'Gross errors were made': That time a Michigan Secretary of State was removed from office
In 1894, Secretary of State John Jochim was among 3 state officials axed in vote-count scandal
When Michigan House Republicans filed articles of impeachment against Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, alleging “corrupt conduct in office,” it felt historic. It was politics as unusual, something beyond the normal claims and accusations we’ve come to expect from Lansing.
Rep. Jim DeSana, R-Carleton, who is leading the impeachment effort, calls Benson “the most lawless Secretary of State in Michigan history.”
If he were with us today, Gov. John T. Rich might argue that John Jochim deserves that distinction number.
About 130 years ago, Rich removed Jochim and two other state officials for “gross neglect” in miscounting the votes on a constitutional amendment, and giving themselves a raise in the process.
As Gov. John T. Rich wrote in his removal order, “gross errors were made” in a vote-count that was 13,000 votes off what the State Board of Canvassers had certified.
The story takes us back 130 years, to April 1893. The people of Michigan were asked to approve a constitutional amendment that raised pay for several state offices, including governor, secretary of state, and treasurer. (On the same ballot, voters approved an amendment creating county road commissions. Decisions made on that ballot affect Michigan to this day.)
As certified by the three-man State Board of Canvassers, the measure passed by 1,821 votes. That board consisted of Secretary of State John Jochim, Treasurer Joseph Hambitzer, and John Berry of the state land office.
However, as audited later, the measure failed by 11,455 votes. That’s a swing of 13,000 votes, in the direction of a pay raise for government officials that the people of Michigan had rejected.
As Chief Justice Frank Hooker wrote when the Michigan Supreme Court upheld the removal: “It was a matter of money – several thousand dollars a year” that separated the Jochim, Hambitzer and Berry from their jobs.
This was not a claim of a stolen election result. This was red-letter proof. The board had submitted provably false election results, and been caught doing it. When the fraudulent results were discovered, the board blamed their clerks, and said they had only approved the counts their underlings had made.
Here’s how Hooker, the chief justice, described their efforts:
“[N]either of them compared or examined the returns from any county, nor did they compare them with the tabulated statement aforesaid; that they relied upon what their clerks stated about such statement being correct, and, believing it to be so, signed it; and that was all that they had to do with it.”
But that was not the job of the board of canvassers, to trust and not verify.
Gov. Rich, a Republican, called the trio to Lansing on Feb. 15, 1894, for a show-cause hearing on why they should not be removed from office.
“Public charges have been made, and have come to my knowledge, that gross errors were made in the canvass of the returns of votes given in the various counties at the election held in this State on the first Monday in April, A. D. 1898,” Rich wrote in the Feb. 6 letter demanding the hearing.
“[I]t was made to appear that such amendment to the Constitution had been ratified and approved by a majority of the electors voting thereon, whereas, it is alleged that, by a true and correct canvass of the returns of such votes, the said amendment was defeated,” Rich added.
Benson has called the 2025 impeachment effort a “clown show.”
In 1894, the Gang That Couldn’t Count Straight took the same tack. They argued, through their lawyers, that the governor didn’t have the right to remove them from office – that impeachment is a legislative process, and the proper venue for a removal action.
Chief Justice Hooker found otherwise, citing Article 12, section 8 of the Constitution of 1850 that gave the governor the right to remove any state official, whether elected or appointed.
“One of the constitutional conditions upon which the respondent took his office was that he would be subject to removal by the Governor,” Hooker wrote in his ruling.
The same could be said today of Benson. The Secretary of State can call the impeachment effort a “clown show,” and that is her right. But the impeachment process is a feature of Michigan’s Constitution, not a bug. It was in the terms and conditions Benson signed when she took office.
In Lansing, a simple House majority is enough to impeach.
Once that happens, the Senate must immediately respond to the impeachment; it can’t ignore it. The Senate can choose to hear the case, or not, but it must answer.
If the Senate hears the impeachment, three House representatives will argue it. Removal is the maximum penalty, but any penalty chosen requires a two-thirds vote of the Senate.
Given that Democrats control the Michigan Senate 19-18, and Benson is a fellow Democrat, removal is all but impossible. It’s unlikely that the Senate will even choose to hear the case.
Even with Republicans holding a 58-52 House advantage, impeachment is far from a sure thing.
Rep. DeSana told me on the Enjoyer Podcast that he “hopes” impeachment will succeed in the House, but cannot be sure.
Of the two methods of removal from office, impeachment, the legislative method, is the long, hard way. The faster, smoother path is removal by the governor. That’s the path Rich chose, and it left the trio no defense and no recourse.
“It is said that this section confides great power to the Governor,” Hooker wrote in his ruling, of the removal powers in Article 12, section 8. “This is true; but the governorship is an exalted office — one which ought to carry with it a presumption of integrity of character and breadth of mind commensurate to its importance. It would be a sad commentary upon free government if it were otherwise.”
The Michigan Manual records March 20, 1894 as the date Jochim and the other canvassers were removed.
But Gov. Rich issued his removal order on Feb. 19, 1894. The order was upheld by the Michigan Supreme Court a month later, on March 20.
Since the order was valid on the day Rich issued it, Feb. 19, 1894 is arguably the date of removal that should be recorded by history.
In a criminal trial for the fraudulent results, Jochim survived with a hung jury. News reports found that the jury was dead even, with six favoring acquittal, and six favoring guilt. Jochim had hoped for an acquittal, and did not celebrate the hung jury.
“It just means more misery,” Jochim said.
The case was never re-tried. Jochim died in Ishpeming in 1905.