Commentary

Michigan Capitol Confidential keeps watch over government

Mackinac Center experts and attorneys are CapCon’s unfair advantage

Take a popular topic reported in the news, and chances are that most news sites in Michigan will take the same angles, with minor variations. The news source will often give you superficial information or seek out experts who will take the view they want readers to see.

Michigan Capitol Confidential is not what James Dickson, managing editor of our news site, calls “a repeater.”

We do not parrot information other news sites offer. When you click on our site, you will see unique news and views.

CapCon is the news site of one of the top think tanks in the nation, the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. Scholars at the University of Pennsylvania ranked it in the top 5% of 2,203 think tanks in the nation in 2021.

The Mackinac Center is a nonpartisan organization, focused on public policy in Michigan. It has spearheaded and won numerous public policy and legal initiatives, including successfully suing Gov. Gretchen Whitmer over her lockdown orders.

One reason for its success is that it employs some of the brightest minds in public policy. Their areas of expertise are health care, education, environment, and fiscal policy. Our experts are often recognized on national platforms such as The Wall Street Journal.

For example, Michael Van Beek, our director of research, found that there are 30 emergency powers laws on the books in Michigan.

Because the information Van Beek uncovered was so valuable, legislators are actively working to repeal or amend those laws to ensure they are not used as they were during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the governor shut lawmakers out of the decision-making process. As a result of CapCon’s direct access to the Mackinac Center, the findings were originally reported here.

Another example of CapCon’s work is our look at the heavy hand of Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel during the pandemic.

In one Freedom of Information Act request, we asked for emails from the attorney general’s office about a restaurant owner, Marlena Pavlos Hackney, who was arrested even though the arrest violated COVID-19 court guidelines.

We found that Nessel grossly abused her power when she told her staff to ask Michigan State Police round up Hackney before she had a chance to appear on the Fox News Channel, where she could tell her story to a national audience.

Were it not for our FOIA, nobody would have ever have known that the state’s highest-ranking law enforcement official tried to silence a citizen.

We not only provide unique angles, we have the support of the Mackinac Center Legal Foundation, which can back us up when governments try to hide information that belongs to the public.

One offender is the University of Michigan, which violated FOIA law and refused to divulge information requested by Mackinac Center.

The Mackinac Center Legal Foundation sued, and U-M lost. CapCon reported when the university refused to divulge the salaries and bonuses it paid to employees. We were there to follow up when the university lost in court and was forced to hand over the information.

Our goals are to be an effective watchdog of government and equip readers with the tools they need to also hold their local, state, and on occasion, federal government accountable.

How did you find CapCon, and how can we better serve as Michigan's watchdog? Email me, at hope@mackinac.org.

Jamie A. Hope is assistant managing editor of Michigan Capitol Confidential.

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.

News Story

MSU trustees back off from vendor lobbying proposal

Resolution called on contractors to oppose photo-ID measure on November 2022 ballot

The trustees of Michigan State University were slated at their Sept. 9 meeting to consider a resolution to call on MSU’s vendors and contractors to oppose a proposal on the November ballot to reform the state’s voting laws. The resolution also urged vendors to change their political donations and lobby legislators on the measure.

The resolution labeled “Accountability of University Vendors Funding Voter Suppression,” was originally on the agenda for the board’s Sept. 9 meeting, though it is no longer there.

Voter suppression, in this case, is the term that opponents sometimes use to describe voter ID laws and other voting security measures. The resolution specifically calls out the Secure MI Vote initiative (official language here; third-party description here), which would alter the Michigan Constitution by placing in it a photo ID requirement and making other changes to voting procedures.

The resolution justified its position on the grounds that MSU promotes voting, social justice and an end to systemic racism. The Secure MI Vote initiative is one of many “voter suppression bills,” it said. Such bills and laws “make it disproportionately harder for students, as well as Black, brown and working-class people to vote by design,” the resolution added.

Businesses that have contracts with MSU are free to make political donations as they see fit, according to the resolution, but some of those contributions benefit politicians who have and continue to support voter suppression efforts.

The university’s contractors, the resolution concludes, should lobby elected officials to oppose such bills and adjust their donations accordingly.

MSU would likely be acting in an unconstitutional way if it pressures contractors to take a stand on a ballot measure, said Steve Delie, an attorney and public records expert at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. Delie cited O’Hare Truck Service, Inc. v. City of Northlake, a 1996 case that reached the U.S. Supreme Court. O’Hare, a towing company, had long been a contractor of the Northlake, Illinois, city government. The city ended the relationship after O’Hare supported one of the mayor’s rivals.

Delie said the MSU resolution would require the university’s contractors to send a specific message to lawmakers — compelled speech. “It further calls on contractors to align their political support and financial contributions behind candidates with similar viewpoints,” he said. “That chills contractors from exercising their First Amendment rights, and is a prior restraint.”

Michigan taxpayers gave $357.9 million in direct appropriations to MSU during the current fiscal year, according to the House Fiscal Agency, or $90 per household.

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.