Friends,
As you know, one of PIME's main activities is tracking legislation in Lansing that affects Elections. Our goal is to encourage legislation that maintains election integrity in our state, and doesn't disenfranchise voters. Unfortunately, many of the bills currently being considered in Lansing do not accomplish those things.
The legislation is coming fast and furiously in Lansing, and they aren't even allowing time for public review of the bills they are introducing. Eight brand new bills were introduced last week, just 24 hours before they were reviewed in committee meetings. PIME was the only group present to provide testimony on these bills that wasn't intricately involved in the drafting of the bills (like the 'promote the vote' group). When substitute bills were introduced this week, they were provided to some committee members a mere 75 minutes before the committee meeting.
In addition, the only two members on the House committee who have clerk experience (Representatives Smit & DeBoyer) had their amendments to these bills voted down, while all amendments offered by the Democratic members of the committee (none of whom have any clerk experience) were passed in a hurry. A special meeting of the Senate committee was held on the same day as the House committee so that they could rush these bills through and vote them into law the very next day (Wednesday June 14th). And that's exactly what they did.
There was no transparency in this process, no disclosure to certain members of the committees, and no time for anyone from the public to review the bills and provide feedback to the committees. Nor did the committees seem interested in hearing any feedback from the public. This is not transparent governance and they should hear from all of you about this shameful practice.
Attached is a presentation with information on all 8 bills that were just rushed through, 4 new bills introduced in the past week, as well as bills that have been through committee and are going to the House or Senate floor for a vote in the very near future. And for once, there is a bill in the list of 4 new bills that PIME can support. One that requires annual financial disclosure of our legislators and other officials.
So please review the content below and....
Please contact your legislators and let them know how you feel!
You can use the links below to help you contact your legislators if you don't currently know how. Links are also contained within some of the slides below.
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