State Rep. Jay DeBoyer issued the following statement in response to Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s remarks on Thursday afternoon regarding the Michigan House of Representative’s decision to hold her in civil contempt of the House for failing to comply with DeBoyer’s subpoena:

“No amount of mental gymnastics will help Jocelyn Benson excuse her flagrantly illegal behavior. Michigan law could not be any clearer about our statutory authority to issue subpoenas and find those that fail to comply in contempt of the Legislature.

“That Benson would characterize our efforts to bring transparency and accountability to her department as ‘political gamesmanship’ reveals just how low of a view she has of the public. Her implicit claim that any attempt to apply checks and balances to her could not possibly serve any legitimate purpose is disgusting. She has routinely made it abundantly clear that she does not value keeping the public informed and has no regard for the Legislature’s role in helping accomplish that.

“In the most alarming indication of the hostility she harbors for the people’s representatives, Benson even explicitly stated this afternoon that she considers Speaker Matt Hall, Representative Smit, and myself to be dangers to the public interest. She believes, or at least purports to believe, that to inform legislators on how she trains local clerks would endanger the integrity of our elections. Of the many preposterous claims Benson has made while in office, this is perhaps the most alarming and openly hostile to our constitutional system of government.

“Her entire response is a damning admission of how irrelevant she considers any mechanism of accountability for her office.”