I am writing today to announce the closure of the Michigan Messenger. After four years of operation in Michigan, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news into a single site, The American Independent at Americanindependent.com. This is part of a shift in strategy, towards new forms [...]
An abstinence-only presentation provided to numerous school districts in Calhoun and Eaton Counties in October of this year provided false and misleading information to students about HIV, experts allege.
Two county registers of deeds filed a class action lawsuit Monday on behalf of Michigan’s 83 counties alleging that the Mortgage Electronic Registration Services owes millions of dollars in property title transfer taxes.
Despite evidence of the impact of mercury on children and public health, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette last month joined with 24 other state attorneys general in filing a lawsuit to scuttle new EPA regulations that would reduce mercury emissions from power plants.
Gov. Rick Snyder has set up funds that can receive unlimited contributions from anonymous donors, prompting concerns by non-partisan campaign reform advocates that the anonymity could conceal quid pro quo arrangements between contributors and the governor.
Millions of dollars worth of incendiary state supreme court campaign ads are flooding the TV airwaves in the run up to Tuesday’s election and, for the most part, voters don’t have the benefit of knowing who is paying for them.
The Michigan Campaign Finance Network, a non-partisan, non-profit organization that tracks the influence of money in political campaigns, reported on Tuesday that the vast majority of campaign ads being seen by voters in the November election were paid for by third party groups, not by the campaigns.
Justice Elizabeth Weaver’s independent run for reelection to her own seat on the Michigan Supreme Court could provoke attacks from both parties, but experts say her status as the incumbent gives her a large advantage over potential rivals on election day.
A January Supreme Court ruling on campaign finance changed the way that corporations and labor unions can fund political campaigns and some worried that this would allow a new flood of corrupting corporate funded campaign ads, but so far in Michigan it seems unlikely to change much about how elections play out.
Rep. Pete Hoekstra’s gubernatorial campaign is raising the question of whether the Mike Cox campaign is coordinating their attack ads with a private group after two similar ads appeared at the same time containing the same criticisms, one produced by the Cox campaign and one produced by a group called Americans for Job Security. The [...]
Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land is expected to issue new guidance Friday in relation to campaign finance reporting rules. The move, reports the Grand Rapids Press, is in response to the Supreme Court ruling which found corporations had First Amendment rights. That ruling struck down limits on corporate donations and spending in campaigns.
The Michigan Chamber of Commerce, the Michigan Education Association and the Michigan Teamsters have asked the Michigan Supreme Court to overturn an appellate court decision that allows local prosecutors to investigate criminal campaign finance act violations, The Traverse City Record Eagle reports. In 2008 Meijer acknowledged that it had illegally funded front groups in an [...]
Campaign spending in the statewide races this year is two and a half times the level of spending at this time in 2002 — the last time all three offices had open seats — but candidates have not raised as much as in 2006 when incumbents had a strong fundraising advantage. This information comes from [...]
Peter Luke has a column addressing last week’s ruling in Caperton v Massey, in which the Supreme Court ruled that massive contributions to a judge’s campaign are grounds for the judge to be forced to recuse himself. Luke notes that requiring recusal in Michigan is made more difficult by the fact that most campaign contributions [...]
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