Lobbyists spent record amount on free meals for Michigan lawmakers in 2025

Lobbyists reported spending more than $485,000 on free food and drink for officials in 2025, a record
One lawmaker, GOP Rep. Joseph Aragona, reportedly received $12,500 in meals and a $4,500 trip to the Caribbean
Ongoing issues with the state’s lobbying transparency portal have kept the public from viewing the totals

Lobbyists spent a record amount of money providing free food and drink for Michigan’s lawmakers in 2025, according to disclosure data analyzed by Bridge Michigan.

Advocates for special interests in Lansing reported spending more than $485,000 wining and dining with legislators and members of the executive branch in 2025.

More than $180,000 was spent toward meals with individual legislators, a record amount and nearly $40,000 more than was spent in 2024, the next-highest year.

Rep. Joseph Aragona, a Clinton Township Republican, received the most reported free meals from lobbyists, with $12,508 spent on him for food and beverages throughout 2025. If a lobbyist had bought Aragona lunch all 365 days in 2025, that would average to more than $34 per meal.

Aragona didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from Bridge Michigan.

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Next behind Aragona in 2025 meals was Rep. Pauline Wendzel, R-Bainbridge Township, for whom a reported $9,783 was spent; then Spring Lake Republican Rep. Greg VanWoerkom reportedly received at least $8,504 in free meals.

Which lawmakers received free meals, and how much was spent on them, however, isn’t publicly available due to ongoing issues with the state’s year-old Michigan Transparency Network, which is the portal used to view the reports. The Michigan Department of State provided Bridge Michigan with more complete data that included lawmakers’ names.

The total is a significant increase over recent years, when the highest reported totals legislators took in free meals rarely topped $6,000. In prior years the recipients of free meals, such as former Reps. Brandt Iden and Jim Lilly, later became lobbyists after leaving office, advocating for industries they supported as lawmakers.

Spending on food for officials in group settings — where individual lawmakers don’t have to be named — topped $300,000, close to the record amount spent in 2023.

While lobbyists have to report the total amount they spend on gifted meals, for the most part who is benefitting from the free food and drink remains hidden.

That’s because lobbyists only have to name who they’ve been treating if they spend more than $79 on that official in a given month, or more than $500 over a six-month span. It means that the total lobbyists report spending on food and drink is often significantly higher than the spending they report with named recipients.

Multiclient lobbying firms — who each represent dozens of companies and industry groups — are the big spenders on perks for lawmakers in Michigan. Just four firms made up more than half of all the reported food and drink spending for individual lawmakers in Michigan.

Michigan’s lobbying law, however, doesn’t require multiclient lobbyists to report who they were lobbying on behalf of when taking lawmakers out to lunch, leaving the public in the dark about the motivations behind those meals.

Rep. Bill Schuette, a Midland Republican who received the fourth-most itemized spending in the state — $7,611 — said reporting meal spending isn’t often discussed when out to lunch.

“Sometimes when I go out to lunch or something, I’ll just offer to pay and they will say, ‘you saved me from doing a disclosure,’” he told Bridge.

Lobbyists also have to disclose if they spend more than $1,050 for an official’s travel and lodging. Disclosure records show the Michigan Beer and Wine Wholesalers Association — one of the state’s most prolific political donors — paid about $9,600 for three lawmakers to be convention speakers in February 2025.

Aragona, Democratic Rep. Will Snyder of Muskegon and Sen. Mark Huizenga, a Walker Republican, all reportedly spoke at the event.

The reported dates coincide with a confab the organization held at the five-star luxury hotel Ritz-Carlton on the Turks and Caicos Islands in the Caribbean. The event promised “four days of valuable business sessions, essential governance meetings, networking events and time to unwind in paradise.”

Rooms in the hotel start at $1,000 a night, and the $4,574 reportedly spent for Aragona’s travel and lodging was the largest reported single travel expense in more than a decade in Michigan’s lobbying system.

Lobbying portal issues

It’s difficult to make apples-to-apples comparisons of lobbyists’ spending as the year-old Michigan Transparency Network, or MiTN, continues to be plagued by serious issues.

About three-fourths of the publicly available data on itemized lobbying spending — where lobbyists have to name the beneficiary of their spending and its purpose — is blank when viewed by the public and has no name listed.

Department of State spokesperson Angela Benander told Bridge “the data is in the system but not displaying” and they expect a fix to be implemented by the contractors that built the system this weekend.

The beleaguered network had been rife with problems since it launched about a year ago, as officials and candidates struggled to file personal financial disclosures, campaign finance statements and lobbying reports.

Tyler Technologies, a Texas firm that was the sole qualified bidder for the $9 million contract, has struggled to follow through on project goals touted by Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson.

Lobbyists told Gongwer News Service ahead of the Jan. 31 filing deadline that they were still struggling to use the system, encountering unexpected errors and that the filing process had become more difficult over time, not easier.

Information available to the public also appears to have been reduced. Some details, such as the total lobbying firms spend over a given period, could previously be easily downloaded in the old system. That is no longer the case.