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Committee advances bills to clarify elected-official financial-disclosure rules, align gift reporting with lobby law
Summary
The Senate Committee on Oversight voted to report Senate Bills 99, 100 and 101 out of committee after testimony from legislators, the Secretary of State's office and staff about technical fixes to Michigan's new personal financial disclosure requirements, including gift reporting tied to the Lobby Disclosure Act and electronic filing concerns.
The Michigan Senate Committee on Oversight voted to report Senate Bill 99, Senate Bill 100 and Senate Bill 101 to the Senate floor with a recommendation that each bill pass, following testimony about technical clarifications to the state's newly enacted personal financial disclosure law.
Senator Moss said the bills are intended to clean up requirements created by Proposal 1 (a 2022 ballot measure) and subsequent guidance from the Secretary of State and Attorney General. The measures would specify that filers must list the source of unearned income (for example, the specific employer or pension plan), require disclosure of gifts from lobbyists (aligning the definition with the Lobby Disclosure Act), require the listing of a spouse and spouse’s employer if the spouse earned at least $1,000 in a year, and allow the Secretary of State to accept reports by email in addition to filings through the online form (SB 99 and SB 100 address elected officials and candidates, respectively; SB 101 clarifies event- and ticket-related exemptions).
Committee members asked for specifics about gift reporting. Senator Polanski asked whether meals count as gifts; Senator Moss replied the bills align reporting thresholds with the Lobby Disclosure Act and noted the threshold is “about $72” and is indexed annually. Aaron Shore of the Secretary of State’s office said the department has moved personal financial disclosure into the Michigan transparency network used for lobby filings and PAC reporting but opposed a statutory requirement that the department accept emailed reports because of resource and processing concerns. Shore said accepting emailed reports would require staff to manually upload and normalize submissions and the department is not set up to treat emailed documents as primary filings for campaign finance or lobby law.
Committee members expressed interest in further discussion about acceptable filing formats; Senator Lindsey asked whether emailed submissions could be posted to a public site as-is so the public would have access while the department develops a fuller import process.
After discussion, the committee voted to report all three bills. The clerk recorded unanimous committee votes for SB 99, SB 100 and SB 101. Sponsors and several senators said they supported moving the bills to the floor so the full Senate can debate technical fixes and possible amendments.
