This Monday, Brazil’s Congress passed a resolution aimed at giving “more transparency” to an opaque form of budgetary grants dished out to federal lawmakers. The so-called rapporteur-designated grants consist of portions of the budget allocated to specific politicians, on request, for projects in their constituencies. As the identity of the grants’ recipients is not disclosed to the public, the mechanism works as an effective pork-barreling tool for the heads of Congress to whip up support for legislation they hope to approve.
Crucially, the new resolution does not foresee the disclosure of the names of lawmakers who received these grants until...
