House GOP bill would require secretary of state to step aside from election duties if on the ballot

Filed 1h ago · Via Michigan Advance · The Buffoon Desk

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Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Alf van Beem · Public domain · via Wikimedia Commons

A Michigan House committee heard testimony on House Bill 5968, which would require the secretary of state to recuse from election duties in any year they appear on a statewide or federal ballot, handing oversight instead to the deputy secretary of state. Sponsor Rep. Jennifer Wortz repeatedly cited Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson's gubernatorial run as her motivating example.

Democrats noted the bill doesn't touch county or local clerks who actually administer elections day to day, including the Macomb County clerk who is himself running for secretary of state this cycle; Wortz didn't address that comparison when a Democratic colleague raised it directly. Benson has said the office's role is oversight through the decentralized Bureau of Elections, not personal control of ballots.

When pressed on what happens if a future secretary simply declines to appoint a deputy, or whether a deputy's own campaign donations to the secretary should trigger ethics scrutiny, Wortz acknowledged she hadn't worked out either answer but would look into it.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

A bill that names its target in the hallway but not in the text is still naming its target. If the worry is truly about officials overseeing their own elections, the fix doesn't stop at one office on one floor of one building. Michigan Republicans found a rule they liked for exactly one opponent and called it common sense; that's a fence built around a single dog, not a fence.

Source: Read the original at Michigan Advance → Scored: Hyperfun · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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