This article originally appeared in The Detroit News June 25, 2024. 

When running for governor in 2018, Gretchen Whitmer made a remarkable pledge, promising to open the governor's office to the Freedom of Information Act. “Michiganders should know when and what their governor is working on,” she wrote.

On June 23, we reached day 2,000 of the Whitmer administration.

She has yet to keep her promise.

Every state has a public records law that allows the people to see what their government is doing. Michigan’s law has a huge loophole: It exempts the governor and the state Legislature from having to produce records. This means if you request government records that are held by the governor or lawmakers, you aren’t likely to get them.

Whitmer’s campaign pledge was a big deal. Previous gubernatorial candidates, such as former Gov. Rick Snyder and Virg Bernero had only agreed to sign legislation if it reached their desk. But Whitmer pledged unilateral leadership. She wrote, “If the legislature won’t act, I will use the governor’s authority … to extend FOIA to the Lieutenant Governor and Governor’s Offices.”

Two thousand days is a long time. You can complete a college education in that time. Whitmer’s pledge has gone unfulfilled longer than the United States’ involvement in World War I and World War II combined.

It is not unusual for governors to resist public scrutiny. But Michigan is the only state that provides an explicit exemption for the governor’s office in its public records law. The only other state that exempts its governor from open records laws, Massachusetts, did so by court decision.

Michigan needs to amend the FOIA law. We should have a codified transparency policy, rather than one beholden to the voluntary action of individual governors.

Two state senators, Sen. Ed McBroom, R-Vulcan, and Sen. Jeremy Moss, D-Southfield, have provided bipartisan leadership on open government issues for years. They currently have bills before the state Senate to close the gubernatorial and legislative loophole. That said, there hasn’t been much movement, and with the campaign season looming, the window for the Legislature to finish the job is closing.

The past two gubernatorial administrations illustrate why people would want to review records from the governor’s office. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Whitmer oversaw significant restrictions on individuals and economic activity. Similarly, the Flint water crisis unfolded during Rick Snyder’s administration. In both situations, questions about who knew what, when they knew it and why certain actions were taken are of great interest to the public.

To Whitmer’s credit, she makes some information from her office available, such as summaries of her travel, how she spends her time and portions of her calendar. But you only see what she wants you to see. Whitmer promised to do much more than selective, sanitized disclosures.

James Madison, the father of the Constitution, once wrote: “A popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or, perhaps both.”

The Legislature ought to pass those bills. In the meantime, Whitmer should make good on her campaign promise to open her office to records requests. As she said in 2018, the people of Michigan deserve to know.

Permission to reprint this blog post in whole or in part is hereby granted, provided that the author (or authors) and the Mackinac Center for Public Policy are properly cited.