

He said lawmakers can still take additional action, ranging from censure to removal, for colleagues who fail to follow the rules.

That's true, but hammers often speak louder than words.

Best practices

When Lisa Brown became Oakland County Clerk in 2013, candidates and campaign committees owed the county more than $100,000 in unpaid fines for failing to comply with campaign finance law. Some owed late fees, others didn't bother to file reports detailing where they got their money and how they spent it.

So, Brown and elections director Joseph Rozell started going after the deadbeats.

"I saw how much money was owed to Oakland County so we decided to follow the law and, yes, pursue people for the debts that they owe," Brown said.

Candidates and committees who owed over $2,500 in fines got referred to the county's legal department. If the scofflaws didn't pay up, the county sued. After winning a judgment in court, the county turned the matter over to a collection agency to do things like garnish wages or snag income tax refunds to help cover the debt.

"This is about transparency," Brown said. "When a candidate doesn't file a campaign report ... that's not how Michigan's system is supposed to be. We're supposed to be transparent. Who's donating to them, how they're spending money."

Many candidates and committees who might otherwise have moved on without disclosing their finances now work with county officials to file their paperwork. The compliance rate still isn't 100%, but Rozell said "the filing of the lawsuit has been very effective."

Oakland County now collects more than $50,000 a year from derelict candidates and committees.

More recently, the Michigan Cannabis Regulatory Agency found tough consequences are the key to compliance.

Executive Director Brian Hanna said his agency got aggressive about a year ago because officials — and even members of the cannabis industry — were concerned about weed shops bringing in unregulated marijuana and businesses failing to file their annual financial reports.

Hippy lettuce that is not tested by the state poses a public health threat because, for example, some chemicals sprayed on cannabis can turn into cyanide in your lungs when you blaze up, Hanna told me (although he didn't say it quite that way).

Without financial reports, state regulators can't tell where pot operations are getting their money, which makes it hard to spot corruption in an industry awash in cash.

So Hanna and his team, aided by increased staffing provided by the Legislature and governor, ramped up efforts to find out who's doing wrong to "make an example of those that are doing it."

Hanna said his agency began imposing $10,000 fines on businesses that failed to file their financial statements.

"The industry responded," he told me last week. "Our compliance rate is now 95%."

Good enough isn't

Several lawmakers have said they expect to revisit the financial disclosure measure Whitmer is expected to sign into law.

If so, that would be a remarkable feat. In my experience, once lawmakers feel they've addressed an issue, they move on to something else. Moss acknowledged there was little will in Lansing for politicians to open their books until voters gave them no choice.

"This was a complete and total failure of the Legislature, and it was so bad that the voters had to compel us to deal with it," he said.

Still, Moss says he will work to pass legislation that helps us learn more about the people, special interests and businesses influencing our public policy. Near the top of the list is figuring out how to make lawmakers disclose details about the nonprofits many of them have that legally accept unlimited contributions and provide very little detail about how that money is spent. Moss says he doesn't have one of those accounts.

State Sen. Jim Runestad, a White Lake Republican, says if lawmakers didn't address those issues after voters put a metaphorical gun to their head by overwhelmingly passing the financial disclosure proposal, there's almost no chance they'll do it on their own later. If you like making safe bets, put your money with Runestad on this one.

While many in the Legislature, including Democratic leaders who finally have majorities in the state House and Senate, deserve fault for not doing more to help us identify the forces at work in the Capitol, Moss and state Sen. Ed McBroom, a Vulcan Republican, continue to champion causes that aren't popular among some of their colleagues.

True to form, they introduced a bill on Thursday requiring the governor and Legislature to comply with the Michigan Freedom of Information Act, which says you and I are entitled to see the documents, emails, phone records and other records they create while running the state.

"That was not on the ballot, that was not directed to us by the voters, that does not have a deadline," said Moss, an MSU journalism grad. He added that he expects the bill to move forward for a vote in the state Senate, where Republican leaders smothered transparency measures when they had the majority.

“I don’t know the timeline and I don’t know the direct pathway on how everything we want to achieve is going to be achieved," Moss said, "but my goal is to keep agitating and keep pushing forward.”

Runestad, who proposed subjecting the governor and Legislature to FOIA back in March, wishes Moss and McBroom would have worked with him back in the spring. After speaking to Moss and Runestad this week, I can say with confidence they have mutual interests, but not mutual admiration.

Such is life in Lansing, where progress is measured in millimeters when we want miles.

The governor has said for years she wants FOIA to apply to her office and the Legislature. Lawmakers say they want to toughen their new financial disclosure requirements even before they've been signed into law. These measures are important steps to cleaning up state politics, but the folks who get excited about them tend to be gadflies, do-gooders and reporter geeks like me.

"This was not the sexiest issue in town in 2015," Moss said. "People at the dinner table aren’t talking about FOIA. ... Each scandal has made a better case for it than I ever could. It very much is a real topic in the Legislature. When somebody runs for the Legislature, they get asked about it now."

Lawmakers finally agreed to open their books this year because you gave them no choice. It's said we get the government we deserve, and I suspect that's true.

That's why if you feel officials came up short, you need to let them know the reform effort they thought was good enough just isn't — even if they succeed in freeing Harbaugh.

M.L. Elrick is a Pulitzer Prize- and Emmy Award-winning investigative reporter and host of the ML's Soul of Detroit podcast. Contact him at mlelrick@freepress.com or follow him on Twitter at @elrick, Facebook at ML Elrick and Instagram at ml_elrick.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan lawmakers try to free Harbaugh instead of fixing flawed reform bill