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The votes are in and it's confirmed: The Great Lakes State flunks transparency.
The Michigan state legislature and the judiciary are exempt from Freedom of Information Act laws. Only two states in the nation completely exempt their governor's office from FOIA -- and Michigan is one of those states. Massachusetts is the other.
And Michigan is one of only eight states in the nation to get a failing grade from the Center for Public Integrity. We rank dead last among the 50 states.
This past week, Bridge Michigan reported that reform efforts in Lansing to expand the scope of FOIA, beef up campaign finance rules and require more disclosure from public officials appear to be stalling out in committee for lack of support.
Here's one of many examples: In public records requests, we want the legislature to remove blanket exemptions for lawmakers and the governor.
Since 2015, the state House has voted through four packages to include the governor's office under FOIA and subject lawmakers to a separate Legislative Open Records Act (LORA), which would operate in a fashion similar to FOIA.
Three of those efforts have had unanimous, bipartisan support. But all were halted in the Senate, where Republican leaders objected to opening up lawmaker communications to the public.
As Bridge reported, Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has said she supports expanding public records laws, but she has not yet honored her 2018 pledge to open up her own office to public record requests if the Legislature did not change the law.
Her stance differs from versions previously supported by lawmakers in that she wants the state's FOIA law to be "equally applied" across lawmakers as well as her office.
In the past, Democrats have blamed the Republican-majority Senate for lack of movement on FOIA expansion and other reforms.
But now, some Republicans who supported changes are the ones expressing frustration with the lack of progress.
Last month, House and Senate Republicans reintroduced bills passed by the House last term that would subject the governor's office to FOIA and the Legislature to LORA.
Wait for it. Here's the key takeaway: The bills have no Democratic cosponsors.
Come on. Do these legislators think the people who elected them are stupid?
Transparency is a nonpartisan issue.
But these proposed reforms are being played in the legislature and the clever gamesmanship is ensuring that no progress is ever made.
So we hear talk, talk, talk -- but see no action.
It's past time.
"There's no question we can do better than we're doing now," Nessel said when she visited Traverse City in April.
We've had our differences with Nessel, but we couldn't agree more with her on this point: We need transparency for government accountability, to promote high ethical standards, prevent fraud and corruption and, in doing so, engender greater public trust.
Trust is in jeopardy right now.
Giving any government a pass for privacy is not just wrong, it's dangerous.
If some of these elected officials don't get it, we'll make it very simple:
If you're exempt from public disclosure, what it says is: You don't want scrutiny.
And what that says to many voters is: You can't be trusted.
The only good part about that is, if you can't be trusted, it's likely you won't be re-elected. But the only problem with that is this whole silly reform go-round will start all over again.
So to those legislators with some integrity, please make the whirligig stop.
Please, for the sake of our state and our stomachs, act to pass these reforms.
Just do it.
-- Traverse City Record-Eagle