The Michigan House and Senate voted Thursday to institute a 45-day disclosure window before lawmakers can insert funding for special projects into the state budget, a significant change that came in response to a series of scandals tied to a wave of earmark spending.

House Speaker Matt Hall had pushed for the new reporting requirements, originally seeking a 90-day period between when lawmakers had to publish their requests for earmarks and when the budget is approved.

The Senate, led by Sen. Winnie Brinks, D-Grand Rapids, initially proposed a 10-day reporting period, which Hall criticized as a "joke." The 45-day policy, approved by both the House and Senate, was a compromise that will cover lawmakers going forward, unless it's altered one day in the future.

Senate Appropriations Chairwoman Sarah Anthony, D-Lansing, recalled being in the House in 2022 as a member of the minority party and "not having any idea what was happening behind curtain" as the budget was crafted.

“My hope is that it’s providing additional time for the public and the press to see what is being funded,” Anthony said of the measure that was approved Thursday.

The changes to the law, Hall said Thursday, will make the process more transparent and accountable to the public paying for the grants.

“That will give us all some time to look it over, vet it and make sure that this is a good use of public dollars,” the Richland Township Republican said.

Making requests for funding available online 45 days before final votes will represent a striking difference from the past when the list of projects was made available hours before the final votes.

As state coffers ballooned in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and a deluge of federal financial assistance, Michigan lawmakers unleashed surplus cash by aiming it toward projects they, lobbyists, interest groups and local governments desired.

In 2022, the Legislature, then led by Republicans, and Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer approved a budget that included a $1 billion spending spree on projects, orchestrated largely behind closed doors by state leaders. The final list of projects wasn't released to the public until the night of the final vote, and some legislators weren't aware, as they voted, of taxpayer money that had been allocated to benefit their own districts.

Money was directed to the private developers and campaign donors, a weeks-long Detroit News investigation found in September 2022. One lawmaker famously described the process as "shady as hell" at the time.

Projects that received funding included $20 million for what the budget bill described as a nature conservancy. However, the money actually benefited the project of a private developer that was building condominiums and a nine-story hotel on a riverfront site in Ann Arbor.

Likewise, in 2022, the Legislature sent $20 million to an international business accelerator run by businesswoman Fay Beydoun, a political donor to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and appointee of the governor on the governing board of the Michigan Economic Corporation. The News later uncovered Beydoun had used the money on several questionable expenses, including a $4,500 luxury coffee maker and attachments, thousands of dollars in furniture purchases, and an $11,000 first-class plane ticket to Budapest.

Attorney General Dana Nessel has launched an investigation into the grant and the Michigan Economic Development Corp.'s oversight of it. Nessel's team raided the MEDC's Lansing office in June. No one has been charged in the Beydoun probe.

However, in May, Nessel's office charged David Coker Jr., a former Michigan legislative aide, with criminal enterprise and embezzlement, related to a $25 million earmark for a health park in Clare that was also awarded by the Legislature in 2022 through the state budget.

On Thursday, the Senate voted 35-0 in favor of the 45-day reporting window, while the House voted 101-0 for it.

The bill now goes to Whitmer, who's expected to sign it into law.

This year's budget process provided a short example of what the disclosure window might look like. The House disclosed its members' earmark requests in the spring, while senators waited until a few days or hours before final passage of the budget to reveal their special projects.

In October, the Senate approved the initial 10-day disclosure window for earmarks. However, Hall said he preferred 90 days to give reporters more time to investigate the spending items embedded in the bills. Hall called the Senate-passed version of the earmark reform a “smokescreen” and the 10-day advanced notice of earmarks “a joke."

The Senate had agreed to pass a "reasonable version" of earmark disclosure as part of the larger budget agreement, Hall said.

“No more bills are coming, no more Senate bills, until they honor their commitment,” Hall told reporters previously.

The compromise on 45 days could spur further action in the Legislature on other policy matters.

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