Governor Gretchen Whitmer signed bills Wednesday to give state officials another month to file asset and financial disclosure reports as the state tries to fix its filing website. Without the new law, the filing deadline would be Thursday and many officials would be in violation.
“Michiganders deserve to know how their government is working for them,” Whitmer said in a statement released by her office. “That’s why I’m proud to sign Senate Bills 99 and 100, so we can cut confusing red tape, help more Michiganders run for office, and increase transparency in our government.”
The reports are required under a 2022 voter-approved amendment to the Michigan, although it’s up to the Legislature and the governor to adopt laws to comply with the constitutional provision. The proposal also made changes to Michigan’s term-limits amendment.
The filing process for the reports has been bedeviled by system crashes and other problems that would prevent lawmakers from meeting the deadline and have made it difficult for the public to access the records.
Senator Jonathan Lindsey (R-Coldwater) said the fix is long overdue and complained that the Secretary of State’s office kept making changes to the disclosure forms.
“Let’s not forget as we’re (passing the bills to push back the filing deadline) that the reason we have to is because Secretary of State (Jocelyn) Benson could not read the law, she could not understand the law and she could not manage a department to implement the law and run a basic website that allowed us to plug in the information,” he said in a speech prior to votes to finalize the bills.
A spokesperson for Benson said her department "has been working nights and weekends to make sure the online system is ready" by the deadline.
The new law moves the deadline to June 13, specifies a form to be used and allows filing by email while the problems are fixed.
“Ultimately, we want this to be accessible,” said Senator Jeremy Moss (D-Southfield), a bill sponsor who also chairs the Senate Elections and Ethics Committee. “We want legislators to have ease of filling it out and we want the public to have the ease of accessing it.”
Moss said a smoothly operating system is necessary to give the public a view into sources of income and assets that might present a conflict of interest.
“So that if somebody introduces a bill you can easily go into this database, this publicly available database, look up the lawmaker and say, hey, this person is introducing this bill, but they’ve got a financial interest to introduce this bill,” he told Michigan Public Radio. “Then you’d be able to call it out and then voters would be able to make their decision about it.”
But Benson's office said the department is concerned provisions in the new law will actually reduce transparency.
“Specifically, these bills do not require officials to describe the value of their assets, investments, and liabilities,” said Department of State Chief Communications Officer Angela Benander in an emailed statement.
“Michigan is behind nearly every other state in requiring transparency from lawmakers and public officials,” she said. “We should be doing everything we can to make our state a leader for government transparency and accountability.”
