Republican gubernatorial candidate Mike Cox has filed a lawsuit against Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, who is also running to be Michigan’s next governor, alleging her office has failed to produce public records related to her past involvement with the Southern Poverty Law Center despite a Freedom of Information Act request filed nearly three months ago.
The lawsuit, filed in the Michigan Court of Claims, asks a judge to order Benson’s office to immediately release the requested records before voting begins in Michigan’s 2026 election.
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Cox, a former Michigan attorney general, said he submitted the FOIA request on April 27 seeking emails and other communications involving Benson, the Michigan Department of State, and the Southern Poverty Law Center, commonly known as the SPLC.
According to the lawsuit, the Department of State estimated the request would cost $10,309.94 to fulfill, including an upfront deposit of more than $5,000, and said it would take up to 10 weeks to complete the search.
Cox’s campaign says it paid the required deposit but has not received the records more than 11 weeks after the request was submitted.
“It’s clear that Jocelyn Benson has something to hide on the SPLC, or she would have proudly released these communications months ago,” Cox said in a statement announcing the lawsuit. “Secretary Benson is stalling. Why? Probably because it is very damaging to her election. So I’m taking her to court to find out.”
In the press release, Cox said voters should have access to the records before casting their ballots.
“There’s only two options: either Jocelyn Benson knew about the SPLC’s funding of hate groups like Nazis and the KKK, or she was completely asleep at the wheel of this organization she bragged about overseeing,” Cox said. “Neither answer is acceptable for someone running to be Governor of Michigan.”
The campaign’s announcement also points to a federal criminal case involving the Southern Poverty Law Center and notes that Benson previously served on the organization’s board.
Those allegations remain the subject of ongoing legal proceedings.
Benson campaign: Request is overly broad
Benson’s campaign dismissed the lawsuit as a politically motivated attack and defended both the handling of the records request and the secretary’s record.
“This is an embarrassing political stunt from a campaign that’s losing badly and still desperate for Donald Trump’s attention,” Benson spokesperson Alyssa Bradley said in a statement. “Jocelyn Benson has spent her career advancing the unfinished work of the civil rights movement and expanding economic opportunity, including helping dismantle white supremacist and neo-Nazi extremist networks.
In contrast to the entire GOP field, Jocelyn will keep talking with voters about what matters: lowering costs, raising wages, and keeping families safe.”
The campaign also disputed Cox’s characterization of the FOIA process, saying the request itself is unusually broad.
According to Benson’s campaign, the request includes search terms such as “misinformation,” “disinformation,” “election misinformation,” “election disinformation,” “voter intimidation” and “election protection,” among others.
Campaign officials said that those search terms inevitably generate “thousands upon thousands of search results” because of the department’s work on election administration and combating misinformation, making the request significantly more complex than Cox has portrayed.
The campaign also defended Benson’s longtime work in civil rights, pointing to her efforts investigating domestic extremist groups early in her career, her clerkship with the late U.S. District Judge Damon Keith in Detroit, and her tenure as dean of Wayne State University Law School.
Regarding the Southern Poverty Law Center, Benson’s campaign said the organization is one of several that have used paid informants to infiltrate extremist groups, noting that former prosecutors and former FBI officials have described the practice as a longstanding investigative technique also used by federal law enforcement.
In Michigan’s closely watched governor’s race, Cox is seeking the Republican nomination while Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson is competing for the Democratic nomination.