Student investigative journalists recently uncovered the lobbyists treating Leelanau County’s representatives in Lansing to free meals and trips.
Betsy Coffia, D-Traverse City, accepted just under $85 in gifts in her first year in office, and John Damoose, R-Harbor Springs, is on the fast track to becoming one of the top takers in the Michigan Legislature.
Coffia represents the 103rd District, which includes Leelanau County and parts of Benzie and Grand Traverse counties, in the Michigan House of Representatives. Damoose represents the 37th District in the state Senate, which spans from Leelanau County and Traverse City to Sault Ste. Marie, north of the Mackinac Bridge.
Both Coffia and Damoose office Jan. 1, 2023, and the full data from 2024 is not yet available. Damoose accepted about $2,421 in over 20 transactions between taking office and the end of 2023. The lobbyist that gave him the most money was the Lansing-based firm Public Affairs Associates. They gave Damoose about $600 across four transactions.
Other special interests that lobbied Damoose included the Michigan Beer and Wine Wholesalers Association, which gave about $350 over two transactions; the Michigan Soft Drink Association, which gave about $233 over two transactions; and Consumers Energy, which gave $204. Eight other organizations or individuals gave between $70 and $150 to Damoose.
Student investigative reporters for Eye on Michigan found two transactions for Coffia in 2023, including about $10 from the Michigan Municipal League and $75 from Harrington Smalley & Associates, a lobbying firm in Lansing.
Eye on Michigan and analysts for the Detroit Free Press gathered this data to help determine which Michigan lawmakers have accepted the most freebies between 2001 and 2023. From the data available, they identifi ed the Michigan Legislature’s top takers from 2001 to 2023 as former senators Randy Richardville, R-Monroe, and Rebekah Warren, D-Ann Arbor. Between 2001 and reaching his term limit in 2015, Richardville accepted $43,901, an average of about $3,136 per year. But there is no data from Richardville’s first two years in the legislature as a state representative prior to becoming a senator and eventually senate majority leader.
Warren took $39,549 in free meals and trips over 14 years in the state’s House of Representatives and Senate between 2007 and 2021, averaging about $2,825 per year.
If Damoose continues accepting this same amount of gift money over a full 12 years – the term limit for legislative members introduced in 2022 – he will take in about $29,053. This would put him between Senate minority leader Aric Nesbitt, R-Porter Township, and Joe Hune, R-Hamburg Township, who placed sixth and seventh on Eye on Michigan’s list of top 25 takers.
No one who represented Leelanau County in Lansing made the top 25 list. But Eye on Michigan and the Free Press’s coverage is highly critical of the politicians who did appear on it. While it is legal for lawmakers to accept free meals and travel expenses from lobbyists, many declined to answer reporters’ questions about how these gifts affected their decision making.
The Free Press also notes that only about a third of the gifts on the record can be traced to lawmakers. The other two-thirds – about $3.9 million – were spent on “group food & beverage” rather than given to an individual recipient. And any gift transactions under $75 are not required to be reported, although Coffia and Damoose each recorded a transaction below this threshold.
“(It is) impossible to tell how much lobbyists have given state lawmakers and officials,” a press release from the Michigan Press Association says. “Even with these problems, they found 17,000 free meals and trips valued at more than $6.3 million.”
Damoose’s office could not be reached for comment and a list of transactions from 2024 prior to publication.
