Voters Not Politicians staff and volunteers have been busy! At the beginning of this year we identified three key priorities, and have been working with the legislature to advance these reforms:
- Enabling legislation for Prop 22-1 and other election reforms such as ending prison gerrymandering
- Anti-corruption reforms, including: ensuring that Prop 22-1 is implemented with enabling legislation that requires our public officials to report their financial ties, exposing conflicts of interest
- Campaign finance reform, including requiring disclosure for election-related ads and banning foreign-influenced corporations from pouring millions of dollars into Michigan elections
Check out our progress: Volunteer legislative liaisons have attended more than 70 in-district coffee hours to discuss priority legislation with their senators and representatives. They are forming relationships with their elected officials and ensuring that VNP’s pro-democracy message is carried directly to the folks who are tasked with making our laws.
In coordination with the volunteer meetings, Voters Not Politicians staff are meeting with legislators in Lansing to discuss the specifics of the legislation we advocate for. At the invitation of legislators, Jamie Lyons-Eddy presented to the House Elections committee about Voters Not Politicians legislative priorities, and Nancy Wang presented detailed Ethics reforms to the House Ethics and Oversight committee. Huge thanks to VNP’s current Policy Committee and previous Policy Committee volunteers for all of the work they’ve done to help develop these policies, including taking a comprehensive look at policies in other states to identify best practices. With this new legislature, we have a real hope of bipartisan passage of reforms we’ve been advocating for for years.
And finally, we’ve hit the road with a campaign finance reform educational Town Hall tour! Twenty events have already been scheduled, with more in the planning stages. Look for an event near you at vnp.vote/events. If there isn’t one near you, we might need help planning the event! You can email [email protected] to be put directly in touch with a volunteer coordinator to start event planning.