Committee vote · prevailed · 9–6–1

Recorded committee decision

that the House Oversight Committee authorize the Chair of the committee to execute a subpoena for the Michigan Department of State. 1. The information being sought is necessary to the work of the Committee because: a. Election Integrity is of the utmost importance to the functioning of our republican form of government in the state of Michigan, and the Department of State has been unacceptably difficult in ensuring transparency regarding how that department is training local clerks to administer our state’s elections. The House Oversight Committee exercises a vitally important role in providing legislative oversight over this function of the Executive branch of government in our state. The Michigan House of Representatives has the right to know how Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson is instructing local election officials to conduct the elections within this state. Secretary Benson’s refusal to provide the House Oversight Committee with basic training materials provided to local election officials indicates that the training provided does not comply with the Michigan Election Law. If the training did comply with the Michigan Election Law, Secretary Benson would not be withholding the documents from the House Oversight Committee. 2. Previous efforts made to obtain the information being sought, without the issuance of a subpoena, are as follows: a. For a period of four months, Representative Smit sought to obtain records from the Department of State, regarding training materials provided to local election officials. The department repeatedly refused to provide the records. b. On March 11, 2025, Representative Smit appeared before the Oversight Committee and requested that this Committee subpoena the documents that the Department of State refused to provide to the House Election Integrity Committee and to the Michigan House of Representatives. c. On March 12, 2025, the Oversight Committee Chair sent a letter to the Department of State requesting a list of documents that the Department of State had refused to provide to Representative Smit. This letter gave a deadline of March 22, 2025, for the department’s response. d. On March 19, 2025, the Department of State responded with a letter stating that the documents sought were limited to only those persons who “need to know” what they contain. e. On April 4, 2025, the Oversight Committee Chair sent another letter to the Department of State, again requesting the documents. That letter gave a deadline of April 14, 2025, for the department’s response. f. The Department of State failed to provide all requested documents by the deadline of April 14, 2025. 3. The party to be subpoenaed is the Michigan Department of State and/or its relevant officers, employees, or agents, including Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, and any records custodian of the Department of State. 4. A general description of the documents or other things to be produced are as follows: a. The documents and/or information requested by the Oversight Committee Chair in his letters dated March 12, 2025, and April 4, 2025, which have not yet been provided by the Department of State. 5. At this time, a subpoena only for the production of records is sought to be issued.

Meeting date

Not recorded

Result

prevailed

Yeas

9

Nays

6

Validation

consistent

Related meeting

meeting-76

A committee motion is a proceeding-level decision. A named choice supports that individual vote only and does not establish continuous attendance.