Brian Dickerson

Editorial Page Editor

Late in the final evening of the Michigan Legislature's 2015 session, Rep. Lisa Posthumus Lyons, R-Alto, asked her colleagues in the Michigan House to take up SB 571.

The 12-page bill, which made some minor changes to Michigan’s campaign finance law, was not a controversial one. State senators had adopted it unanimously after hearing testimony that it would reduce unnecessary paperwork for both corporations and labor unions seeking to fatten their political war chests.

The House elections committee Lyons chairs had recommended the bill for approval by the full House with no objections from any its three Republican or two Democratic members.

But as it turned out, Lyons and Speaker Kevin Cotter, R-Mt. Pleasant, had no intention of sending SB 571 to Gov. Rick Snyder in its current form. As they saw it, the innocuous bill provided ideal camouflage for the more sweeping rewrite of campaign finance law both had in mind.

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In a move that blind-sided her Democratic colleagues entirely and left many members of her own Republican caucus confused, Lyons introduced a substitute for SB 571 that was more than four times the length of the original.

It was 10 p.m.

The breadth of the changes proposed in the amended bill was remarkable. Besides muzzling public school districts in the 60 days preceding any bond issue election, the revised bill licensed candidates and political action committees to retroactively violate Michigan’s $68,000 cap on PAC spending.

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The super-charged SB 571 also made it easier for corporations to deduct money for their own PACs from their employees’ paychecks while forbidding them from making similar deductions on behalf of labor unions, even if their unionized employees consented.

None of the changes had been the subject of any public hearing or discussion. Democrats were given no opportunity to offer their own amendments, or even read the now-53-page bill before Republicans called for a vote.

Republicans had been provided with a copy of Lyons’ amended bill in their party caucus earlier that day, but many complained that they, too, were reduced to accepting Lyons’ assurances that it contained nothing objectionable — assurances some members would later regard as disingenuous.

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By evening’s end, the House and Senate had both adopted the revised bill on party line votes, with just four Republicans — two in the House, and two in the Senate — joining Democrats in opposition.

House Minority Leader Tim Greimel, D-Auburn Hills, was left to marvel at the audacity of the GOP coup.

“The bill does a lot of things, but mostly it’s about increasing the volume of political contributions and making it harder for voters to learn who’s contributing,“ Greimel said Friday. “I’ve talked to thousands of voters about the political process in Michigan, and I’ve never heard a single one say we needed more money and less disclosure.”

I and a lot of other journalists have spent weeks trying to discern precisely for whom Rep. Lyons was carrying water when she surprised her colleagues with the myriad changes in her substitute bill. Friday, three days after I sought illumination from Cotter’s office and two days after Snyder signed the bill into law, Lyons responded via e-mail to some of my questions.

“Reports that the changes were not discussed among the Republican House members or that they were not provided information are false,” Lyons said, although she conceded that neither the nonpartisan House Fiscal Committee nor its Senate counterpart had had time to prepare the analysis customarily provided for other bills.

When I asked her about the impetus for language permitting PACs to make retroactive contributions to a candidate’s campaign — even if those contributions exceeded the legal limit for that election cycle — Lyons said the idea was her own but had received the blessing of Secretary of State Ruth Johnson, whose office oversees elections and the enforcement of election campaign finance rules.

(Johnson’s spokesperson said the Secretary of State's Office provided "technical assistance" to Lyons but was "neutral" on the amended bill. The Secretary of State has been aggressive in prosecuting candidates who accepted contributions like the ones authorized by SB 571.)

Lyons was less certain about the origin of language ham-stringing labor unions’ collection of political donations.

"I do not recall who brought this concern forward, as there were many stakeholders interested in the bill,” Lyons said in an e-mail.

What about the language muzzling public school districts and municipalities for two months before an election? (Even Republicans who supported Lyons’ bill now worry it will deprive voters of critical information.)

“I do not recall who brought this concern forward,” Lyons repeated.

There’s an old saying that victory has one thousand fathers and defeat is an orphan. In fact, all of the most controversial provisions in Lyons’ bill have been quietly championed by charter school advocacy groups bankrolled by Dick DeVos and other DeVos family members, who are among the state Republican Party’s most generous donors. But this may be one of those rare instances in which victory, if not exactly an orphan, prefers anonymity.

Now in her third and final House term, Lyons reportedly aspires to run for Kent County Clerk, and eventually Secretary of State, when her legislative tenure expires. What could she have been thinking when she agreed to become dark money’s servant in Lansing?

After her campaign to rewrite Michigan’s campaign finance rules to the advantage of her party and its most important donors, who would trust her with the authority to oversee Michigan elections?

As for the legislative process, what Lyons and her colleagues have done makes a mockery of that, too. They might as well have collected all those “How a Bill Becomes Law” pamphlets the Legislature hands out to visiting school children and set them afire in the House chamber.

The furtive path of SB 571 makes clear how a bill becomes law in this state capital. It’s not a spectacle anyone would want young children to see up close.

Contact Brian Dickerson: bdickerson@freepress.com.