Dear state House Speaker Joe Tate, D-Detroit, and state Rep. Tullio Liberati, D-Allen Park, chair of the state House Government Operations Committee —

It seems you have the votes.

Bipartisan votes, in fact.

In the Detroit News over the weekend, both state House Republican leader Matt Hall, R-Richland Township, and state Rep. Betsy Coffia, D-Traverse City, were quoted saying they not only support bills to subject the Governor’s Office and the Legislature to open records requirements but want to see those bills on the state House floor before the end of the year.

The bills, which would bring important transparency requirements to the most powerful people in Michigan, passed the state Senate way back in June on a 36-2 bipartisan vote.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has championed the idea and is expected to sign them.

There’s no reason not to advance the bills and finally bring Michigan in line with 48 other states in requiring the governor and lawmakers to hand over documents to members of the public who request those documents.

We know you have a lot of things you want to take care of before Republicans take control of the state House in January, but the apparent broad support for the transparency bills would seem to suggest getting those bills through wouldn’t take much time. A quick committee hearing at which you’re likely to hear broad support from the public and then a quick vote in the full House and you can send the bills to Whitmer’s desk to finally put them in law after a decade of attempts to do so.

We know the bills aren’t perfect. They contain too many exemptions that allow lawmakers and the governor to keep too many documents secret.

But, right now, we the public can’t even ask lawmakers or the governor to provide documents because Michigan law specifically exempts them from disclosure requirements.

So having any kind of transparency is an important step forward, and we the public want to see it.

So, Liberati, hear those bills in your committee. Tate, get them on the House floor for a vote.

Let’s get this done at long last.

Sincerely,

In-the-dark members of the public