Cox asks other governor candidates to release personal finance information

To recognize Sunshine Week, Michigan’s Attorney General and GOP candidate for governor, Mike Cox, has had an editorial published on MLive.com calling for other candidates to release their personal financial information.

Cox did so earlier this week.

In the editorial Cox wrote:

“Unfortunately, the Center for Public Integrity recently ranked Michigan dead last nationally on public financial disclosure. Forty-seven other states require financial disclosure. Congress does as well. Not Michigan. Without trust and the ability to rely on a certain set of rules, job makers see little but uncertainty — and uncertainty is bad for business.”

Of course, Cox tells readers he and his wife Laura released financial information dated back to 2006 — but fails to mention he can’t figure out which phone service he was using in 2003. That disclosure was required by a court order, and Cox had to demure from disclosing.

And while Cox’s Attorney General division is the only department in the state to publish an accounting of how Michigan taxpayer cash is being spent in his office, the disclosures do not disclose where lawsuit settlement cash is going. Cox was embroiled in controversy last year when he attempted to steer funds from a lawsuit against a mortgage company to parks in Grand Rapids. The projects were selected by a Republican donor. That disclosure failure lead to a Freedom of Information Act request from Michigan Democratic Party Chair Mark Brewer seeking disclosure, and the House Judiciary Committee has repeatedly asked Cox and his office to explain where the cash went.

The judiciary committee has had no luck in getting answers and has gone so far as to authorize a request from the full house for subpoena power to compel Cox to testify.

Cox has also failed to account for what has happened with numerous cases of criminal mortgage fraud referred to his office since January 2008.