Michigan Rising Action is making waves by holding state agencies accountable and pushing for government transparency. Executive Director Abby Mitch works to ensure that promises made by politicians turn into tangible actions. Mitch details Michigan Rising’s accountability strategy on the Overton Window podcast.

A primary focus of Michigan Rising’s efforts has been the Gotion Project and the expansion of the Michigan Economic Development Corporation. This program “is not really serving the interests it sold to the people that it would do, or even some of the politicians who voted for it,” Mitch says.

Michigan Rising’s investigations into the operations of the MEDC intensified when the Chinese lidar company Hesai was added to a Department of Defense blacklist. “This tipped off our radar because MEDC has been so aggressive and so indiscriminate in its willingness to help tech companies in that sector get into the Michigan marketplace,” Mitch says. This aggressive stance raises alarms about how taxpayer money is being spent and whether the MEDC is maintaining adequate national security controls.

In a bid for transparency, Michigan Rising filed a Freedom of Information Act request to determine if the development corporation had engaged with Hesai. The response from MEDC, which involved costs for the information, was less than satisfactory. “An agency cannot simply fail to respond in a timely manner to public inquiry about its activity,” Mitch says. The Mackinac Center joined Michigan Rising in filing a lawsuit against MEDC over FOIA violations.

Beyond transparency, Michigan Rising holds elected officials accountable for their actions. Mitch notes the organization’s proactive approach. “We file quite a number of campaign finance complaints, and meaningful ones at that,” Mitch says. One significant complaint involved nearly $200,000 in improperly donated funds from a Washington, D.C. super PAC. Despite these efforts, the Secretary of State has yet to respond to Michigan Rising’s complaints, raising further concerns about government accountability.

During the 2023 state budget negotiations, Mitch observed troubling trends in how funds were distributed. “Hundreds of millions of dollars were doled out in tiny piecemeal pet projects to lawmakers around the state of Michigan,” she says. These handouts were not equitably distributed, often favoring niche projects that raised questions about the priorities of government spending.

Mitch criticizes the approach of selectively funding initiatives, using electric buses in Ann Arbor as an example. “When you pick specific handouts in the budget, like the electric buses, you end up doing business with a company that, in the case of Ann Arbor Public Schools, they didn’t run when it was cold, the batteries would run out mid-route, and they were incredibly expensive to maintain,” Mitch says. This selective funding strategy, she argues, undermines the broader public good: “When the government hand selects who wins, everyone loses.”

At its core, Michigan Rising Action advocates for a government that fulfills its promises to the public. “At the end of the day, we are here to advocate for the public and what the public wants and needs or doesn’t think smells right in the government they pay for,” Mitch says. By pushing for transparency and accountability, Michigan Rising Action is actively shifting the Overton Window, influencing the conversation around governance and public trust in Michigan.

Listen to the full conversation on the Overton Window podcast.

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.