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News reports, other info on Midwest Publishing
The farthest back I can trace the relationship with POAM and MPI is July 2002. That is when POAM's campaign finance reports submitted to the Secretary of State started listing hundreds of small contributions, along with payments to "MPI". Reports prior to that listed POAM's contributions to candidate campaign committees - considered "expenditures" - but did not include the source of contributions or payments to MPI. Here is one of dozens of pages listing contributors:
And this page from the same report lists payments to MPI:
No Michigan PAC other than POAM and COAM uses MPI - in the last few years, anyway. However, at least one charity does. Or did in 1991. There was a story in the Detroit News about the Paralyzed Veterans of America (Michigan chapter) using MPI. It says
My search through online newspaper archives also turned up two columns by John Schneider of the Lansing State Journal. In a November 1993 column, he said he'd been told about the Paralyzed Veterans deal and he called Midwest Publishing to see if their 88% take was customary. The guy he talked to said it was, but declined to answer further questions and refused to give his name. Schneider checked with the Attorney General's office and was told "the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that states can't limit a professional fund-raiser's cut."
In August 1995, Schneider had another conversation with MPI, apparently forgetting his 1993 encounter. Again the MPI representative - whose first name was Nolan - refused to give his last name and told him that "his company was a 'major advertiser' with the State Journal and that he had attorneys ready to pounce if I slandered Midwest Publishing Inc." Schneider continued:
You won't find much information on MPI's website. This is all there is:
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