Elected state officials would be required to disclose personal financial information in annual reports and would be banned from becoming lobbyists until two years after leaving office under bills approved Wednesday in the House.
We are watching as these citizen commissioners, picked at random from thousands of applicants, exert their Constitutional authority and use the information gleaned from the hearings, the first planned for Tuesday, May 11, in Jackson, to draw districts that truly represent the people of Michigan.
Voters Not Politicians and other organizations have been meeting with a variety of groups to make sure they are ready to make their case before the commission about how districts should be drawn. A key part of the VNP proposal calls for the commission to draw districts that reflect Michigan’s communities of interest – groups of citizens that share a particular reason for wanting to be put together in a district.
by Chad Selweski Michigan s Legislature seems determined to retain the state s status as the least transparent, least ethical public body in the nation. The latest sleight of hand in Lansing is an effort by Republican leaders -– and some leading reformers on the left to bastardize legislation that would have ended a key proviso of state government secrecy.
Clear skies over a murky workplace (Photo: Nancy Derringer) Michigan remains one of only two states that don’t require state lawmakers to disclose their finances – business ownerships or partnerships, real estate, stocks – which would reveal legislators’ conflicts of interest. A previous bill to require full public disclosure of income and assets has been twisted into a secretive system where only a small committee of lawmakers could see the financial records that would be submitted by fellow legislators.
The Oklahoma City metro area is poised to gain representation in the statehouse for the next decade.
Proposed redistricting maps for Oklahoma s 149 legislative districts that GOP state lawmakers unveiled Wednesday show the Oklahoma City metro area gaining one Senate seat and one House seat.
The gains are reflective of population shifts that show rural areas losing population and population growth in the Oklahoma City area outpacing growth in Tulsa.
In the past 10 years, population in Oklahoma, Cleveland and Canadian counties grew by about 140,000 people, said Sen. Lonnie Paxton, R-Tuttle, chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Redistricting. This is not an urban versus rural thing, he said. This is a numbers thing, and it s just where the population ends up.