Find Out Who Works for YOU in the Michigan Legislature

By Ken Braun | July 21, 2010

In hindsight, it's hard to argue that the public had no right to know the name and salary of Christine Beatty, the former chief of staff to (and eventual co-defendant with) former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick. And when the Detroit Free Press filed a Freedom of Information Act request for this information, the city was compelled by that state law to provide it. But as reported by Michigan Capitol Confidential last week, this requirement does not apply to the state Legislature, governor's office and lieutenant governor. If Beatty were being paid her $142,813 taxpayer-funded salary while working as the chief of staff to a hypothetical Gov. Kwame Kilpatrick, then Kilpatrick wouldn't have been required to disclose Beatty's salary information to the people paying the bills.

And this is no idle hypothetical: as noted last week, the current governor refuses to provide this very information when asked to do so.

Federal law requires the Congress and President to make staff names and salaries available to the public, and there is at least one website - www.Legistorm.com - where taxpayers can check out the information themselves whenever they wish to. The Michigan Legislature, like the governor, is legally entitled to conceal this information from public disclosure, but has not done so for many years.

In late June, Michigan Capitol Confidential requested this information from the Michigan House, Senate and Office of the Governor. The House and Senate voluntarily and promptly provided the information during the first week of July.

In the article last week, five of the seven candidates for governor - each of the Republicans - said that they would support changing the FOIA to read that state politicians would be required to turn over this information. Additionally, each of the five pledged to support a requirement that this information be put on a state website where the public could view it at any hour of any day.

Michigan Capitol Confidential has now placed the recently acquired list of Legislative staff names and employees on its website.

The Michigan House staff names and salaries are here.

The Michigan Senate staff names and salaries are here.

The refusal by the Office of the Governor to release the names and salaries of publicly-funded political appointees is here.

~~~~~

P.S. Astute readers of the Michigan House staff names and salaries list noted above will note that the final name on the list is Chetly Zarko. This article was written several days ago and planned for release today - long before news of Chet's very untimely death stunned us all yesterday afternoon.

That this is published today is both ironic and appropriate. Chet was a champion and defender of Michigan's FOIA law and the free exchange of public information by a free people. He would have been pleased to see these lists released. Indeed, after a pair of new lawmakers set a standard of releasing this information to the public nearly two years ago, Chet called me up and said he was pushing to get others on board. He succeeded in doing so, and as a result his own taxpayer-paid salary has been public knowledge for some time now.

Making this sort of open government a rule, rather than an exception, will be much harder because we don't have Chet in our corner anymore.

-Ken Braun

Michigan Capitol Confidential is the news source produced by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. Michigan Capitol Confidential reports with a free-market news perspective.

Lawmaker Says Special Tax Favors Are 'Cronyism'

By Tom Gantert | July 20, 2010

If a business is in need of a tax break, the quickest route may be the local politician.

State Rep. Justin Amash, R-Kentwood, recently called out his colleagues for submitting bills that created tax advantages for single businesses.

Amash called attention to Senate Bill 500, sponsored by State Sen. Tony Stamas, R-Midland. That bill was tailored to create a tax break for an electronics building in Gaylord. An expanded version was passed by the House and Senate.

Stamas didn't return an e-mail or messages left with his staff.

"Essentially, it's just cronyism," Amash said. "It's an abuse of legislative power. We are not supposed to be passing bills that help one person or one company at the expense of everyone else."

But it's not an uncommon occurrence, according to Michiganvotes.org.

For example, Rep. Bettie Scott, D-Detroit, introduced House Bill 6093, which would authorize a tax credit for a project. Many times in the bills, the project is not named, but the criteria is very specific. For instance, Scott's bill says the credit would work "for the construction of a new facility if the area in which the new facility is located is designated as a neighborhood enterprise zone by the governing body of the local governmental unit in September 2001 and if the building permit is issued for that new facility on March 3, 2003."

Working for tax breaks for individuals is a bipartisan effort, says one expert.

"Both parties have abandoned any pretense that the growing state corporate welfare empire doesn't include funneling favors to the owners of particular firms," said Jack McHugh, senior legislative analyst at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.

Senate Bill 500 was approved on a vote of 36-1 in the Michigan Senate and 90-16 in the Michigan House. The Michiganvotes.org roll call vote for the bill is noted below.

Contact information for all lawmakers is available at www.MichCapCon.com/9313.

~~~~~

Lawmakers voting IN FAVOR OF A SPECIAL TAX BREAK for a company in Gaylord:

HOUSE REPUBLICANS (28)

Ball	Booher	Calley	Caul	Crawford
Denby	DeShazor	Elsenheimer	Green	Haines
Hansen	Hildenbrand	Horn	Jones, Rick	Knollenberg
Kurtz	Lori	Marleau	Meltzer	Moore
Moss	Proos	Rocca	Rogers	Schmidt, W.
Stamas	Tyler	Walsh

SENATE REPUBLICANS (20)

Allen	Birkholz	Bishop	Brown	Cropsey
Garcia	George	Gilbert	Hardiman	Jansen
Jelinek	Kahn	Kuipers	McManus	Nofs
Pappageorge	Patterson	Richardville	Sanborn	Stamas

HOUSE DEMOCRATS (62)

Angerer	Barnett	Bauer	Bennett	Bledsoe
Brown, T.	Byrnes	Byrum	Clemente	Constan
Corriveau	Cushingberry	Dean	Dillon	Donigan
Durhal	Ebli	Geiss	Gonzales	Gregory
Griffin	Haase	Hammel	Haugh	Huckleberry
Jackson	Johnson	Jones, Robert	Kandrevas	Kennedy
Lahti	LeBlanc	Leland	Lemmons	Lindberg
Lipton	Liss	Mayes	McDowell	Meadows
Melton	Nathan	Nerat	Neumann	Polidori
Roberts	Schmidt, R.	Scott, B.	Scripps	Segal
Sheltrown	Slavens	Slezak	Smith	Spade
Stanley	Switalski	Tlaib	Valentine	Warren
Womack	Young