The staunchly conservative Mackinac Center, which has agitated public officials and employees, particularly educators, about their salaries and benefits spends 61 percent of its budget on pay and perks, about the same proportion as is spent by many government agencies and school districts.
According to the 2010 figures that the Midland-based Mackinac Center reported to the IRS, the non-profit organization reported $3.5 million in revenue and $2.1 million in expenses for salaries and benefits. Those figures were provided to the feds, as required, in their annual 990 form.
The form does not provide details on its highest-paid employees, except for the think tank’s president, Joseph Lehman, who received a salary slightly above $173,000.
The release of the 990 is part of a much broader attack on the Mackinac Center by its liberal nemesis, Progress Michigan, which is calling on members of the Legislature to “come clean” about the center’s influence over them.
Progress Michigan wants all House and Senate members to make public all email correspondence they have had with the Mackinac Center. The demand comes after Progress Michigan acquired several email exchanges between the think tank and ultraconservative Rep. Tom McMillin, an Auburn Hills Republican.
In one of those emails, one of the center’s top analysts stated that the group’s goal is to “outlaw government collective bargaining in Michigan.”
The Mackinac Center has consistently and very vocally taken anti-labor stands on various policies and legislation. But Progress Michigan claims that the center’s staff was actively seeking to influence legislation regarding health care benefits for teachers and other public workers.
What’s more, Progress Michigan alleges that the communications alone are enough to indicate that the Mackinac Center was illegally lobbying the Legislature, in violation of its tax-exempt status.
If the group truly is not a lobbying firm, said Progress Michigan Director David Holtz, then legislators should have no qualms about publicly releasing their correspondence with the center.
For its part, the Mackinac Center essentially laughed off the allegations.
Communications director Michael Jahr said Jack McHugh, the senior legislative analyst who wrote the email comment about hopes of eliminating collective bargaining for public employees, has made it clear that he favors restricting union rights. McHugh authored a column 10 days after the June 1 email exchange titled, “Government collective bargaining inherently corrupting, should be outlawed.”
Meanwhile, the Mackinac Center’s top target, the Michigan Education Association, jumped in, declaring that the emails prove that “the Mackinac Center is nothing but a front for corporate special interests intent on destroying the middle class.”
The Mackinac Center, with a 501(c)3 designation from the IRS, is not required to reveal it’s donors. Nonetheless, critics have repeatedly called on them to do so, since the center routinely knocks government at all levels for a lack of transparency.
Known for their detailed analysis of key issues on the conservative Republican agenda, the group’s 990 form describes the center as a nonpartisan research and educational institute dedicated to improving the quality of life. They prefer the label of a free market think tank.
“Right-wing politicians have long relied on the Mackinac Center for their talking points and warped data to prop up their anti-worker agenda,” Holtz said. “This peek behind the curtain confirms that the Mackinac Center is not only advocating for hard-right policies, but this supposed non-partisan think tank is also intimately involved with Republicans in the mechanics of legislation. And it is doing so without the kind of transparency they routinely demand of others. Lawmakers should release all their communications with the Mackinac Center to prove that they are not being influenced by a group that has no business lobbying at the Capitol.”
Progress Michigan didn’t comment on the Mackinac Center’s payroll and finances. And they didn’t say how they gained possession of the emails.
You can read copies of the emails here.
The 990 form is available here.
The information provided by Mackinac far eclipses anything we see locally. They provide a valuable public service.
The Mackinac Center is a lobbying group and nothing more. The information that they provide is biased, twisted, and spun in order to further their goal of eliminating their enemies — public employees. They have enacted a full-court press attacking these people through commercials, newspaper editorials, and legislative action (implemented by politicians on their payroll.) Could education use reform? yeah, but the alternative which we are being offered of unregulated, privately-owned charter schools with no transparency is not the answer.
While it's not shocking that the Mackinac Center is anti-union and
pro-corporate, I would say that the eye-raising part of Chad's
excellent column is that it appears they are engaging in illegal
lobbying activity in direct violation of their 501c3 IRS status. What
they are doing goes beyond just providing "legal analysis" of
potential legislation and crosses over into actively shaping then
pushing legislation based on their agenda — a pro-corporate special
interests one driven by insurance companies and right-wing 1%ers like
the Koch Brothers and the DeVos'. Mackinac should lose its non-profit
status, and news organizations across this state should stop falsely
identifying them as "a non-partisan, educational think tank" —
because they're clearly not.
Chad – Does having a private email conversation and expressing one's viewpoint constitute lobbying?
I'm sure you're aware that it does not.