The Michigan Court of Claims will hear arguments Tuesday in a lawsuit over earmarks in the state budget.
The Mackinac Center for Public Policy alleges the current state budget is breaking the law by putting money toward ballparks in Lansing and Utica without getting the required amount of support from lawmakers.
The state Constitution requires two-thirds majority votes in the Legislature to spend public dollars on “local or private purposes.”
Mackinac Center Vice President for Legal Affairs Patrick Wright said lawmakers need to respect that.
“Our hope is that there’ll be more awareness of what’s occurring, there’ll be a little bit more care taken by the Legislature. We hope that it’ll mean for a smaller budget and that it'll be more focused on broader things for the state in general,” Wright said.
Historically, earmarks have helped gain votes from potential holdouts on spending bills. Items can sometimes show up at the last minute before final budgets are passed.
They’ve also been the subject of increased scrutiny in recent years. State investigators have been looking into a $20 million grant approved in a past budget.
The lawsuit seeks to claw back the money for the baseball stadium upgrades or to prevent future appropriations without supermajority votes. Success could effectively take that dealmaking chip off the table — something to consider as negotiations to pass a new budget near an October 1 deadline to avoid a partial government shutdown.
Wright said lawmakers could still strike deals for important earmarks.
“If a locality wants something and they can convince two-thirds of each chamber, that’s great, that should happen. But it shouldn’t happen as a partisan tool in order to try to keep their members elected,” he said.
Current budget wording sets parameters for the ballparks, like “located in a city with a population between 5,000 and 5,500,” to narrow the potential recipients of the grant down to one. Past budgets have used similar language for other items.
Wright said case law has let the Legislature use that type of framing to get around passing policies targeting specific areas, despite similar constitutional restrictions. But he argued that’s only because other localities technically have the chance to meet those type of requirements through population changes. In the case of a one-year budget, Wright said that’s much less likely.
The Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity, which is named as a defendant in the case, did not reply to a request for comment by deadline Friday afternoon.
Court of Claims to hear arguments in earmarks lawsuit
