Lobbyists spent more than $485,000 providing free food and drink for Michigan’s lawmakers in 2025, a Bridge analysis found. (Josh Boland/Bridge Michigan)

This story was originally published by Bridge Michigan, a nonprofit and nonpartisan news organization. Visit the newsroom online: bridgemi.com.”

LANSING — 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 itemized 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.

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.

Rep. Dylan Wegela, a Garden City Democrat, said the spending “just shows what’s wrong with our politics today.” He estimated he’s taken less than $250 in total from lobbyist lunches in his three years he’s spent in the state House.

“This is just a fraction of the money that’s spent that you can see,” Wegela said in an interview. “Personally, I do think it buys some level of influence.”

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 total amount, which included unitemized spending, is likely considerably higher, but totals of that spending are no longer publicly available.

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.

“This story was originally published by Bridge Michigan, a nonprofit and nonpartisan news organization. Visit the newsroom online: bridgemi.com.”