The Mailer Attacking Judge Chris Burnett Lists the Same PO Box as Casandra Morse-Bills’s Supreme Court Campaign

The Committee for Good Judges mailer attacking Judge Christopher Burnett carries no paid-for-by statement. Its return address is the mailing address of a Michigan Supreme Court campaign whose treasurer runs the campaign of Burnett’s only opponent.

Two mailers about Judge Christopher Burnett have landed in Allegan County mailboxes this month. I turned one over looking for the line every piece of campaign mail in Michigan is supposed to carry, the one that tells you who paid for it.

It isn’t there.

What is there is a PO Box.

And that PO Box belongs, on paper, to a campaign for the Michigan Supreme Court.

What the Mailer Says

The front of the card pairs a photo of Governor Gretchen Whitmer with a photo of Burnett shirtless, wearing a respirator mask, safety glasses, and hearing protection in what appears to be a workshop. Beside the photos, in quotation marks but attributed to no one, the text claims that when an Allegan County judgeship opened, Whitmer could think of no one but Burnett to fill it.

The back urges readers to tell Burnett to keep politics out of the courtroom and to tell out-of-county groups to stay home. It reproduces a campaign finance entry showing a $250 contribution from Burnett to the Allegan County Democratic Party, and says he gave “right after he received Governor Whitmer’s appointment.” It then criticizes a Berrien County Democratic organization for spending in Allegan County, and reproduces that group’s billboard with its “Paid for by” line circled in yellow.

The return address reads: Committee for Good Judges, PO Box 163, Allegan, MI 49010. The card was mailed presorted standard through Grand Rapids.

Burnett was appointed to the 57th District Court by Whitmer in July 2025 to finish the term of retired Judge William Baillargeon. He is on the November 3 ballot for the partial term ending in 2031. Allegan County’s official candidate list shows one challenger: Tom Siver.

The Return Address Belongs to a Supreme Court Campaign

Judge Casandra Morse-Bills is the presiding judge of the 23rd Judicial Circuit, which covers Alcona, Arenac, Iosco, and Oscoda counties. She is the Republican nominee for one of two Michigan Supreme Court seats on the November 3 ballot.

Her campaign committee, Judge Casandra Morse-Bills for Michigan Supreme Court, is registered with the Bureau of Elections as committee 0613531. Her circuit is in northeast Michigan. Every address on her committee’s registration is in the city of Allegan.

The committee’s registration lists PO Box 163 twice: once as the candidate’s own mailing address and once as the committee’s mailing address. Its street address is a residential address on Trowbridge Street in Allegan. State contribution records list Jason Watts, the committee’s treasurer, at that same Trowbridge Street address, with his occupation given as owner and consultant.

So the PO Box on a card attacking an Allegan County district judge is the address a Supreme Court candidate gave the state as her own.

Who Jason Watts Is in This Race

Watts runs Tom Siver’s campaign for the 57th District Court. Siver is the only candidate running against Burnett.

Clutch readers have encountered Watts before, though not by name. In September, a public commenter said Siver’s campaign would file its required disclosures in October rather than sooner. My September 14 reporting on Siver described that person as a commenter familiar with both campaigns’ filing status. That commenter was Watts. I am naming him now because the question is no longer what he said in a comment thread. It is whose mail is going out in this race, and from which address.

Watts is the person keeping the books for a Supreme Court candidate and running the campaign of the challenger in a district court race. An attack on that challenger’s opponent went out under a committee name nobody has explained, from the PO Box the Supreme Court campaign lists as its own.

The Disclaimer That Isn’t There

Michigan’s Campaign Finance Act requires a pamphlet, mailer, or other printed matter that refers to a candidate to carry an identification with the name and address of whoever paid for it. MCL 169.247(1). The Bureau of Elections rule implementing that section, R 169.36(2), requires the identification to begin with the words “Paid for by.” The Bureau has repeatedly told candidates and committees that a name and address without that phrase is an incomplete identification statement.

When printed matter about a candidate is an independent expenditure not authorized in writing by that candidate’s committee, the statute adds a second requirement: the words “Not authorized by any candidate committee.” Identifications on printed matter paid for by anyone other than a candidate committee must also state that it was paid for “with regulated funds.” A violation of section 47 is a misdemeanor under MCL 169.247(6).

The Committee for Good Judges mailer has a return address block. It has no “Paid for by” statement. It has no “Not authorized by any candidate committee” disclaimer. It has no “with regulated funds” statement.

The missing authorization disclaimer matters most here. That line exists so voters can tell whether a candidate’s campaign is behind a piece of mail. On this card, the only address given is the one a candidate’s committee registered with the state.

The same card that carries none of these statements reproduces a Berrien Forward billboard and circles that group’s “Paid for by” line in yellow, to show readers exactly who paid for it.

I am filing a complaint with the Michigan Bureau of Elections under MCL 169.247.

He Knows This Rule. He Has Used It.

Jason Watts does not need the identification requirement explained to him. He has filed complaints under it.

The Bureau of Elections’ public complaint files include at least three complaints brought by Watts alleging violations of MCL 169.247’s identification requirements: Watts v. Allegan County Democrats, Watts v. Committee to Elect Curtis Michael Villar, and Watts v. Mitchell. Villar is the Allegan County Prosecutor who won the 2024 race against Myrene Koch, whose reelection campaign Watts worked on.

Candidates in the area told Clutch Justice that Watts is quick to report this exact violation when someone else commits it.

So here is the rule he has asked the state to enforce against others.

Here is a mailer that ignores every part of it.

And here is the address on it.

The Whitmer Line, From a Whitmer Donor’s Address

The mailer’s central argument is that a Whitmer appointment marks Burnett as a partisan.

Bureau of Elections records show a $25 contribution to Gretchen Whitmer for Governor on April 5, 2021, from Lesley Goodwin at the Trowbridge Street address in Allegan. Goodwin is Watts’s wife. The same records list Watts at that address, and it is the address the Morse-Bills committee lists as its street address.

The donation record printed on the mailer has its own problem. The entry it reproduces, from the Allegan County Democratic Party’s January 2026 campaign statement, is dated May 24, 2025. Whitmer announced Burnett’s appointment on July 21, 2025, and his term began August 4, 2025. The mailer’s own exhibit places the contribution roughly two months before the appointment it claims the contribution followed. The card also describes the giving as “hundreds of dollars.” The exhibit shows one $250 entry.

Why a Shared Address Is a Campaign Finance Question

Michigan law draws a hard line between a candidate’s own campaign and outside spending. An independent expenditure, under MCL 169.209, is one made without cooperation, consultation, or direction from a candidate or the candidate’s committee. Spending that does not meet that definition is not independent, and it has to be accounted for as the candidate side’s own.

That leaves the Committee for Good Judges in one of two positions. If it is independent of the Morse-Bills campaign, the law required its mail to say so and to say who paid for it, and the mailer does neither. If it is not independent, then the cost of a mailer in an Allegan County district court race belongs on a campaign statement somewhere, and voters are entitled to know whose.

Either way, the people who can answer are the ones whose address is on the card. Morse-Bills is a sitting judge asking voters for a seat on the court that supervises every judge in Michigan, including the one this mailer attacks. What her committee does under her name is her business to explain.

What I Asked the Campaign

On October 13, 2026, Clutch Justice sent written questions to the Morse-Bills campaign. I asked whether the campaign knew the address associated with its committee appears on Committee for Good Judges advertising, and what relationship Watts has with that committee. I asked whether the campaign had provided money, services, or strategic help to the committee, directly or indirectly. I asked whether the campaign knew about the mailers criticizing Burnett before they went out, and what it has done to keep its resources and personnel separate from outside political committees.

As of publication, the campaign has not responded. This article will be updated with any response.

Why This Matters

Judicial races in Michigan are nonpartisan on the ballot. That is the point the mailer claims to be defending. Keep politics out of the courtroom. Tell outside groups to stay home.

Here is what I keep coming back to.

The group telling outsiders to stay home will not say who it is.

The address it gave is a statewide campaign’s.

The man keeping that campaign’s books runs the other side of this race.

And he has filed complaints against other people for skipping the very line this card leaves off.

The disclaimer law exists for exactly this moment, when a voter holding a card wants to know whose card it is. This one does not tell them. The records do. Judge Morse-Bills has the questions in writing, and voters have until November 3 to see whether she answers them.