The Associated Press is reporting that the Michigan Republican Party has asked prosecutors in Wayne, Ingham, Antrim and Isabella counties to charge Michael Moore with violating Michigan's election law. Apparently, the Michigan GOP is upset that Moore, as part of his "Slacker Uprising Tour" is handing out a limited number of gag gifts such as ramen noodles and clean underwear to students who promise to register to vote. In the news update at their website, the MI GOP post this bit of election regulation law:

Section 931(1)(b) of the Michigan Election Code (Michigan Compiled Laws ("MCL") 168.931(1)(b)) provides that a person who performs such an act is guilty of a misdemeanor:

"(b) A person shall not, either before, on, or after an election, for the person's own benefit or on behalf of any other person, receive, agree, or contract for valuable consideration for 1 or more of the following:

(i) Voting or agreeing to vote, or inducing or attempting to induce another to vote, at an election.

While Moore's antics may, in a very strict literal and trivial sense, violate the above provision, it is rather obvious that Moore is not seriously trying to bribe people with underwear. A far more serious breach of U.S. election law might be the millions of dollars that powerful corporate interests give politicians in order to sway their vote on various issues. To quote Title 18, Section 11, Subsection 201 of the US Federal Criminal Code entitled "Bribery of Public Officials":

Whoever directly or indirectly, corruptly gives, offers or promises anything of value to any public official./...with intent to influence any official....,or, being a public official, directly or indirectly, corruptly demands, seeks, receives, accepts, or agrees to receive or accept anything of value personally or for any other person or entity, in return for being influenced in the performance of any official act...

No Michigan family better exemplifies the corrupt combination of private wealth and partisan politics than the Devos family of Grand Rapids. Amway co-founder Dick Devos is one of the largest individual contributors to the Republican party and his daughter in-law is, of course, MI GOP chairperson Betsy Devos. It is not hard to imagine that Betsy Devos' position of power in the state GOP is due more to her family's wealth and power than to her own dubious political skills.

Corporate bribes (campaign contributions) to politicians are not limited to Republicans. Three of the largest corporate campaign donors that have a presence in Grand Rapids gave to both Republicans and Democrats: