Bills concerning future FOIA laws passed in state house
LANSING, MI — There’s an effort moving through the Michigan Legislature right now that would update Michigan’s open record laws.
The Freedom of Information, or FOIA Act, allows the public to access records of government bodies. Michigan’s FOIA laws have not been updated since 1977.
A 10 bill bipartisan package to update the laws made its way Wednesday the state house. State Rep. Ed McBroom (R-Vulcan) is sponsoring two of the 10 bills in the package.
“For me it’s even more so about helping people to be able to trust their government again,” said McBroom. “Right now people are suspicious and they think there must be something terrible going on or they must be hiding something or they would get these records introduced then. I think what most folks are going to find out, should we past these laws, is that most of the folks that are working here are diligently spending time working on legislation and on constituent issues.”
The House passed the package of bills Wednesday afternoon. They now move on to the senate for review.
Michigan is one of two states where the governor’s office and the legislature is exempt from public records requests.