Lobbyists are running things in Lansing, Progress Michigan Executive Director Lonnie Scott said Thursday, and his group is backing a new ballot initiative to change that by putting guardrails around how lawmakers and lobbyists interact.

A ballot initiative would ban gifts from lobbyists to lawmakers, mandate lawmakers take a two-year cooling-off period before becoming lobbyists, loop anybody spending more than $1,000 to influence legislation into the definition of a lobbyist, require communications attempting to influence public officials to contain a disclaimer about where they came from and require lobbyist-legislator interactions to be reported.

All of this could be done legislatively, Scott said, but the ballot initiative would put it in the constitution.

“We’re introducing this ballot measure to send a message to the Republican majority in both chambers: if you won’t do your job, we will,” Scott said.

He said it’s not hard to see why lawmakers wouldn’t act on proposals like these, because lobbyists bought lawmakers more than $540,000 in food last year, according to the Michigan Campaign Finance Network.

The measures would put Michigan in line with other states in some respects, Scott said, and ahead of other states in requiring interactions between lawmakers and lobbyists be disclosed.

Some other states, for instance, already ban lawmakers from accepting gifts, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. In Michigan, lawmakers can accept gifts of $25.00 or less and lobbyists are allowed to pay for meals, as well.

A new group called the Coalition to Close Lansing Loopholes, which includes Progress Michigan, is backing the initiative. Also supporting it is a group of volunteers called Michiganders for Fair and Transparent Elections. Ken Schwartz, vice president of that group, said “the proposed ballot measure will bring much greater transparency to Michigan’s lobbying industry.”

Scott said additional partners will be announced in the future.

Asked if the group would pay signature-gatherers for this effort, Scott said those details are still being worked out. He said the group expected to spend more than $1 million on the campaign because he anticipates a lot of opposition.

A lot of the initial money will come from Progress Michigan, he said. Like other 501(c)4 groups, Progress Michigan does not disclose its donors. Asked if he saw any irony in undisclosed donors backing a transparency initiative, Scott said, “No. Because the proposal will apply to us as well."

Progress Michigan would welcome a change to the law requiring all 501(c)4 groups to disclose donors, Scott said.

The group filed its language with the Bureau of Elections on Thursday. The next step is to go before the Board of State Canvassers, which approves the form of ballot initiatives before they start collecting signatures. To get on the ballot in 2020, a petition needs to gather 425,059 signatures.

The Coalition to Close Lansing Loopholes joins other groups trying to get various measures on the ballot in 2020, including two abortion-related ballot initiatives and one to expand the state’s civil rights act to cover sexual orientation and gender identity.