Recent revelations that a PAC controlled by Michigan’s Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson donated $82,500 to the campaign war chest of Michigan Supreme Court Justice Kyra Bolden and another donation of the same amount to Supreme Court candidate Kimberly Thomas are raising concerns of impropriety.

Both Thomas and Bolden are Democrats, as are the multiple candidates divvying up approximately $400,000 in additional campaign funds from Benson’s Michigan Legacy PAC.

The donations appear to confirm Sen. Ruth Johnson’s appraisal that Benson is Michigan’s most partisan Secretary of State in recent memory.

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Benson is “Michigan’s most partisan Secretary of State who has violated more laws and the Constitution than all the secretary of states in recent history,” Johnson told The Midwesterner. Johnson is also a former two-term Michigan SOS, having defeated Benson for the post in 2010.

Although Benson vowed to take an Oath of Nonpartisanship if elected, several of her actions have raised eyebrows, most significantly her large donations to the Supreme Court campaigns of Bolden and Thomas.

While certainly not illegal, Attorney David A. Kallman told The Midwesterner that it has the “appearance of impropriety,” which he notes is the more accurate legal terminology in cases where no laws are being broken and rise to the legal standard of conflict of interest.

Kallman noted that Benson has already had two cases settled in her favor by the Michigan Supreme Court this year, with Bolden writing the majority opinion in a case upholding Benson’s election polling guidance for this November’s election.

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“Under the Michigan Election Law, the secretary of state is the chief election officer of Michigan, and as such, the secretary has supervisory control over local election officials in the performance of their duties,” Bolden wrote.

The second case resulted in a 5-2 decision to keep Natural Law Party candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on this November’s ballot, despite the candidate dropping out of the race and subsequently endorsing Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump. The order issued by the Supreme Court was unsigned, but the majority decision reflected the partisan division of the bench.

Kallman said a party bringing a case against Benson before the Supreme Court could always file a motion for Bolden to recuse herself, but justices can deny such motions “with no reason.”

Kallman did not say whether Bolden should have recused herself in the two cases in which she decided in favor of Benson, but he related an anecdote concerning his father, Court of Claims Judge James T. Kallman, in the 1980s. The judge had signed a Right to Life petition, which Kallman said prompted the American Civil Liberties Union to appeal for the judge’s recusal in one particular case.

“My father agreed, because he believed in the integrity of the court,” Kallman said. “He had the case moved to a different judge.”