Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s Top Ten Transparency FAILS, Part 1
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Gov. Whitmer Sticks Her Transparency Pledge Where the Sun Doesn’t Shine
Sunshine Week is an opportunity to celebrate open and transparent government. Knowing what is going on in our government is critical for helping the citizens hold their elected officials accountable.
Sadly, here in Michigan, your state government consistently leaves citizens like yourself in the dark. When Governor Whitmer came into office, she made a lot of fanfare over her transparency promises – but in the two years since she took office, those promises have gone nowhere.
We’ve made a list:
#10: Secretly Extending Restaurant Restrictions
In early February, while everyone was celebrating Whitmer’s long-overdue order allowing high school sports to resume, she was also quietly extended her capacity limits and curfews on restaurants – and didn’t tell anyone.
Needless to say, restaurant owners weren’t too happy when they finally found out almost two weeks later!
#9: No-Bid Contract for Political Consulting Firm
Early in the pandemic, Gov. Whitmer’s team quietly offered a no-bid contact tracing contract to NGP Van, one of her own campaign vendors. The governor was forced to quickly backtrack and admit that normal protocols were not followed, after being criticized for rewarding Democrat operatives with a lucrative taxpayer-funded gig.
#8: Barring the Press from Press Conferences
Gov. Whitmer used the pandemic to kick reporters out of her press conferences, and then screened questions in advance so she’d only have to answer the questions she wanted to answer.
She was forced to reverse the policy after journalists pushed back.
#7: No MEDC Transparency
Her “Sunshine Plan” promised “100% transparency” about how the Michigan Economic Development Corporation uses taxpayer dollars. Instead, she not only continues to embrace taxpayer-funded corporate handouts but hides where and how it is spent.
#6: Suspending FOIA
The coronavirus pandemic has been used to excuse all sorts of bad behavior – in this case, Gov. Whitmer used it to provide a functionally unlimited timeline for FOIA, at a time when access to information to hold government accountable is of utmost importance. And the process she used to do it was later deemed unconstitutional.
Come back tomorrow for Gov. Whitmer’s Top 5 Transparency Fails!
