LANSING – The Detroit International Bridge Company has spent $4.7 million on its television advertisements urging residents to oppose the proposed new bridge connecting Detroit and Windsor, Ontario, according to the Michigan Campaign Finance Network.

Mickey Blashfield, director of governmental relations for the Ambassador Bridge, called the figure inaccurate, but declined to say what the actual figure is.

“They are very clearly issue advocacy as opposed to campaigning for a candidate or a recall or anything like that,” Blashfield said, noting that means they do not have to reveal the costs. “I don’t know the amount and I’m not going to speculate beyond that.”

Rich Robinson, executive director of the campaign finance network, said he added up the figures by going through the public files at the state’s television broadcasters and cable systems.

“If that’s off by 1 percent plus or minus, I would be amazed. I think it’s that accurate,” he said. “I got records from everybody.”

Robinson called for the Detroit International Bridge Company, the Ambassador’s owners and funder of the ads, to disclose the costs as a lobbying expense although he acknowledges state law does not require it to do so.

“My point in all of this is that grassroots lobbying is lobbying, and they’re not reporting it,” he said.

Blashfield criticized the report for only looking at the bridge company’s activities and not the polling and advocacy efforts of the bridge’s supporters.

One item that is unclear is whether the bridge company, or one of its other entities, has registered as a lobbying entity. Central Transport International, Incorporated, terminated its status as a lobbying entity in 1996. The bridge company has a variety of entities, but Gongwer News Service could not find any of them in the state’s lobbyist search engine.

State law defines a lobbyist agent as “a person who receives compensation or reimbursement of actual expenses, or both, in a combined amount in excess of $250.00 in any 12-month period for lobbying.”

Blashfield said of the lobbying registration status issue, “I’ll look into that, but I don’t have any comment on that at the moment.”

Transport Canada, a staunch supporter of the new bridge, registered as a lobbyist in April.

In another bridge development, the DIBC also is airing its ads against the proposed new bridge in Iowa to get the attention of Republican presidential candidates. Blashfield said it is responding to the Snyder administration’s suggestion it could go around the Legislature and get the bridge built through other means.

“We take the governor’s threat very seriously that he intents to go around the Legislature by hook or by crook,” he said. “We’re doing everything we can to get the word out that whether it’s Michigan taxpayer dollars or federal taxpayer dollars, it’s nonetheless a boondoggle that is unnecessary under the current circumstances.”

Meanwhile, Business Leaders for Michigan released a poll that it paid for and conducted that showed 61.5 percent of likely voters support the new bridge when told Canada would front the money to build the bridge at no cost to Michigan taxpayers. The survey had an error margin of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

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