Gov. Gretchen Whitmer promised as a candidate to expand the state’s transparency laws to compel both her office and the Legislature to give documents to the public when the public asked for them.

She’s been in office for years now, and nothing’s been done to fulfill her promise.

To be fair, proposals to expand the state’s transparency laws have been introduced in the Legislature and died in the Legislature long before Whitmer moved into the governor’s mansion, but Whitmer promised to be different and she hasn’t been.

Only one other state -Massachusetts — exempts both the Legislature and the governor’s office from state transparency laws. Michigan consistently scores poorly on rankings of transparency laws, in part because of those exemptions.

The Michigan Freedom of Information Act requires public agencies — everybody from city, village, township, and county governments to universities and community colleges to police agencies to all state agencies — to give to the public copies of almost any document the public asks for.

Exemptions spelled out in the law allow the governments to deny certain requests or redact the documents to hide certain information, such as information that would hamper a police investigation.

But the law requires governments to hand over most documents, and those documents can shed all kinds of light on how government officials make decisions to spend taxpayer money or how those officials otherwise exercise the tremendous powers of government.

But, right now, the law allows both Whitmer and Capitol lawmakers to keep their documents secret.

That has to change. And now.

The governor and lawmakers are the most powerful people in Michigan, and they ought not be allowed to operate in secret.

Whitmer, keep your promise and use your bully pulpit to publicly push lawmakers to subject your office and the Legislature to transparency laws.

Lawmakers, you’ve got bills pending before committees as we speak that would do just that. Pass them.

It’s time to turn on the lights in Lansing.

— Alpena News