Progress Michigan blog posts.
After the inner-workings of Skunk Works were revealed to the public, Gov. Snyder entered crisis communications mode and immediately replaced the acting lead, his chief information officer David Behen, with Michigan’s superintendent of public instruction Mike Flanagan. Aside from being an obvious act of contrition, the move was meant to remove any pretense of secrecy…
At Progress Michigan, we like to give credit where credit is due. And today, Rep. Mike Shirkey (R- Clarklake) deserves credit for introducing HB 4001, which caps Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests at 10 cents per page for standard copies. FOIA guarantees that citizens can request information and records from their governments, and it’s…
Last week, the Detroit News ran a stunning expose on the up-until-then secret meetings between Gov. Snyder’s executive office and Mackinac Center co-founder Richard McClellan. Their goal is simple: making a profit while educating our children by turning Michigan’s public education system into a voucher-like hybrid. They call their project “Skunk Works.” The phrase “Skunk…
“I believe in transparency in government.” –Speaker Jase Bolger Last week the Snyder administration announced that Lt. Gov. Brian Calley, Speaker Jase Bolger, and Sen. Arlan Meekhof would be leading an official state trade mission to the Netherlands. According to MLive, “The MEDC is paying for its staff members and Calley, while companies and other…
Last month, I went on Tony Conley’s radio show on WILS in Lansing to talk about conservative activist Jack Hoogendyk’s shameful lies and scare tactics about Medicaid expansion in Michigan. I predicted to Tony that Hoogendyk would argue with no evidence that the federal government would break its promise to fund Medicaid in the future,…
Following our blog post about MLive and the Mackinac Center yesterday, I have been notified by the Saginaw-Bay City editor that they will no longer publish bill and vote tracking information from the biased MichiganVotes.org website. After speaking with the regional editor, Rob Clark, I believe he was simply trying to provide his readers with…
Pop quiz. Guess which corporate front group funded by billionaire Dick DeVos is now providing legislative tracking to MLive.com? That would be the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. Today MLive began a new weekly series where they will “publish descriptions of bills and corresponding votes from the Michigan House and Senate as compiled by MichiganVotes.org.”…
While the continuing controversy over Dave Agema’s hateful Facebook repost could have been an opportunity for the GOP to make their tent a little bit bigger, they haven’t seized it. And while a few moderate Republicans have called on Dave Agema to step down, elected officials and party leaders like Gov. Snyder, Speaker Bolger, and…
Occasionally the Mackinac Center digs into their file of donors, finds one who isn’t afraid of having their identity disclosed, and runs a profile on them. One of their recent profiles was interesting, to say the least. In March, they featured a guy named Jack Engelhart, who founded Quality Pool Supply. How was Jack’s pool…
This week the Michigan Attorney General’s office was admonished publicly by Ingham County Circuit Court Judge William Collette for not following judicial procedure in court following two lawsuits. This is part of a disturbing and broader trend from Republican lawmakers in Lansing, as well as a targeted assault on Michigan’s middle class families. Attorney General…