LANSING, MI (WHTC-AM/FM) – An effort to make the initiative process in state government more transparent is moving through the Legislature.
A bill that would require the Secretary of State’s office to publicly post the official date when it receives signed petitions, a summary of the amendment or question proposed, and to regularly update the status of the petition process is now before the Senate after the measure cleared the House before the Christmas/New Year’s holiday recess. According to the bill’s sponsor, second-term Republican Brad Slagh of Zeeland Township, this requirement “should be easily attainable and cost the department little or nothing to accomplish,” and was spurred by the ongoing Unlock Michigan petition process.
“Unlock Michigan, probably for me, cemented that we need to have more transparency,” Slagh said during a Monday (Dec. 27, 2021) appearance on “WHTC Talk of the Town” program. “That was really the push for me to say that we need more transparency, but it’s not that it wasn’t needed for other things as well.”
Currently, neither the Secretary of State’s office nor the the state Bureau of Elections are required to provide updates on the initiative process once the signed petitions are filed for verification certification.
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