Lansing Capitol
All the things you suspect are happening in Lansing, are in fact happening.
Eye on Michigan, a student investigative reporting program based in Detroit and East Lansing, took a deep dive in Lansing and found lobbyists lavished more than $6 million in free meals and trips on Michigan lawmakers between 2001-2023, but flaws in the system make it impossible to determine how much state officials really got.
The story, published in the Detroit Free Press Monday, says:
Lobbyists spend millions wining and dining state officials in Michigan, but it is impossible to determine how many freebies lawmakers accept because the state's system for tracking what influencers give to legislators is flawed, rife with loopholes and relies on the honor system, a year-long Eye On Michigan investigation reveals.
Problems with the state's defective attempt to bring transparency to officials' interactions with lobbyists is compounded because many of the lawmakers who took the most freebies refuse to discuss why they accepted hundreds of free meals and trips worth hundreds of thousands of dollars...
Public records show that each of the Top 25 Takers accepted more than $16,000 in freebies. But those numbers don’t come close to revealing how much lobbyists really spent to influence lawmakers over the last 23 years because of the $6.3 million lobbyists spent on lawmakers and state officials during that period, more than $3.9 million — or nearly two-thirds of all spending — was classified as “group food & beverage,” making it impossible to determine how much each lawmaker actually received in free meals.
