Michigan Senate adopts earmark transparency requirements first implemented by House

In 2026, lawmakers in the Michigan Senate will face a transparency requirement that was not in place for much of 2025. The change reflects a similar reform the Michigan House adopted 12 months ago.

Public Act 33 of 2025 places tighter restrictions on state budget earmark requests, often referred to as pork projects, by legislative members.

Sen. Sarah Anthony, D-Lansing, sponsored the new requirements, which apply to cases in which a senator or representative requests an earmark, or legislatively directed spending item.

Michigan Capitol Confidential has reported on various earmark grants in recent years.

For-profit entities will no longer be eligible for a grant, thanks to the new law.

Nonprofit organizations will still be eligible, but they must have continuously operated in the state for the preceding three-year period and have a board of directors.

A nonprofit receiving a state grant also must have had a physical office in the state for one year before receiving state funds. The law also states that the Department of Technology, Management, and Budget may request a copy of the nonprofit’s Form 990, a document many organizations are required to file with the IRS.

If an earmark request is not presented in the Appropriations Committee or a relevant subcommittee, it will be disqualified.

Speaker Matt Hall, a Republican from Richland Township, implemented some of these requirements in early 2025 as part of the House’s internal rules. Those and other requirements are now more permanently established, being in state law.

Hall’s rules required all earmark requests to include the name of the requesting legislator to be published online, as CapCon has previously reported. Before those changes took effect, legislators were not required to divulge their names, leaving the public unaware of who requested the grant.

A legislator could request $1 million for a nonprofit entity, which might not even be in the district of which the legislator represented.

The Detroit News reported in July 2024 that a $250,000 legislative grant would be included in the 2025 budget for a Detroit nonprofit to rehabilitate a building.

According to budget documents, however, the grant recipient was not a nonprofit but instead attached to a single individual.

A different legislator also tried to include a $425,000 grant for a private gun club of which he was a member.

Neither grant made it into the final budget law, according to The Detroit News. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer used her line-item veto to strike both earmarks.