Memo: Whitmer staff reviews FOIA before issuing documents

(The Center Square) – Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s pledge of transparency is under question after a Bridge report showed an internal memo asking state agencies to notify Whitmer’s office and legal team before providing documents to the requestor.

The Center Square filed a FOIA for the same memo last week but has yet to receive it.

Lisa McGraw of the Michigan Press Association told Bridge the Whitmer administration’s review policy was “problematic” because it “just slows everything down.”

But Whitmer’s spokesperson defended the practice, saying the memo “is meant to ensure the executive office of the governor is fully informed about legal developments across state government.”

The conservative Michigan Rising Action found mention of the memo in an Unemployment Insurance Agency response when the group requested emails between the agency’s interim director and Whitmer officials.

“In accordance with the April 2021 Memorandum, we are awaiting your approval prior to releasing this information to the requestor,” FOIA coordinator Ivory Bennett wrote in a June 16 email to Whitmer administration officials.

“It’s good to go,” interim UIA Director Liza Estlund Olson responded less than an hour later.

While this example showed a quick turnaround, critics say this process slows down the flow of public information and violates her campaign promise of transparency.

“If Governor Whitmer really thought this policy increased transparency, it wouldn’t have been revealed through a FOIA request,” Eric Ventimiglia, the executive director for the conservative Michigan Rising Action said in a statement. “We are now at the end of year three of Whitmer’s term, and the only movement we’ve seen on her promise is toward less transparency.”

At issue is how much review process the memo allows and for how long. The spokesperson said the governor’s office never approves, rejects, or denies FOIA requests, and her office only reviews FOIAs relevant to the executive office.

The memo applies not only to FOIA but also requests for a formal Attorney General (AG) opinion, new requests for divisional-level advice from the AG’s office, litigation or administrative hearings, emergency rule-making, and Administrative Procedure Act rulemaking.

A Whitmer spokesperson said her office “has occasionally issued executive directives or guidance when there is an opportunity to improve a process or procedure to ensure that state government can operate more efficiently, which can in turn lead to better service or taxpayer savings for Michiganders.”

“Governor Whitmer has been clear that Michiganders deserve a state government that works every day to serve people in the best way possible,” the spokesperson told The Center Square in an email.

The spokesperson said Whitmer is the state’s first governor to disclose voluntarily personal financial information, income tax returns, travel records, and public calendars online.

In 2015, The Center for Public Integrity ranked Michigan last in the nation for government transparency.

The memo follows attacks on Whitmer’s campaign promise of transparency. Earlier this year, reporters discovered her administration dished out nearly $253,000 in taxpayer-funded, secret severance packages to department heads of the Unemployment Insurance Agency and the state health department.

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