Speaker Hall Named '25 House Member Of The Year

(Source: MIRS.news, Published 12/22/2025) House Speaker Matt Hall (R-Richland Township) has been named MIRS' House Member of the Year, with the team recognizing how his leadership, unpredictable power plays and transparency platform have caused culture shock around Lansing.

The "Best-Of" series of the MIRS Monday podcast continued on Monday’s episode.

Although being heavily scrutinized along the way, Hall was successful in his goal of sending the fewest number of bills to the Governor's desk since the founding of the state in 1837, keeping the number of law changes Gov. Gretchen Whitmer could sign under 80.

He also pushed for legislators to have to detail and disclose their special spending requests publicly ahead of budget bills being adopted. Following the Governor's signing of HB 4420 by Rep. Tom Kunse (R-Clare) and SB 596 by Sen. Sarah Anthony (D-Lansing), legislators must have their requests publicly uploaded at least 45 days ahead of budget bills being passed in both chambers.

Now, he's made headlines by directing his House Appropriations Committee to reject more than $644 million in "work project" money from the budget deal made last year. The money was intended to go toward legislator-sponsored initiatives – from museum programming, nature and sports center expansions and infrastructure upgrades – over the next few years.

However, critics have argued that departments have been non-transparent about the distribution of such dollars. But on the other hand, the House action has allowed Democrats to target Republicans heavily, highlighting recipients like Maggie's Wigs 4 Kids, which was expecting $56,600 in work project money for custom wigs for children with cancer.

Although Senate Democrats accused Hall of improperly delaying budget negotiations, which resulted in a state budget deal created about three days after the start of the new fiscal year, he did obtain major wins. For example, the full-time employee positions funded for by the state were chopped by 1,800, removing government job funding majorly from the Department of Corrections, Department of Health and Human Services and State Police.

MIRS Podcast Host Samantha Shriber predicts Hall has created new leadership standards that will be difficult for future legislative leaders not to follow, like hosting weekly press conferences and having a signature policy platform, which this year was the Hall Ethics, Accountability and Transparency (HEAT) Plan.

"I would dare say I think Matt Hall might have the most memorable name of state House speakers that we've seen in the recent past in terms of the public knowing him, whether it be because they love him, or they hate him," Shriber said.

John Reurink, the publisher of MIRS, said by controlling the clock, Hall was able to control the budget.

"By dictating the tempo of the negotiations, Hall dictated the outcome. The result (was) he secured a significant infusion of road funding without resorting to broad-based tax hikes, relying instead on a targeted wholesale tax on marijuana," Reurink said. "Republicans have long cried about fraud, waste and abuse in the budget, but rarely have they passed a budget that actually does the cuts, and the House did."

Other nominees for House Member of the Year in 2025 were House Regulatory Reform Chair Joseph Aragona (R-Clinton Township), Oversight Chair Jay DeBoyer (R-Clay) and Appropriations Chair Ann Bollin (R-Brighton).

Past individuals named House Member of the Year include:

- Now-House Minority Leader Ranjeev Puri (D-Canton) in 2024.

- Rep. Kelly Breen (D-Novi) in 2023.

- Former Rep. Tommy Brann (R-Wyoming) in 2022.

- Former Rep. Julie Calley (R-Portland) in 2021.

- Hall in 2020.

- Former House Speaker Lee Chatfield, the Levering Republican, in 2019.