State Rep. Jay DeBoyer today issued the following statement after Attorney General Dana Nessel issued an opinion declaring a law unconstitutional that was recently used by the House Appropriations Committee to disapprove work project requests from the State Budget Office:

“This lawful move by the House Appropriations Committee was done to separate good projects from wasteful projects and protect taxpayer dollars. It was done for review purposes to see why many of these projects had not received a single dollar yet from the state despite being approved over a year ago. This was not a law that was written up in haste a few months ago and then used for political purposes. This is a law that has been on the books for over 40 years and provides critical checks and balances for people’s hard-earned dollars and our communities.

“It is incredibly disappointing that the Attorney General is choosing to double down on bad budgeting, years of waste, fraud and abuse, and trying to maintain the status quo of unchecked slush funds and blank checks for unvetted projects. This decision from the AG was based in partisan politics. It surely is not a move based around appropriating tax dollars, because that’s not her job. That is the job of the Legislature.

“House Republicans will continue fighting for a system where taxpayer-funded special projects have real oversight and accountability. That is what taxpayers deserve.”