Jocelyn Benson literally wrote the book about being a Secretary of State. In that book, she claims that one of the most important – most critical – roles for an election official is to maintain clean voter files, including the removal of voters who are dead, no longer living in the state, or otherwise ineligible.

This column originally appeared in the Detroit News.

Jocelyn Benson literally wrote the book on being a secretary of state. Just ask her.

She’s doing more than write about the position now, but new records emerging as part of a lawsuit in the city of Detroit challenge Benson’s seriousness as a constitutional officer. They also leave Benson facing a pair of startling questions: does she actually believe what she wrote, and if so, why isn’t she practicing what she preached?

This column originally appeared in the Detroit News.

“Nobody on the road, nobody on the beach. I feel it in the air, the summer's out of reach.” – Don Henley

August will soon be in our rearview mirror, and along with it the first summer on the job for Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Like Henley in his 1984 classic, Michiganians may have a little voice inside their heads screaming don’t look back.  

Whitmer reversed course on campaign pledges and wasted summer months on a dilettante roadshow promoting a tax hike that was dead on arrival when there was still snow on the ground.

Bad enough that Jocelyn Benson failed her own “transparency” test, making headlines for attaching expensive price tags to FOIA requests. Her department has consistently refused to answer FOIA requests in a timely or complete manner. (The department estimated one of our requests would be completed in 2-3 weeks… and that has now grown to 2-3 months. We’re still waiting!)

Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson apparently has something to hide, and she’s pulling out all of the stops to ensure you never figure out what it is.

You would think this would make for an open and shut campaign finance complaint for Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, but you would be wrong.

This past January, Ingham County Sheriff Scott Wrigglesworth knowingly used public resources to announce his re-election campaign. Wrigglesworth, a first term Democrat, admitted he “made the mistake of using a county owned platform [to announce his re-election], which I should not have done.''

If the admission of the accused wasn’t enough to persuade Secretary Benson to find a violation, you’d think fellow Democrat and Ingham County Clerk Barb Byrum admonishing the law breaking lawman for his “clear intent to use County resources to further [his] election to office” would do the trick. 

Again, you would be wrong.