(Source: MIRS.news, Published 02/25/2025) As another piece of Speaker Matt Hall (R-Richland Township)’s Ethics, Accountability and Transparency (HEAT) plan passed in the House Tuesday, Hall questioned why the Senate would need something in return for them to pass the nondisclosure agreement (NDA) ban and said his top ask from Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s State of the State Address will be for her to endorse HEAT. 

Banning legislators and their staffers from signing NDAs under HB 4052 and HB 4053 passed the House by 80-28 and 91-17 Tuesday. The bills sponsored by Reps. Steve Carra (R-Three Rivers) and Dylan Wegela (D-Garden City) are one piece of Hall’s plan that requires enhancement grant sponsors and recipients to be named, require two years between a legislator holding office and registering as a lobbyist, create the Oversight committee, ban legislators from lobbying out of state and require bills taken up during lame duck to only pass if they receive a two-thirds vote. 

HEAT is made up of HB 4052 , HB 4053 , HB 4062 , HB 4063 , HR 1 and HR 14 and HJR A , which proposes a constitutional amendment. To get these bills passed through the Senate, Hall was once again asked if the Senate's Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) expansion under SB 1 and SB 2 is a potential bargaining item. 

Hall didn't say yes or no. Instead, he said the content of HEAT should be enough for the Senate to want to take it up without something being in it for them. 

As excitement for the SOTS address increases, Hall said he’s hoping Whitmer will endorse HEAT and talk more about road funding. 

The ban on signing NDAs is the first bill to leave the House for both Carra and Wegela, who are known for their political identities on the opposite ends of the political spectrum. The two united behind the effort to reduce corporate incentives by requiring transparency in the process of their creation. 

Wegela said he doesn’t have a sense of where negotiations are with the Senate right now, and with Hall touting him as being against corporate incentives and giving him the first Democratic-sponsored bill to pass the House this session, Wegela said he’s not worried about a wedge being driven between himself and more moderate Democrats. 

Wegela said the best case scenario is for both FOIA and the NDA ban to pass. 

“The more sunshine the better,” Wegela said.