Michigan Lobbying Limits and Disclosure Initiative (2020)
From Ballotpedia - Reading time: 3 min
| Michigan Lobbying Limits and Disclosure Initiative | |
|---|---|
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| Election date November 3, 2020 | |
| Topic Government accountability | |
| Status Not on the ballot | |
| Type Constitutional amendment | Origin Citizens |
The Michigan Lobbying Limits and Disclosure Initiative was not on the ballot in Michigan as an initiated constitutional amendment on November 3, 2020.
The ballot measure would have added several lobbying requirements to the Michigan Constitution, including:[1]
- prohibiting lobbyists from giving gifts to public officials and their immediate families;
- prohibiting a former state elected official from being a lobbyist for two years after leaving office;
- prohibiting making payments to lobbyists contingent on the result of a client's actions;
- requiring lobbyists and their clients to report all lobbying expenses;
- requiring lobbyists and public officials to keep a record of lobbying activities for at least six years and make the logs public;
- requiring that public communications, including visual and audio advertisements, disclose who paid for the communication; and
- empowering the Michigan Secretary of State to enforce the amendment's lobbying requirements.
On March 20, 2020, the campaign Close Lansing Loopholes suspended efforts to place a citizen-initiated measure on the ballot, citing the coronavirus pandemic.
Text of measure[edit]
Full text[edit]
The full text of the ballot initiative is available here.
Path to the ballot[edit]
Process in Michigan[edit]
In Michigan, the number of signatures required to qualify an initiated constitutional amendment for the ballot is equal to 10 percent of votes cast for governor in the last gubernatorial election. Signatures older than 180 days are invalid, which means all signatures must be collected within a 180-day window. Amendment petitions must be filed 120 days prior to the election.
The requirements to get an initiated constitutional amendment certified for the 2020 ballot:
- Signatures: 425,059 valid signatures were required.
- Deadline: The deadline to submit signatures was July 6, 2020.
Signature petitions are filed with the secretary of state and verified by the board of state canvassers using a random sample method of verification.
Stages of this initiative[edit]
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| Coronavirus pandemic |
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The Coalition to Close Lansing Loopholes filed a petition with the State Board of Canvassers on January 23, 2020.[1] The State Board of Canvassers approved the petition language for the initiative on February 19, 2020, allowing proponents to begin collecting signatures.[2]
On March 20, 2020, the campaign Close Lansing Loopholes suspended efforts to place a citizen-initiated measure on the ballot, citing the coronavirus pandemic. The campaign's statement said, "We set out to change the culture of Lansing, but we never imagined that overnight the entire world would change. COVID-19 has disrupted lives across the country and world and has significantly altered face to face interaction. This has made the already difficult task of collecting more than 425,000 signatures to put lobby reform on the ballot in 2020 a relatively impossible one." The campaign stated that a ballot initiative would be proposed for 2022.[3]
To learn more about how the coronavirus pandemic impacted ballot measure campaigns, see the following: Changes to ballot measure campaigns, procedures, and policies in response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, 2020-2022
See also[edit]
Footnotes[edit]
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State of Michigan Lansing (capital) |
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