Sandra Svoboda: What has been the history of Super PACs here in Michigan?

Rich Robinson: The first Super PACs started right after the Citizens United
decision in 2010 election cycle. For the most part they started out being PACs
where corporations could put money into a committee to make unlimited
independent expenditures. So the Michigan Chamber of Commerce had a Super
PAC, Business Leaders for Michigan and so forth. As time has gone on weve
started to have individual Super PACs, and they showed up in the Detroit mayoral
election and thats becoming a fad now in federal elections where a number of
candidates for federal office are being supported by so-called single candidate
Super PACs, and we saw that in the 2012 presidential election campaigns as well.
SS: How do we know that there were Super PACs involved with the Detroit
mayoral election, because theyre separate from the individual candidate
committees, right?
RR: They are but there was never any secret on the part of those who were
involved with the committees that their purpose was supporting the candidacies of
Mike Duggan or Benny Napoleon respectively.
SS: How does it change the dynamic of local election to have Super PACs
involved?
RR: The one thing that it does is allow contributions from corporations. Michigan
PACs never have had contribution limits so individuals could always give a
million dollars and have the committee spend a million dollars for independent
expenditures supporting a single candidates. With the advent of state Super PACs
youve got corporations coming in. So in the case of the Turnaround Detroit Super
PAC for instance, Roger Penske as an individual gave $500,000 to the committee
but Penske Corporation or some part of his corporate identity contributed another
$500,000. That wouldnt have been possible prior to Super PACs becoming part of
our landscape.
SS: Weve recently learned that Mayor Duggan has established a 501c4 to support
what they say will be some city-related work that theres not money for within the
city budget. I wonder if you can talk about this development.
RR: Well generally speaking, I just hate to see officeholders getting involved with
501c4 committees period.
SS: Why?
RR: The general reason is because theres no transparency as to donors. The first
question that comes to mind is what exactly is the social welfare purpose that this
committee will be serving that cant be served better by some other existing
nonprofit corporation? So thats a suggestion that theres some unique purpose to
this committee, and absolutely I think the idea of no disclosure of donors is toxic.
Because the first thing anyone wonders is what consideration is given to donors,
and if you dont know who the donors are, we dont know how considerations are
being reciprocated.
SS: So having transparency in all campaign finance allows us to better analyze
decisions that elected officials make?
RR: Well it does. And not just campaign finance because weve seen individual
officeholders controlling nonprofits corporations in the past. When Kwame
Kilpatrick was the House Democratic leader in Lansing and later when he was
mayor of the city of Detroit he operated nonprofit corporation. Gov. Snyder has
operated a nonprofit corporation and eventually, following some criticism, decided
that he would reveal who the donors were to that particular committee but that was
after a period of probably over $2 million in contributions to that particular
nonprofit.
SS: Its been about six months since Mayor Duggan was elected. Have we seen
anything in his actions as mayor that link back to donations given to either his
candidate committee or his Super PAC?
RR: I cant say that Ive done a targeted investigation to see if there were any
contracts issued by the city or tax considerations given, and it may well be that
thats still under the control of the emergency manager anyway and we wouldnt
see those things. But eventually those are the kinds of things that I think you need
to be involved in looking at is how do contracts get let by the public entity and
whos getting tax considerations, what kind of development opportunities open up
for whom and whats the history of their giving?