Earmarks Request Total $4B

(Source: MIRS.news, Published 04/25/2025) The deadline to request budget earmarks passed as of midnight on Friday, and legislators have requested more than $4 billion among 530 requests to be negotiated for inclusion in this year’s budget.

As of the Monday, the last time MIRS conducted an analysis of the public requests, 99 entries totaled about $307 million. During Speaker Matt Hall (R-Richland Township)’s press conference yesterday, he announced the total to be about $1.5 billion, and House Republican Communications Director Gideon D’Assandro said the number got to be over $3 billion shortly after.

House members were required under House Rule 52 to submit their earmark requests to be publicly displayed on the Michigan House of Representatives website, a move that Gov. Gretchen Whitmer encouraged in her 2025 State of the State address.

No senators are listed as sponsors of requests on the website, despite House Rule 52 stating that the House will not pass a budget bill that doesn’t meet certain transparency requirements on its earmarks.

Hall said yesterday the earmark requests needed to meet these requirements to be considered in the House, or else they would not pass, whether it came from a senator or representative.

D’Assandro said the first route the Senate could have taken to have earmarks included would have been to adopt a similar rule or practice for their own appropriations process, but since that didn’t happen, a senator with a special project funding request would need to have a representative sponsor it for them.

The forms ask questions such as which House district the project would be in or who the co-sponsoring legislators would be. In some cases, senators are listed as co-sponsors.