Michigan House Speaker Matt Hall (R-Richland Twp.) announces plans for the House Oversight Committee at a Jan. 23, 2025 press conference. | Kyle Davidson
Michigan House Speaker Matt Hall (R-Richland Twp.) continued to roll out committee leadership and policy priorities on Thursday, promising strong supervision of several state departments and government spending through the House Oversight Committee.
“We’re hiring a number of lawyers and investigators, people with prosecution experience, people with investigative experience, because we’re not messing around. We are going to get to the bottom of the misspending of government funds, and also departments that are blatantly breaking the law,” said Hall, Hall previously served as chair of the Oversight Committee from 2019 through 2020.
State Rep. Jay DeBoyer (R-Clay Twp.) will chair the committee, while six subcommittees focused on the issues Hall would like to see the committee address.
These subcommittees will be centered on weaponization of the government; the child welfare system; corporate subsidies and state investments; public health and food security; homeland security and foreign influence; and state and local public assistance programs, Hall said.
Of these subcommittees, three will focus on the Department of Health and Human Services, Hall said, telling reporters that most failing audits he’d seen from government departments as chair of the Oversight Committee were from the DHHS.
Alongside raising concerns about Democratic state leaders misusing their power, Hall called the state’s child welfare program “one of the biggest problems in state government,” with the subcommittee focusing on protecting vulnerable children and ensuring the system is working as intended.
Moving forward, Hall said lawmakers would work to ensure companies receiving economic development funding are using the funds appropriately through the corporate subsidies and state investments subcommittee.
As for public health and food security, Hall said the subcommittee would evaluate whether the state’s public health initiatives are making the state healthier, and examining whether the state’s free school lunches are nutritious and whether the state is cooperating with health initiatives brought forward by the U.S. Department of Health and Human services under President Donald Trump’s administration.
The Homeland Security and Foreign Influence subcommittee will focus on safeguarding the state from foreign threats and outside influence, with Hall raising concerns about the Chinese Communist Party.
He also said Michigan Democrats “greatly expanded the welfare state in Michigan” by expanding public assistance programs.
“We need to look into our government programs going to the people they’re intended to. Are they going to people? Are, you know, people that need them, that are working on an education, a job, or are they going to fraudsters? What are the checks they’re doing,” Hall said, outlining the responsibilities of the State and Public Assistance Programs subcommittee.
There will also be a website where state employees can report fraud, abuse, mismanagement of funds and any laws broken, Hall said.
Alongside working to hold hearings on a “backlog” of reports from the Auditor General’s office, Hall said the committees will also work on legislation from time to time.
“What we expect each of these subcommittees and the committee to do is investigate and come up with recommendations, findings, and present that and then work to solve those problems through, budget boilerplate [language], through new laws and things that can make these departments work better for the people,” Hall said.
Republicans have also given the Oversight Committee the power to issue a subpoena without requiring approval from the majority of the House.
“With our sweeping subpoena power and a robust oversight committee, we will get to the bottom of cases where departments are breaking laws, ignoring laws, or spending tax dollars in contrary to the law,” Hall said.
However DeBoyer emphasized that this subpoena power would not be used as a political weapon.
“First of all, my hope is that we never have to use it. My hope is that when we ask a department head for documents, or we ask an individual to come and testify, that they come and testify. The ultimate goal is to be able to get this oversight committee rolling and never have to execute that subpoena power,” DeBoyer said.
“When we do have to execute that subpoena power, if we do have to execute that subpoena power, it’s going to be done professionally. It’s going to be done respectfully. It certainly is not going to be used as a political weapon. It will be used when we have decided as a committee that there is enough there that it should be used,” DeBoyer said.
Throughout the press conference, Hall and DeBoyer alluded to abuses from Democratic state officials, including Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel and Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, who this week announced her 2026 gubernatorial bid.
When asked for examples of what this subcommittee would be looking for, Hall pointed to instances of the state revoking a barber’s license for continuing to operate his shop in violation of COVID-19 shutdown orders as well as Nessel’s lawsuit against 15 fake electors accused of attempting to submit a false slate of electoral votes certifying Michigan’s electoral votes in favor of President Donald Trump in the 2020 election despite his loss to former President Joe Biden.
He also pointed to the case against former 2022 Republican Attorney General candidate Matt DePerno, who was charged by Special Prosecutor D.J. Hilson for allegedly attempting to access and tamper with voting tabulators following the 2020 election. The Office of Attorney General sought a special prosecutor because Nessel was facing DePerno in the November general election for attorney general and wanted to avoid any conflict of interest.
“They’re trying to prosecute their political opponents, and they’re weaponizing government. … I’m just saying we’re seeing it all over state government, where innocent Michiganders or political opponents of the Democrats are being targeted by law enforcement and prosecutors or departments,” Hall said.
House Minority Leader Ranjeev Puri (D-Canton) told reporters later in the afternoon “there is absolutely room for discussions on transparency,” but Democrats were waiting to see how Republican’s oversight efforts would come together.
“If this is going to be weaponized just to have political discussions, and I don’t see the purpose of doing that,” Puri said.
“If we want to have meaningful discussions, like talking about the Flint water crisis or the misuse of, you know, nonprofits and campaign accounts, then yeah, that would be a good use of the committee,” Puri said.
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