When Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder released emails related to the ongoing water crisis in the city of Flint earlier this month, he was under no obligation to do so. Michigan is one of only two states in the country (Massachusetts is the other) where the state’s Freedom of Information Act excludes the governor’s office from public records searches.
Missing from Gov. Snyder’s voluntary 274-page disclosure were emails from before 2014, when the governor-appointed emergency manager in charge of Flint made the decision to switch the city’s water source from Detroit public water to the Flint River, a poorly-managed transition which resulted in the lead poisoning of thousands of Flint residents. Emails from staff members as well as emails sent to and from the governor’s public email account were also left out.
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