LANSING– Michigan Sen. Gretchen Whitmer today continued her push to force legislators to make sacrifices and reduce their own pay, end their lifetime benefits and disclose their income and assets to the taxpayers.

Whitmer sent a letter urging the State Officers Compensation Commission to meet again this year to consider additional reforms.

“We’ve seen common sense reforms get batted around for years but, as usual, nothing significant actually becomes law,” Whitmer said. “The public will never trust politicians to solve the huge problems facing our state unless they start by fixing the broken system that lawmakers are largely responsible for.”

Whitmer has called for immediate changes that would:

· Cut legislators’ pay.

· Pro-rate legislators’ pay each time local schools are sent a letter pro-rating their funding.

· End taxpayer-funded lifetime health care benefits for legislators.

· Reduce the salaries of legislators who miss session.

· Require candidates seeking public office to disclose their income and assets.

The letter, which is included below, reads in part:

“I respectfully urge you to reconvene and consider a further salary reduction to members of the Michigan Senate and Michigan House of Representatives, as well as a reporting requirement to justify and make public expense allotments. Our current crisis and the inability of legislators to accomplish these common sense reforms on their own requires the unusual but necessary action of the commission to meet again promptly to consider these proposals. By doing so, you may kick start the process of repairing a system that is broken and out of touch, but more importantly, restoring a trust that could be permanently lost.”

Video of Sen. Whitmer’s recent statement on government reforms can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBKnNFSfv8A&feature=channel.

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