STATE SENS. Ed McBroom, R-Waucedah Township, left, and Jeremy Moss, D-Southfield, take questions from reporters Wednesday after passage of legislation they introduced to expand the state’s Freedom of Information Act. (Kyle Davidson/Michigan Advance)

The Michigan Senate crossed the first item off its 2025 to-do list on Wednesday, passing a plan to expand Michigan’s Freedom of Information Act with overwhelming bipartisan support.

“This is Senate Bill No.1, the first vote of the new legislative term, and this chamber is prioritizing a more transparent state government,” said state Sen. Jeremy Moss, D-Southfield, a lead sponsor of the bills alongside Sen. Ed McBroom, R-Waucedah Township.

“Today, we in the Senate will do our part to give residents the tools to shine light on state government,” Moss said.

Senate Bills 1 and 2 would extend FOIA to include the Legislature, the governor and the lieutenant governor, which are exempt under the current state law. The bills passed the Senate 33-2, with Sen. Jon Bumstead, R-North Muskegon, and Minority Floor Leader Dan Lauwers, R-Brockway Township, offering the only votes against the bills.

Both McBroom and Moss have been pushing for changes to the state’s FOIA law for about a decade. The two lawmakers previously succeeded in moving another reform attempt out of the House in 2015 while they were each serving in the lower chamber. However, the effort died in the Senate.

The senators successfully got FOIA reform passed in the Democratic-led Senate during the 2023-24 legislative term, but they ultimately failed to clear the Democratic-controlled House.

While the bills cleared the House Government Operations Committee in December, the reforms were left stranded as the House melted down, with state Rep. Karen Whitsett, D-Detroit, joining House Republicans in refusing to attend session until the House acted on policy priorities including efforts to address impending tipped minimum wage and paid sick leave changes.

While the Senate on Wednesday once again passed the FOIA bills, they face an uncertain future in the GOP-led House this term.

Michigan was previously ranked worst in the nation for government integrity, failing 10 out of 13 categories in a 2015 report from the Center for Public Integrity, including public access to information, executive accountability, and legislative accountability.

If passed, Moss and McBroom’s bills would open the governor and lieutenant governor’s office to FOIA beginning Jan. 1, 2027, and would not apply to records created or retained before the bill takes effect.

The speaker of the House and the Senate majority leader would also be responsible for designating a FOIA coordinator to accept and process requests.

However the expansion does not apply to the House and Senate Fiscal Agencies, the Legislative Service Bureau, and the office of sergeant at arms, which provides security for the Legislature.

It also carries a number of other exceptions for both the governor and lieutenant governor’s office, as well as the Legislature.

FOIA exemptions for the office of the governor and lieutenant governor include:

— Appointments to departments, state agencies, commissions, councils or to fill a vacancy on a court. The exemption no longer applies after an individual has been appointed to one of these positions save for information including their applications and letters of recommendation or references.

— Decisions to remove or suspend a public official or judge, which no longer applies after that individual has been removed or suspended.

— Decisions to grant or deny a reprieve, pardon or commutation.

— Budget recommendations or reductions in expenditures.

— Messages or recommendations to the legislature.

— Information related to the executive residence.

— Documents subject to executive privilege.

— Documents that could impact the security of the governor or lieutenant governor.

The governor’s and lieutenant governor’s office and the Legislature are also exempt from disclosing any records of communications between themselves and a constituent who is not a registered lobbyist, alongside a number of other exemptions, including:

— Their personal phone numbers;

— Information on an internal investigation;

— Records or information tied to a civil action for which any of these entities are a party, with the exemption expiring when the claim has been adjudicated or settled;

— Records “created, prepared, owned, used, in the possession of, or retained” by the governor, lieutenant governor or legislature for less than 30 days;

— Records created or prepared by the governor, the lieutenant governor, an employee of the executive office of the governor or lieutenant governor, a legislator or an employee of a state legislative public body, that relate to advice, opinions or recommendations about public policy or district work.

Additionally, any information that is exempt from FOIA under another law or regulation would also be exempt under the expansion.

State Sen. Jonathan Lindsey — who was one of two senators who voted against the package last summer, alongside Bumstead — offered a floor substitute to each bill, raising concerns about the definition of the Legislature in SB 1.

“In recent years, the Legislature of Michigan was redefined to not only include the House and Senate, also include the Independent (Citizens) Redistricting Commission in certain circumstances as they’re drafting maps. So in order to address that and make sure that they would also fall under FOIA. This just adds them to the list of legislative bodies that would be under FOIA,” said Lindsey, R-Allen.

While Moss said he would be supportive of that concept and open to further conversation, he urged a no vote on the amendment in order to keep the policies moving.

Lindsey also addressed concerns raised by Sen. Jim Runestad, R-White Lake, in his reluctant call for a yes vote, with Lindsey introducing another amendment which would allow the majority party and the minority party in each chamber to appoint their own FOIA coordinator in order to keep the position from being weaponized against political opposition, alongside tweaking the language on some of the exemptions for the governor’s office.

Both amendments failed.

While Runestad opposed an exemption for records “created, prepared, owned, used, in the possession of, or retained” by the governor, lieutenant governor and their offices for less than 30 days, McBroom justified the exemptions by noting many of them were included in the originals drafts of the bills crafted 10 years ago. The 30-day exclusion specifically was written to ensure the governor can have frank conversations while crafting the state budget, McBroom said.

“If they need ideas on tough cuts and they want to hear all those ideas and have them put on the table, and then later on, it could just be used as a political torch to go after because somebody from the Department of Natural Resources suggested we close all the parks. You know that that’s not helpful, and it doesn’t allow the governor’s office to do their job in writing a budget,” McBroom said.

Lauwers spoke out against the Senate’s efforts to fast track the bills, moving to put them before the entire Senate on the day they were introduced, circumventing the committee process where additional testimony would be taken on the bills.

“By the sponsor’s (Moss’) own admission, it could be a better bill, but we didn’t have a single committee. Why? Yes, it’s good policy, but let’s stick to procedure. … As I said, I voted for it in the past. I’m voting against it today because it’s a protest against the procedure we’re taking,” Lauwers said.

Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer promised to expand FOIA to the governor and lieutenant governor’s office while campaigning for her first term in 2018, if the Legislature did not act on the issue. However, she has yet to extend FOIA to her office since she was sworn in on Jan. 1, 2019.

The Advance asked a Whitmer spokesperson if the governor would open her office to FOIA, but the request was not answered by the time of publication.

Moss has repeatedly told reporters he hoped to replicate the same success he and McBroom saw in 2015 as the bill moved to the Republican-led House for further consideration.

“If you look at the dynamics of the Legislature over the last several years here, this is now only passed out of a Republican-controlled House and only passed out of a Democratic-controlled Senate. I think those might just be the perfect dynamics that we have to have in place in order to get this done,” Moss said.

However, Michigan House Speaker Matt Hall, R-Richland Township, has seemed less interested, previously telling reporters, “You’re not going to see fast action on the FOIA stuff for me in the House. You’re just not.”

Both McBroom and Moss said they had spoken with Hall and he reassured them he was supportive of the ideas of the package.

“I want to be respectful of the fact that he’s got to set up a whole office and administration, basically. … I think he was just simply trying to help everybody recognize that he wasn’t going to pass these next week as soon as we sent them over,” McBroom said.

“He’s going to put them through the committee process. He’s got new members, which we don’t have here, that have to learn this issue. So I want to be respectful,” he said.

The door remains open for discussion, Moss said.

“I think we have all the tools and experience and knowledge and data to present to him about how important this issue is. And so if he wants to engage in that conversation, we’re more than willing to sit at the table with him and talk about why it is important to put these bills on the House agenda,” Moss said.

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