House Moves Forward with Increased Transparency Proposal
The House agreed that Michigan government should be more transparent, passing a proposal this week that would expand open records laws. Under the plan, the governor and lieutenant governor would be subject to the Freedom of Information Act. The legislature would be subject to similar standards under a newly created Legislative Open Records Act. The […]
Government Transparency Package Moves Forward
The legislature and governor would be subjected to similar transparency laws as found in the Freedom of Information Act under legislation reported by the House Government Operations Committee. The proposal would end the current exemptions granted to the legislature, governor, and lieutenant governor, with the hopes of increasing transparency. The new act, which would be […]
Secretary Benson Proposes Increases to Transparency
How can Michigan become a leader in transparency and accountability and restore the public's trust in government? This week, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson shared her ideas on how Michigan could accomplish those goals. Her plan includes working with the legislature toward full disclosure of all money in politics through revising reporting requirements and closing […]
FOIA Legislation Introduced
This week, Representative Gary Glenn (R-Midland) introduced legislation making reforms to Michigan's Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) laws. Under the bill as introduced, state departments would be required to fulfill FOIA requests within sixty-days of the initial requests. His measure is in response to a public statement issued by Attorney General Bill Schuette in December […]
Get​ ​to​ ​Know​ ​The​ ​Freedom​ ​of​ ​Information​ ​Act
The Freedom of Information Act is a powerful tool for citizens and businesses that want to know more about their government.
Legislature Passes Bill Making Changes to Procurement
In January, legislation was introduced exempting certain records related to procurement from the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). In our first blog post on the bill, MLC's procurement expert, Tony Des Chenes, provided an overview of the legislation as introduced and why it's important to our clients during the procurement process. In addition to certain […]
Senators Introduce FOIA Expansion Bills
This week, Senator Tonya Schuitmaker (R-Lawton) and Senator Rick Jones (R-Grand Ledge) introduced legislation expanding the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to include the governor's office and the Legislature. The bills remove the current FOIA exemptions for the governor, lieutenant governor, and executive office employees and create a new part to the act, the Legislative […]
House Committee Reports FOIA Expansion
This week, the House Michigan Competitiveness Committee reported a bipartisan bill package expanding the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to the executive branch and creating the Legislative Open Records Act (LORA) for the legislature. LORA is modeled after FOIA and much of the same language found in FOIA, is in LORA. The package does provide […]