- Gov. Gretchen Whitmer pitches plan for Michigan lawmakers to publicly sponsor earmarks before votes
- Lawmakers in recent years have added billions of dollars to budgets for pet projects in their districts
- House Republicans adopted their own earmark transparency rules but the Senate has not followed suit
LANSING — Gov. Gretchen Whitmer will propose new earmark transparency rules for lawmakers as part of her government spending plan for next fiscal year, the state Budget Office told Bridge Michigan.
Legislators in recent years have added billions of dollars to state budgets for individual projects in their districts, including more than $600 million in grants signed into law last year by Whitmer, which you can review in the graphic below.
The earmarks, also known as “pork barrel spending,” are often inserted hours before final votes, with little opportunity for public scrutiny and no readily available information about who will receive the funding and which lawmaker requested it…