A ballot campaign to stop public utilities and some state government contractors from political giving submitted petition language to a state elections board this week.

The optional step starts a 30-day window for the Board of State Canvassers to make sure everything is in order with the petition ahead of signature-gathering. That process involves the state elections director writing 100-word summary language to go at the top of the petition.

Sean McBrearty is vice chair of the Michiganders for Money out of Politics campaign, a coalition made up of environmental voting rights, and other groups.

McBrearty said the group wants to get out in the field collecting signatures as soon as possible. That’s even if it means canvassers could be out in the wintertime, when it’s historically tougher to stop people and ask for their support on the street or at events.

“We’ve heard from people across the state who are excited about being able to take our power back from bad corporate actors and exert the people’s influence over our government again. And so we’re excited to get folks out able to sign this,” McBrearty said.

The ballot measure language is similar to bipartisan legislation introduced earlier this year in the state House of Representatives. That effort itself is a followup from bills in the previous legislative term that never passed.

“This is not something the legislature is going to do itself. If the people want to take back their power from the government contractors and monopoly utilities, the way to do it is at the ballot,” McBrearty said.

McBrearty and other supporters of the ban argue utilities and large contractors have used their money to gain an outsized influence on state government.

Consumers Energy and DTE Energy are two of the state’s largest utilities. The campaign finance site OpenSecrets shows groups tied to each of those have spent over $2 million and $1.2 million respectively on lobbying across 2023 and 2024.

Both utilities have denied any wrongdoing with their political behavior.