But corporate influence in Michigan’s government is destroying our democracy. Take energy utilities, for example:
In the last legislative cycle, over 80% of state legislatures accepted political spending from energy utilities like DTE Energy and Consumers Energy1. At the same time, Michiganders are paying the highest energy rates in the region and deal with the worst reliability.
As energy utility political spending goes up, so do our rates.
How do they get away with it?
Corporate influence forces Michiganders to deal with:
DTE and Consumers Energy rake in billions while delivering some of the worst power reliability in the country and charging the highest rates in the Midwest. How do they get away with it? Political contributions.
Health insurers and contractors hand out campaign cash to make sure that the very people charged with approving their contracts and regulating their activities are reliant on a continuing flow of money into their campaigns.
Then they use their influence to kill reforms before they see the light of day. These corporations aren’t just influencing policy — they’re writing it. And the people of Michigan are being left in the dark, in debt, and without a voice.
Dark money groups in Michigan can hide their donors and have no restrictions on those donations as long as they avoid words like “vote for” and “elect” in issue ads.
This “issue ad loophole” is one of the main ways dark money enters our elections. Voters lose when they don’t know who is dumping money into ads that clearly support or oppose candidates running for office.
In 2024, dark money groups were the largest spenders in Michigan state politics, according to a Bridge Michigan analysis of campaign finance records.
According to an AP-NORC poll, 62% of Americans say the federal government is doing too little to reduce climate change.
In Michigan, we see the same level of inaction on important issues and silence on the reforms that matter to Michiganders.
As political spending grows, gridlock in government worsens because our elected officials are influenced by the super-wealthy and big corporations.
After storms in 2021 left about 1 million Michiganders without electricity, DTE donated $23,250 to members of the Michigan House committee before oversight hearings on the outages.
Elected officials remain silent while Michiganders pay some of the highest electricity rates and experience the longest time without power in the Midwest.
How can we expect elected officials to hold some of their biggest campaign donors accountable?
