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Opinion | Time to ban utilities’ political spending, lower costs for Michiganders
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Michigan families are fed up with utility bills that are too high. Here is the good news: There are policies introduced in Lansing that would help lower gas and electric bills for Michiganders. Even if these much-needed reforms become law next week, the underlying issue will remain. The truth is, we will never get utility costs for Michiganders under control until we deal with the problem of money in politics.
Right now, utilities like DTE and Consumers Energy have a blank check to spend as much money as they want to make sure they get their way when decisions are being made in Lansing. Our current campaign finance system has created this legalized corruption that prevents meaningful changes to utility regulation from making their way to the governor’s desk, regardless of who holds the gavel or sits in the Executive Office.
Utility political spending doesn’t just stop good policies from becoming law. It’s also an offensive weapon that’s used to push detrimental policies, broadly opposed by a majority of Michiganders and legislators in both parties, over the finish line. For example, during Michigan’s 2024 lame duck session, many Democrats and Republicans teamed up to pass an extension and expansion of Michigan’s sales and use tax exemptions for data centers without the ratepayer protections and conservation measures advocates pushed for. Despite clear evidence that tax breaks for data centers without proper guardrails would increase electric and water utility rates for ratepayers, DTE and Consumers Energy steamrolled opponents to pass tax breaks for the richest companies in the world without protections for Michiganders.
Michigan’s regulated utilities are also weaponizing their purchased political influence to override statutory safeguards and fast-track the development of data centers within local communities across Michigan. The result is a building crescendo of public backlash. From Kalkaska, to Mason to Detroit — voters are furious that big tech companies are threatening local communities with lawsuits as Michiganders demand a say in some of the most consequential environmental and economic development projects in recent history.
When MAGA voters and Indivisible activists find common ground, and that rare political consensus amongst voters goes unheeded by the majority of elected officials in Lansing, there is a clear breakdown in the relationship between electeds and the voters that chose them to serve. It’s clear that, all too often, lawmakers in Lansing are serving the needs of DTE and the Chamber of Commerce over the direct and vocal opposition of a majority of voters across the political spectrum.
The truth that very few in either political party are ready to admit to is that until the corrupting influence of utility political spending is checked, things will not change. There is hope on the horizon, though: a nonpartisan group of activists has teamed up to take this bipartisan problem directly to voters by getting enough signatures with Michiganders for Money out of Politics. If successful, come November, Michiganders will have the opportunity to vote to kick corrupt utility money out of our state politics. The success of this measure is more important than ever, as local communities remain locked in uphill battles with deep-pocketed tech billionaires pushing for the rapid build-out of data centers that the majority of Michiganders didn’t ask for, and don’t want.
Out-of-control political spending is terrible for democracy. The disconnect between voters’ wishes and lawmakers’ actions on data centers makes it clear that corrupting campaign cash directly erodes public confidence in democracy’s ability to deliver for Michiganders. However, the inverse of this dynamic is also possible: Mop Up Michigan will remove the stifling effects of political spending, undermining the common-sense public policy solutions not just to responsible data center development, but beneficial overall energy policy. Michiganders deserve better, and come this November, they just might get a chance to make it happen.
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