By Danielle Emerson
Staff Writer
Posted: November 14, 2013 4:06 PM

As Secretary of State Ruth Johnson announced a proposal for a huge rule change that would mean groups funding so-called issue ads about candidates for office to disclose their donors and spending activity, Senate Republicans were already working feverishly to defy it.

The story begins last night, when allegedly both Ms. Johnson and Senate Majority Floor Leader Arlan Meekhof (R-West Olive) were in discussions with Governor Rick Snyder and his administration about the proposed rule change. Mr. Meekhof would be discussing his bill SB 661, which doubles campaign contribution limits and increases reporting requirements for certain groups, in the Senate Local Government Operations Committee the next morning.

The committee met this morning at 8 a.m., started 10 minutes late (which is not unusual but perhaps noteworthy since notice of Ms. Johnson’s proposal was sent out around 8 a.m.), and recessed after 20 minutes until 9:30 a.m. By 9:40 this morning, the committee had reconvened and took votes on a series of bills, including Mr. Meekhof’s SB 661. The committee seemed rushed.

Mr. Meekhof had proposed an amendment and subsequently an S-2 substitute to his bill, but refrained from explanation on either of them – usually a sure sign of partisan intrigue. By a 3-1 vote, with Sen. Coleman Young II (D-Detroit) voting against, the bill was sent to the floor.

Upon the adjournment of committee, Republican members hastily left the room, leaving no time for media or attendee inquiry as to what those changes included. And the committee clerk told members of the media that she could get copies of the amendment and substitute to them later, but she did not have any extras at the time and had to get a move on filing the bills.

The Senate in quick-draw fashion passed the bill. Prior to the vote, Senate Minority Leader Gretchen Whitmer (D-East Lansing) asked for an explanation of it. When a member asks for an explanation of an amendment or a bill, usually as a courtesy, he or she gets one from the sponsor or the floor manager. In this case, the response was silence and the voting board then opened.

Session ended and reporters were, of course, was hungry for answers. But getting those answers would prove incredibly difficult, even from the voluble Senate Majority Leader Randy Richardville (R-Monroe) and the bill sponsor, Mr. Meekhof, who was virtually stone-faced as he responded to the peppering of questions.

The following is part of a transcript of that five-minute exchange with reporters.

Reporter: Was the amendment a direct response to Secretary Johnson’s new proposal?

Meekhof: Well, simply what we did was codify existing administrative rules. I don’t know that you would say it’s in response to, but it’s something we were willing to codify.

Reporter: Well did you stop the committee meeting to take into consideration what Ms. Johnson did?

Meekhof: There were several stops and starts along the way. That happened to be one of them.

Reporter: And that was one of the reasons why?

Meekhof: Not necessarily that one in particular, why the committee stopped, but there were several iterations of this campaign finance to help look at the transparency and codify these rules.

Reporter: Does the amendment in effect undo what she’s trying to do?

Meekhof: I don’t know that I can speak to that, but…

Reporter: Why not?

Meekhof: I put it in there because we’re codifying existing administrative rules.

Reporter: Why was it important to codify those rules?

Meekhof: Because we believe those are the rules we’ve been operating under and we wanted to codify them.

Reporter: What do you think of Secretary Johnson’s proposal?

Meekhof: I can’t speak for her so I guess you’ll have to ask her. She’s been on plenty of media stuff so you guys will probably have got her opinion somewhere.

Reporter: Sure, I know her opinion. I’m asking what you think of her proposal.

Meekhof: I haven’t read it all. I got a head’s up last night of the things that she was going to do. I haven’t read all of it so I don’t want to comment on it until I’ve read it all.

Reporter: But you were not trying to do an end-run?

Meekhof: We’re trying to codify, improve transparency, and modernize the system, and that’s what we did today.

Reporter: So you’re not for disclosure?

Meekhof: That’s not true.

Reporter: Well what is true?

Meekhof: We modernized the system. We increased transparency. And we codified the rules that are existing.

Reporter: Is there more disclosure under this?

Meekhof: You’ll have to measure that. I can’t answer that for you.

Reporter: Do voters have the right to know who is financing issue ads?

Meekhof: The issue ads are people who want to speak and educate the public. And they should have every right to do those issue ads, to educate the public on an issue.

Reporter: Do voters have the right to know who is paying for them?

Meekhof: That’s your opinion.

Reporter: No I’m just asking a question. That’s not an opinion.

Richardville: Actually the Supreme Court already made this decision. The Supreme Court made the decision that these don’t have to be disclosed and so we codified what the Supreme Court, which is kind of a supreme voice, has already said. So this is just straight-forward codification of something that’s already in place.