Michigan’s Democratic candidate for governor and current secretary of state, Jocelyn Benson, served on the board of directors for the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) from 2014 to 2018 — part of the timeframe (2014 to 2023) that the U.S. Department of Justice alleges the organization funneled more than $3 million dollars to extremist groups, including white supremacists such as the Ku Klux Klan, Aryan Nations, and American Front.

Although the SPLC told its donors they were using their money to fight and eliminate extremist hate groups, the Justice Department says they were doing just the opposite: enabling these fringe groups to continue to exist by donating through secret accounts. (The SPLC claims they were paying “informants.” However, as National Review points out, “These aren’t low-level guys. They are in leadership roles, meaning the SPLC allegedly bankrolled high-ranking leaders in the hate groups it purports to oppose, keeping them financially afloat in the otherwise profitless profession of hating blacks, Jews, Catholics, and others.”) In addition, the indictment lists instances in which members of hate groups sought the SPLC’s help to escape, but instead the SPLC actually paid them to remain in the group.

Michigan Republican House members have been investigating Benson’s role in the SPLC. In addition to serving on the board from 2014 to 2018, she also worked as an undercover reporter for them in the late 1990s. Rep. Rachelle Smit explained, “The public should rightfully question whether she was directly involved or if her leadership was so flimsy that she was completely unaware of the potential heinous actions happening right under her nose.”

Benson has said that her role at the SPLC was “mostly ceremonial,” however, the Michigan House Oversight Committee chair, Rep. Jay DeBoyer (R) said, “According to the National Council of Nonprofits, as a board member, Jocelyn Benson had a fiduciary responsibility to ensure the Southern Poverty Law Center was operating ethically and legally. Considering the recent federal indictments, the committee finds a role in relationship with a nonprofit to be a matter of serious concern.”

In July, Smit issued Michigan House Resolution No. 313, which urged Benson “to release all information in her possession related to the Southern Poverty Law Center’s operations, including any details concerning the organization’s alleged payments to individuals associated with extremist groups, and to publicly address her role in the organization.”

In response, Benson’s agency shared emails with the committee, showing that she had ongoing communication with the SPLC into 2019 (which was the beginning of her term as secretary of State). Because she provided this information, the committee has put “on hold” the consideration of issuing Benson a subpoena. However, DeBoyer emphasized, “If our review determines that the documents disclosed were incomplete, or if more issues are raised by those documents, we will come back to the committee for further consideration of the subpoena.” He went on to say, “The emails we obtained just begs the question: what is Secretary Benson holding back if these are the conversations she felt comfortable being public?”

Family Research Council and The Washington Stand have been exposing the Southern Poverty Law Center’s extensive, hate-inciting work for many years. The SPLC’s relentless targeting of Christians and conservatives has affected countless lives through their “Intelligence Project” and “hate map” which the government, media, and banks have used to blacklist organizations.

But even more concerning are the dangers that the SPLC’s work poses to human life. For example, the indictment alleges that the SPLC paid around $270,000 to a source who helped plan the violent 2017 Charlottesville, Virginia “Unite the Right” rally. That person also attended the rally, made racist postings, and helped coordinate transportation to the event. The event resulted in the death of one woman and injured 35 others. In addition, they say that the SPLC continued to pay this “source” six years after the rally.

Of course, FRC also experienced the dangerous ramifications of the SPLC’s work firsthand when, in 2012, domestic terrorist Floyd Lee Corkins used the organization’s “hate map” to locate our Washington, D.C. headquarters. Corkins intended to murder as many staff members as possible; however, the heroic action of building manager Leo Johnson stopped him — even though Johnson was shot in the arm while wrestling the gun out of his hand.

The SPLC was originally founded as a civil rights legal organization in 1971, but tragically it has become its antithesis: an organization that incentivizes hate and divides Americans. Whether or not Jocelyn Benson was directly involved in paying the extremist groups that the SPLC indictment alleges, do Michigan voters really want to elect a governor who has any ties with the SPLC?