The leadership amendments replicate the logic of the secret budget, a mechanism declared unconstitutional by the STF in 2022. These are committee amendments in which the beneficiaries are listed under the names of party leaders, rather than the representatives who actually selected the recipients of the funds. These amendments are not mandated by the Constitution, but have become mandatory through subordinate regulations and political agreements, even though the STF requires transparency and traceability of funds all the way to the final beneficiary.

This study analyzed the 16,600 beneficiary designations for the 2025 committee amendments, which totaled R$ 11.7 billion across the entire National Congress, and found that seven caucuses in the Chamber of Deputies allocated R$ 1.3 billion (16% of the Chamber’s total) on behalf of party leaders, without identifying the deputies responsible for the designations. In the Senate, all designations were linked to a named senator.