Litigation

Op-Ed Urges Reform in Michigan

By Charlie Hall

In an excellent column in the Lansing State Journal, Rich Robinson discusses Caperton v. Massey, the U.S. Supreme Court case on special interest money and elected courts,  and asks this question: “What does this mean to Michiganders? Plenty.”

As Rich, who is director of Justice at Stake partner Michigan Campaign Finance Network, notes:

In 2008, we witnessed a $7.3 million Michigan Supreme Court campaign. Over half the money in that campaign - $3.8 million - paid for television “issue” ads that were never disclosed in any campaign finance report. That is nothing new.

Since 2000, Michigan Supreme Court candidate committees have raised and spent $13.1 million for 10 seats on the court, while the Michigan Chamber of Commerce and the state Democratic and Republican Parties have spent $14.3 million for television ads that sought to define the candidates’ character, qualifications and suitability for office, while coyly avoiding any direct mention of voting for or against a candidate.

In Michigan, that means the groups that bought the ads don’t have to tell us who gave them the money. That means that an interest group that spent $1 million to elect a justice doesn’t have to identify itself in the public record. And when its favored justice votes in a case worth millions of dollars to the interest group, its opponent in the case may not even know its due process right to an unbiased hearing has been gravely compromised.

In other words, we may have had our own Caperton affairs, flying below the radar.

To see the full column, which calls for reforms to make campaign spending more transparent, click here.

Full post as published by The Gavel on March 16, 2009 (boomark / email).