Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson sat before the Michigan House Oversight Committee for roughly an hour and a half Tuesday testifying on glitches in the portal for elected officials to file legally required financial disclosure statements.

Benson, a Democrat, acknowledged the problems while defending her department’s work.

“There are sometimes bumps in the road and things don’t go as smoothly as I would have liked,” she said. “Transformational change does not happen easily. It is the harder path. But just because things are hard and difficult at first doesn’t mean we run away or sit on our hands and do nothing.”

Benson said it was tougher than expected to merge multiple systems with antiquated technology.

“What we didn’t anticipate is just how challenging it would be to migrate these 24 million data points from a 25-year-old system that in many ways existed on a floppy disk into a new modernized system,” she said.

She said the next round of updates to the Michigan Transparency Network (MITN) should be ready to launch next month. She also said the contractor has made a partial refund to the state for the period when the portal was not fully functional.

Rep. Jay Deboyer (R-Clay Township), chair of the House Oversight Committee, suggested maybe the state should have stuck with the old system while the bugs were worked out.

“It does not work in a manner that’s acceptable to the users,” he said. “We can sit here as government officials all day and pat ourselves on the back in what it is that we’re doing, but the reality is when you talk to the users, madam secretary –” at this point Benson interrupted and said, “We have been talking to the users.”

“As have I and they are very unsatisfied,” replied DeBoyer.

The system is part of the state’s compliance with a political transparency amendment approved by voters in 2022. The amendment also made changes to term limits for legislators.

House Republicans and Benson have had a strained relationship. They are currently in court battling over a subpoena approved by the Oversight Committee for election materials that the secretary of state says could endanger election security if released without redactions.  

A Republican lawmaker in the Michigan House is introducing articles of impeachment against Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson.

The articles accuse Benson, a Democrat, of exceeding her authority, failing to secure elections, and not being transparent.

State Representative Jim DeSana (R-Carleton) said the effort is about holding Benson accountable.

“Her job is to run the Secretary of State’s office and to run elections. We make the law that determine[s] what is the authority over the election. She cannot make that law,” DeSana said during a press conference Tuesday morning.

DeSana laid out several complaints against Benson, including a decision to talk to reporters inside the lobby of a state office building while announcing her gubernatorial campaign. The Michigan Attorney General’s Office found that was likely a campaign finance law violation but said she didn’t have the authority to pursue the matter any further.

Benson had said it wasn’t an improper use of state resources since she said other candidates were welcome to use the lobby as well.

The impeachment resolution also makes multiple references to Benson’s handling of the 2020 presidential election. Dozens of audits since have confirmed President Donald Trump’s loss to former President Joe Biden.

In a written statement, Benson derided the impeachment threat.

“I believe in oversight and I believe in transparency. This isn’t it.

“This is Republican lawmakers abusing their authority to access sensitive election information that would allow them — or any conspiracy theorists they share it with – to tamper with election equipment, interfere with the chain of custody of ballots, or impersonate a clerk on Election Day.

“I continue to call on Speaker Hall and his caucus to work with us and a judicial mediator to help us reach a resolution to this matter.

“But let’s be clear: this clown show he is leading is no way to govern. It is not how we solve problems. It is not how we make government work for everyone. And every taxpayer dollar wasted on these shenanigans is a waste of time and money.

“I remain committed to the security of our elections and to the people of Michigan. I work for them. I suggest the House Republicans start doing the same,” a press release from Benson in her capacity as secretary of state said.

Last month, House Republicans voted to censure her for not fully complying with records requests from the House Oversight Committee.

Those efforts seem to be where House Republican leadership is focused instead of the impeachment resolution.

Gideon D’Assandro is spokesperson for House Speaker Matt Hall (R-Richland Twp).

“Speaker Hall is working with Oversight Committee to enforce the House’s subpoena against Benson and finalizing a budget plan that will hold her department accountable for its many failures,” D’Assandro said in a text message.

Meanwhile, Democratic leadership in the House minority are calling the entire Benson saga a distraction from meaningful issues like passing a new state budget.

“We’ve talked about, at length, about everything that’s at stake right now. What’s coming our way from the federal government and the budget that’s being done in D.C., and that should be our singular focus right now,” Minority Leader Ranjeev Puri (D-Canton) said.