LANSING, Mich. (Michigan News Source) — Outgoing Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan is trying to shape the future of both City Hall and the governor’s office, but on very different terms.

On August 20, Duggan endorsed Democrat City Council President Mary Sheffield as his successor, calling her the candidate to “take Detroit’s recovery farther.” He praised their 12 years of partnership and told supporters he was “100% behind her,” according to The Detroit News.

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Sheffield, 38, now heads into a November face-off with Rev. Solomon Kinloch Jr., a megachurch pastor who dismissed Duggan’s blessing. “The voters in Detroit will determine the next mayor,” Kinloch said. “A mayoral endorsement won’t stop the violence in our streets.”

But while Duggan—a former Democrat now running as an independent— is eager to tout transparency at home, he’s brushing it off in his own statewide run. This week he refused to press a nonprofit boosting his campaign for governor to reveal its donors.

“I don’t direct anybody,” Duggan said of Put Progress First, the group behind pro-Duggan billboards and ads. State law allows nonprofits to keep contributors secret so long as they don’t explicitly tell voters how to cast their ballot.

That hasn’t stopped critics. “Any leader who is trying to be different from the two political parties should really want to come out fiercely out front on transparency issues,” Rep. Carrie Rheingans (D-Ann Arbor) said. Rep. Dylan Wegela (D-Garden City) was blunter: Duggan is “another corporate-backed politician” with “dark money” behind him.