Hi! You're reading the It's Just Politics newsletter. Subscribe here to get it delivered to your inbox, and listen to the It's Just Politics podcast for all the political news you need each week.
Nearly two dozen Michigan Republicans are asking the Trump administration to take an active role in overseeing state elections next year, when a slate of open statewide offices means a lot of consequential, potentially toss-up races.
Twenty-two Republican state lawmakers made the request via a letter to the U.S. Department of Justice on Thursday.
The call for federal oversight escalates the ongoing tension between legislative Republicans and Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson over the conduct of past and future elections in Michigan.
Benson’s office says the request is unnecessary, dangerous and carries more than just a whiff of hypocrisy.
The letter addressed to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, an appointee of President Donald Trump, argues that Benson will be supervising elections, including a race where she is a candidate as she seeks the Democratic nomination for governor.
“This creates an inherent and unavoidable conflict of interest, as Secretary Benson will be administering an election in which she has a direct personal stake in the outcome,” says the letter. “Such a situation risks compromising the impartiality required for fair election oversight and demands external federal scrutiny to maintain public trust.”
The letter also attacks Benson’s management of elections and maintaining voter rolls.She and her office have been the target of subpoenas from the GOP-led state House Oversight Committee.
It is not unusual for Michigan secretaries of state to have a hand in elections where they appear on the ballot.
Benson, for example, supervised the election in 2022 when she won her second term. Her Republican predecessor, Ruth Johnson, was in charge of elections when she won her second term as secretary of state and her first term in the Michigan state Senate. Johnson (R-Groveland Township) is one of the signers of the letter to the DOJ.
Other signatories include state House Election Integrity Committee Chair Rachelle Smit (R-Martin), state Senator and Michigan Republican Party Chair Jim Runestad (R-White Lake) and state Senate Minority Leader Aric Nesbitt (R-Porter Township), who is seeking the GOP nomination for governor.
Benson’s communications director said Michigan elections are safeguarded by a system that relies heavily on 1,600 local clerks of both major political parties as well as observers - including federal monitors.
“Yet by pouring gasoline on our democracy and asking the DOJ to light a match, these lawmakers ignore these truths,” Benson Chief Communications Officer Angela Benander said in an email to Rick.
“They instead use dangerous, false rhetoric to encourage President Trump to illegally interfere in our state’s ability to hold fair and free elections,” she continued. “They are aligning with the administration’s ongoing efforts to manufacture crises in order to justify ongoing federal overreach that puts our citizens’ privacy, safety, and freedoms in danger.
A Department of Justice spokesperson replied “no comment” when Rick asked about the Michigan GOP lawmakers’ request.
The stakes next year in Michigan will be unusually high with open seats for governor, attorney general, secretary of state, and U.S. Senate all on the ballot, as well as elections for the entire U.S. House and all 148 seats in the Legislature.
____________________
Have questions about Michigan politics? Or, just want to let us know what you want more of (less of?) in the newsletter? We always want to hear from you! Shoot us an email at politics@michiganpublic.org!
____________________
____________________
What we’re talking about at the dinner table
Slotkin’s tea leaves: Seemingly every time Governor Gretchen Whitmer turns her head/sneezes/begins to talk about, well, any subject, speculation renews about whether she’ll run for president. Up next in the higher office prediction game? Michigan Democratic freshman Senator Elissa Slotkin. She made national headlines earlier in the year delivering her “economic war plan” and this week has Politico following her to Missouri as she talks with fellow-Midwest voters. “Amid it all, Slotkin seemed to be thinking a lot about 2028. The night before, at a town hall organized by the progressive veterans group Vote Vets, where nearly 500 people packed in a convention center room and Playbook saw a dozen or so folks turned away, she discussed points of what she called Project 2029 — not to be confused with her Slotkin War Plan™ — which included proposals such as declaring a housing national emergency and offering a competitive public insurance option,” Politico’s Adam Wren reports. Undoubtedly, Slotkin was asked if folks on her team are preparing for a presidential run. The answer, as Wren notes: “Not a no!”
Petition lies: The state Senate approved bills this week to make it illegal to pay political petition circulators by the signature. IJP pod listeners know that the bills are an attempt to reduce the incentive for paid circulators to cheat or lie about what the petition you’re signing would actually do. (Yes, right now, someone asking you to sign a petition can tell you it will do one thing when it could do the exact opposite. Our reminder: always read the petition language before you sign anything!) The bills were adopted Thursday on a mostly partly-line vote in the Democrat-controlled upper chamber. They now go to the state House, which is controlled by Republicans.
Pot for potholes: This week the state asked a Court of Claims judge to dismiss the marijuana industry’s lawsuit that's challenging Michigan’s new tax on cannabis. This is the first time we’ve had a look at the state’s case defending the legitimacy of the new marijuana tax. The state’s new legal filing asked the judge to determine the new 24% wholesale tax on marijuana is not at odds with the 2018 voter-approved initiative that legalized recreational pot in the state. It’s nuanced, but the state is arguing the wholesale tax does not actually amend the marijuana initiative and, so, did not require legislative supermajorities to be enacted. The next step is oral arguments on the merits of the lawsuit and the state’s motion for summary judgment. The judge set a November 25th hearing date and promised a quick decision to leave time for appeals before the tax takes effect on January 1st.
_________________________
Yours in political nerdiness,
Rick Pluta & Zoe Clark
Co-hosts, It’s Just Politics
________________________
