View Comments
Lansing Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said Wednesday her flight to visit her father was not paid for by taxpayer dollars and was not a gift, but she declined to provide additional information about how the trip was funded.
The Democratic governor s comments came at a press conference about two months after she traveled out of state to visit her father, Richard Whitmer, who lives in Florida and her office says is battling a chronic illness. The Michigan Republican Party held its own Wednesday event, calling on Whitmer to answer more questions about the flight as controversy and mystery surrounding the outing continues for a fourth week.
Ted Roelofs
View Comments
Michigan remains one of only two states that don’t require state lawmakers to disclose their financial interests, a lack of transparency that makes it difficult to know if legislators are supporting bills that personally benefit them.
So it was significant when state legislative leaders recently touted bipartisan ethics reform measures they insist will hold members to account.
“We must do better and hold ourselves to a higher standard,” House Speaker Jason Wentworth, R-Clare, said in a statement last week. The bill package will “make our entire system more open, honest and accountable to the people we serve.”
LANSING Three years after becoming governor on a pledge to increase transparency, Gretchen Whitmer is under fire yet again for keeping secrets.
As a gubernatorial candidate in 2018, the Democrat unveiled the Michigan Sunshine Plan, which she said would “rewrite the rules in Lansing to work for regular families by making the state government more open, transparent and accountable to Michigan taxpayers.”
Nothing has come of the plan, though, or Whitmer’s pledge to open the governor’s office to the state’s Freedom of Information Act and she’s under scrutiny for the second time in several weeks for being less than transparent.
New nonprofit teases possible gubernatorial run from conservative media personality Tudor Dixon
Updated May 07, 2021;
Posted May 07, 2021
Tudor Dixon speaks to a crowd of conservatives from the Trump Unity Bridge during a rally on May 1, 2021 in Walker, Mich. (Hope Davison | MLive.com)
Facebook Share
A new nonprofit filing hints conservative media personality Tudor Dixon could be the next candidate to jump into Michigan’s gubernatorial race.
Dixon, who lives in West Michigan, is a conservative commentator and anchor of the weekly “America’s Voice Live” program on Real America’s Voice, an online news and entertainment network founded in 2018. She has been a vocal critic of Whitmer’s, and some have speculated she could run for governor herself.
Money in politics: Michigan again on pace for record election spending
Seth VanAst
and last updated 2021-05-02 21:53:13-04
LANSING, Mich. â Money and politics go hand in hand and their relationship here in Michigan is growing stronger by way of political action committees or PACs.
âThese PACs can accept unlimited amounts of money, and they can contribute 10 times what you and I can, says Simon Schuster. So much money is flowing through them. I think it really underscores the amount of influence money has had on our political process.
Schuster is the executive director of the Michigan Campaign Finance Network, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that aims to shine a light on the role of money in Michigan politics.