Skubick

Republicans call it the House Oversight Committee.

The Democrats label it the House Witch Hunt Committee.

For you students of government you know the three branches are supposedly co-equal. The courts have power to review what the other two branches do and the governor and legislature have their own unique authority but the oversight duty in the legislative branch is held in the highest regard because it gets to check on what the executive branch is doing which left to its own devices, some governors would try to run the show as if no one else was watching.

Which brings us to the current oversight back and forth between the Gov. Whitmer administration and the House Speaker Matt Hall GOP oversight agenda.

When the Democrats ran the house, senate and governor’s office, suffice it to say the oversight process in the house was, one could say, on life support. Since the D’s were pretty much in lock step with most of what their governor was doing, why the heck bother with trying to figure out if she was doing it correctly.

Mr. Hall, on the other hand, was not bashful about sicing his oversight members to shoot for the moon. Everything was fair game from hauling in the state Human Services director to grill her on why so many persons died in nursing homes during Covid to issuing subpoenas to put the Democratic Secretary of State and State Attorney General in the hot seat and ordering them to bring along tons of internal documents along with them.

Perhaps in a weak moment, some Democrats might confess that the Mr. Hall was well within his rights to do this, but often times they felt the only element missing from the proceedings was a chair tied to a rope hanging over a pool of water. Ger plunk.

The most recent forray for Mr. Hall and company was aimed at Dr. Mona Hanna. Recall she was the Flint doctor who was the first to find lead-filled water in the bodies of little babies and kids.

In more recent times she was the founder of the RXKids state program designed to provide $1500 in state assistance during the early stages of pregnancy and then $500 a month after the child is born.

Even though Mr. Hall, when the Democrats were in controlled, voted for the program he subsequently came to conclude the whole thing was a “complete scam” complete with alleged state aid going for items that moms-to-be did not need to give birth to a healthy baby. Mr. Hall alleged, “alcohol, weed” and big screen TV’s were purchased on the taxpayers dime and he wanted to hold the doctor accountable on this and other charges such as money going to “illegal aliens” as he refers to them and for abortions.

Against that back drop, Oversight committee chair Jay DeBoyer asked her to come in and last week there she was complete with a well produced 46 minute or so slide show outlining all the program’s accomplishments including a “massive decrease in the infant mortality” while at the same time producing healthier babies at the time of birth.

“This is a program that is working. It is serving thousands of Michigan families all over the state. It is built with multiple safeguards. We have a tight stewardship of state dollars,” she concluded her debrief in anticipation of questions that would challenge her conclusions.

GOP Rep. Angela Rigas wanted an answer to the alleged mis use of tax dollars and if there was a monitoring system in place to catch it?

“This is a program built on trust. Trusting women.Trusting mothers” but later she does concede, “No. We do not monitor the funding. If we did monitoring, it’s an expensive program to administer…and it would send a different message that we don’t trust you.”

Republican Rep. Steve Carra from Three Rivers zeroed in on the abortion issue as did colleague GOP Rep. Josh Schriver of Oxford. Did she have data on that?

“There is nothing in the frame work (of the program) that does that but that is highly unlikely to have an abortion,” she explains while noting the state stopped collecting abortion data in 2024.

The R’s wanted her to reveal if some of the state dollars were going to “illegal’s?”

The answer was money from the philanthropic sources that come into the program could go there but “no taxpayer dollars, not any any level” go to support “undocumented immigrants.”

Democrats on the committee were quick to give high praise for the work that she was doing and one was “really uncomfortable” about the Republican comments about not trusting mothers in this program. “It was an embarrassment to be up here” with some of those mothers in the committee room opined Rep. Reggie Miller of Belleville.

As the two sides continued to agree to disagree, she pulled one out of her hat for all those conservative R’s sitting in front of her.

“President Trump, (as everyone on the right sits up) had a proposals of a $5000 bonus for a baby and we’re at $4500, actually less than the president’s to support Moms.”

The only thing that was missing was the, “So there!”