LANSING, Mich. — The method used by a Republican-controlled state house committee to cut more than $600 million from the approved budget has been called unconstitutional by the Michigan Attorney General.
In a formal opinion published on Wednesday, Dana Nessel concluded the 'disapproval' mechanism in Michigan's Management and Budget Act violates the state's constitution. The mechanism allowed the appropriation committees in either the state house or senate to block the State Budget Director from carrying out work projects funded through budgets from previous fiscal years.
That portion of the law meant a small number of law makers could effectively veto the vote of the full legislature and the Governor's signature, Nessel said.
“By empowering a single legislative committee to negate the State Budget Director’s work-project designations, the statute reserves the very administrative control that the separation of powers forbids,” wrote Nessel in her opinion.
The mechanism violated the separation of powers plus the bicameralism and presentment requirements of the Michigan constitution, Nessel continued in her opinion.
In December, the House Appropriations Committee used its power to disapprove of several work projects that totaled roughly $645 million in the 2026 fiscal year budget. Senate Appropriations Chair Sarah Anthony (D - Lansing) requested the Attorney General's Office review the committee's vote.
“The opinion issued today by the Attorney General is a lifeline for the countless non-profit organizations and local governments that have been left in limbo for weeks," said Anthony in a statement on Wednesday. "I’m talking about county land banks forced to halt affordable housing projects, community centers unable to answer questions from parents about whether their child’s Head Start program will be open this week, and school districts scrambling to make their balance sheet whole — all because House Republicans made a unilateral decision about who is and isn’t worthy of receiving contractually agreed upon state funding."
House Appropriations Chair Rep. Ann Bollin (R - Brighton) responded to the AG's opinion, calling it wrong on the facts of the situation.
“The House Appropriations Committee acted fully within its legal authority under a law that has been on the books for decades — a statute enacted in the 1980s that clearly allows the Legislature to disapprove work projects that do not meet the standards required by law," Bollin said in a statement. "Nothing about that authority is new, and nothing about our action was unconstitutional."
“This opinion comes from an Attorney General who has never voted on a budget, never analyzed a state budget, and now appears perfectly comfortable defending a system where hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars were shuffled through vague work projects with little oversight and no accountability," continued Bollin. "That is not how responsible government works, and it is not what Michigan taxpayers expect."
In her opinion, Nessel said the individual clause could be severed from the full law without invalidating the rest of the Management and Budget Act.
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