CRC: MMOP Could Impact Political Ads, Keeping Money Out Questionable

(Source: MIRS.news, Published 09/29/2026) The Citizens Research Council of Michigan released a report today analyzing the Michiganders for Money Out of Politics (MMOP) ballot initiative and found it could impact political advertising, but the money issue was questionable.

CRC Associate Karley Abramson presented her report on MMOP, saying the new law, if passed on Nov. 3, would change the Michigan Campaign Finance Act by making all video and audio political advertising subject to the same “paid for by” rules across the board, on top of the known ban on political contributions for state vendors making over $250,000.

“The existing law doesn’t explicitly require ads on the internet to say who paid for them and so there are certain changes that they make to the language to try to close that,” Abramson said.

She said there are certain issue ads that also don’t require spending disclosure, especially ads that are not aimed at a specific candidate and those can avoid disclosing who paid for the ad.

“Any issue ad that’s basically, ‘Call your legislator to tell them about this issue that you care about,’ it doesn’t have an impact on those. It’s the ones that are designed to talk and talk like a campaign ad, and it tries to encapsulate those ads that do the work of a campaign ad without being explicitly one,” she said.

She said this doesn’t affect the spending itself, just the transparency of who is spending on those campaign ads, but this is also the problem behind the “keeping Money Out” of the MMOP ballot.

“Restrictions on the contractors and the utilities potentially could be cumbersome because of how large in scope they are,” she said.

MMOP doesn’t apply to 501(c)4s or other donations.

“Money could just move from the contributions to expenditures and many of the kinds of large concerns that are being discussed are influenced by forces outside the scope,” she said.

She also said the second part of the ballot measure was the one that would surely be challenged in court on a First Amendment basis, which was disallowing government vendors, or their executive suite or families with a 5% stake in the company, from contributing to political campaigns.

“There are a lot of people who have that 5% interest in any particular entity, and then their family members, so depending on the organization, that could still encompass a lot of individuals who may not know that they were included,” she said.

She said this was the piece that could run afoul of the First Amendment and subsequent U.S. Supreme Court rulings.

“The crux of the legal issue centers on you having to show that risk of quid pro quo to be able to target that. It’s already established that there are these free speech rights that are at risk, whether or not it applies to individuals,” she said.

She said even if this is struck down by the court, that the first part would still stick around.

There was also a potential error in the draft that would also remove some disclosure requirements for advertising.

“It’s a small drafting error that I think was not intended and potentially could be an easy fix, but it’s something just to keep in mind with how the language was written,” Abramson said.