Getting the government to be transparent is usually an uphill battle, but this past year, it has proved to be even more challenging. Fortunately, the Mackinac Center recently secured a legal victory in a transparency lawsuit against the University of Michigan. We filed the lawsuit in March after the university denied part of a Freedom of Information Act request earlier this year. In an article in MLive, Steve Delie was quoted on the court’s ruling, saying, “[W]e are happy the court upheld the rule of law and transparency in government by ruling in our favor.”
If you’ve been following the Mackinac Center Legal Foundation’s work, you may be familiar with our lawsuit representing distinguished attorney Lucille Taylor, challenging Michigan’s mandatory state bar dues. While the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals did not agree with our arguments, we have filed an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court. Bloomberg Law, Detroit Legal News, Michigan Lawyers Weekly and several other legal-focused outlets have covered the case.
Michigan’s emergency power laws not only shaped the everyday lives of individuals, but, as Patrick Wright told The Detroit News, they “definitely put our legal system through a stress test.” The article looks at the 51 lawsuits that challenged the state’s pandemic rules. As the news outlet writes, the Mackinac Center’s case “possessed the arguments that helped overturn Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s 188 pandemic executive orders when the Michigan Supreme Court decided a 1945 emergency powers law was unconstitutional.”
President Joe Biden recently signed an executive order on zero-emissions vehicle sales and also announced plans to further increase fuel emissions standards. In an article published by the Detroit Free Press, many were quick to praise this move, but the Mackinac Center stood out as a less enthusiastic voice. As Jason Hayes was quoted in the article, “When it comes to efficiency, government mandates struggle to keep up with societal evolution. Rather than listening to markets, they push their own wants and desires.” Hayes was also quoted in the Center Square, saying the administration’s “push for electric vehicles is not driven by consumer demand, but political motives.”
One policy issue that tends to blur party lines is the fight both for and against corporate welfare. In an op-ed published in The Washington Post, James Hohman discusses how lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are coming together to fight corporate welfare, particularly at the state level. He writes that lawmakers have “the facts on their side, as studies show that such subsidies can harm, not help, economic growth and almost always fail to drive the promised job creation.” On the flip side, corporate welfare programs included in the federal infrastructure package received bipartisan support, as Jarrett Skorup writes in a National Review essay.
