Michigan Senate votes to extend FOIA to governor and legislature
LANSING — After years of inaction on increasing transparency in government, the Michigan State Senate on Wednesday took a major step toward bringing more insight into the offices of the governor and state legislators by voting overwhelmingly to subject them to the state’s Public Access to Government Records Act for the first time.
The bills now go to the House of Representatives, which recessed before considering them. Still, the Senate’s passage of the Michigan Freedom of Information Act amendments is significant because that chamber has historically been the roadblock to expanding the public records law. Bills to extend FOIA to the governor and legislature have previously passed the House, only to stall in the Senate.
Senate Bills 669 and 670 passed the Senate by a vote of 36 to 2, with only Senators Jon Bumstead (R-North Muskegon) and Jonathan Lindsey (R-Coldwater) voting no.
A 2014 Free Press poll found that Michigan is one of only two states where both the governor and the legislature are exempt from requiring disclosure of public state records.
Senators Jeremy Moss (D-Southfield) and Ed McBroom (D-Vulcan) put aside their partisan differences and worked for nearly a decade to advance the bill, working with a diverse group of outside supporters, from the liberal ACLU of Michigan to the conservative Mackinac Center for Public Policy and the nonpartisan Michigan Press Association.
“It’s completely surreal to be here,” Moss said on the Senate floor shortly before the vote. “We’ve endured a lot of naysayers” and “people who worked to ensure this day would never come.”
McBroom said, “I am very proud … to support this bill.”
The bills would expand Michigan’s FOIA to include the governor, lieutenant governor and legislature, all of whom have been exempt since the original law was passed in the 1970s.
The expansions come with new exemptions, including records created before the bills took effect, governor’s records that are subject to “executive privilege” or have been in the governor’s office for less than 30 days, and records of congressmen’s or governor’s communications with their constituents or those related to internal investigations.
Charles Blackwell, a 31-year-old Farmington Hills resident who frequently uses Michigan FOIA in his spare time as a local government watchdog, said Wednesday he welcomed the breakthrough in Lansing and looks forward to the bill’s passage by the state House of Representatives.
“Michiganians have waited and begged for this moment long enough,” Blackwell said in an email.
“Transparency regarding government officials is critical to holding public officials accountable, exposing corruption, and preventing injustice.”
Many MPs said they voted for the bill despite ongoing concerns and expressed hope that the new law could be improved in the future.
“We will finally provide the transparency our citizens deserve,” said Republican Senate Minority Leader Aric Nesbitt of Porter Township.
“We need some more sunshine.”
Earlier this year, Michigan lawmakers were first forced to consider a law requiring personal financial disclosure, but that change was the result of a constitutional amendment passed by Michigan voters in 2022, not an action lawmakers took on their own initiative.
Contact Paul Egan: 517-372-8660 or [email protected]. Follow him on X, @paulegan4.
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