Michigan Republican Party Chairman Pete Hoekstra has filed a Bar complaint against the state’s embattled Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson.
According to Hoekstra’s complaint, Benson has “engaged in behavior that creates an appearance of impropriety and brings the legal profession into disrepute.”
He further suggested that her engagement in election lawfare may have “impacted the rights of the Michigan Republican Party,” and requested an investigation into Benson’s “behavior as an attorney and member of the Michigan Bar” on account of a potential violation of ethics and conduct policies.
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Specifically, according to the GOP chair, Benson has engaged in activity that has weakened Michigan’s election laws by undercutting election transparency and verification provisions in State law.
As a result of her political machinations, Benson was taken to court by several different parties, with one case eventually reaching the Michigan Supreme Court.
Citing a court case initiated in 2022, Visser v. Benson, the complaint alleges that Benson then worked in combination with the left-wing judges on the Michigan Supreme Court, specifically leftist Whitmer appointee Kyra Harris Bolden, who has helped to enable Benson’s dubious work as Secretary of State.
“From 2022 through early 2024, Attorney Benson, in her capacity as Michigan’s Secretary of State, suffered a string of court losses from judges across the spectrum ruling that her attempts to weaken transparency and verification in the administration of elections was contrary to law,” Hoekstra wrote.
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“In the context of consistent rebukes from courts, and with a critical case impacting her power to unilaterally rewrite election rules being actively litigated before the Michigan Supreme Court, Benson made a historically large political campaign contribution to a sitting Michigan Supreme Court Justice. That large contribution appears to have been an attempt to influence the Justice’s pending decision. And after receiving that large contribution from Benson, the Justice in question wrote an opinion reversing the lower court rulings, thereby disregarding decades of precedent in order to allow Benson to continue her efforts to weaken Michigan Election Laws.”
Notably, just before a series of high court rulings in favor of Benson, Benson had given Bolden a whopping $82,500 campaign contribution from the PAC she controls.
“A reasonable person would certainly conclude that a litigant donating $82,500 to a judge’s campaign while appearing before that judge reflects adversely on the judge’s impartiality,” Hoekstra pointed out, suggesting in even stronger language that “Benson appears to have purchased her victory” with her hefty campaign donation.
The complaint further cites an opinion from former Federal Election Commission Chairman and Professor Brad Smith, who suggested that Benson and Bolden need to clear the air about their financial partnership and its timing.
“[T]here would be an ethical question for the judge and there’d probably be an ethical question for the secretary of state side as well,” Smith said.
Former Michigan Secretary of State Sen. Ruth Johnson has also filed a complaint with the State Bar of Michigan over similar concerns.